Old vs. New - Passive vs. Active

Posted by: Adrian F. on 05 December 2002

I thought, this would be a "no brainer"... but naim came up with a complete new line!

After many moons I am on CDS2/XPS, 52/S'Cap, 250, DBL's, all naim cabling. The "no brainer" was of course in the poweramp section!

As I wanted to go active with my former SBL's, a pair of s/h DBL's came along. So I went for the speakers first, and wanted to go active with (old) 250's later. It gave me the missed weight and scale the SBL's physically could not - without loosing all the goodies from their slimmer brother.
To my surprise, the single 250 handles the DBL's quite well - no overheating or stress. This may be because of a realtively small room and close neighbours. I go rarely over 9 o'clock on the volume dial.

What I'm looking for is more control, raw power is enough there. The 5xx series is tabu (I've heard the NAP) - I'm not printing the money in my cellar smile
I like the new series from what I read in theory (eg. Unity Gain feature for AV, new 007 transistors, bigger transformer, decoupled boards, ect.) But I will not be able to demo myself, because the few parts arrived here were sold a few days later. So I suppose, they can't be that bad cool

- When I go 300, I will stay passive.
- When I go with the new 250, the I keep the active-option in range for later. Probably try to fit in a 252 (depends on offer for 52).
Is it the same as with the "mighty ones": when 1x 500 is better than 6x 135, is 1x 300 also better than 3x 250 (new)??

Someone already compared the sound between:
52->252
old->new SuperCap
old->new 250
Is it a big step or only a little polish? Search results were quite lacking.

Thank's for your experience and as always
happy listening

Adrian

[This message was edited by Adrian Frauchiger on THURSDAY 05 December 2002 at 19:52.]
Posted on: 08 December 2002 by Martin Payne
quote:
Originally posted by Adrian Frauchiger:

- When I go 300, I will stay passive.
- When I go with the new 250, the I keep the active-option in range for later.

...is 1x 300 also better than 3x 250 (new)??




Adrian,

I asked exactly this question of Paul Darwin the other day.

He didn't know. Doesn't help much. Sorry.

He did seem to think he'd take 3xnew 250 over 6x135, though.

cheers, Martin
Posted on: 09 December 2002 by Adrian F.
I expected already no more... so thank's a lot Martin!

After searching around the forum, downloading the new manuals, discussing with my dealer, I took the decision to make myself a big christmas present -> I will swap the pre- and poweramp to the according new models.

happy listening

Adrian