300 hearing impressions

Posted by: M. Brandstetter on 04 December 2002

Dear all,
on saturday 23th nov, sg-akustik invited
to a new gear listening event.

First, thanks to stefan and ruediger
for the nice day and the work they have
done.

SG-Akustik in Karsruhe has bettered the room,
significantly. The new listening room is
a bit smaller and was used before as stockholding
kabinet. Now it is loaded with new fraim and
a few naim pieces around ;-).

At present they have warmed up, 552,282,202,new scap,new hicap,cdx2,xps2,stageline,200,250,300,500.

In the morning they presented the "little"-new gear. Here i had no chance to hear, cause from
frankfurt to karlsruhe a few minutes are to drive.

This day i joined in, when stefan presented
cdx2/552/300/allae, and a notingham tt with new
stageline.

Amazing!!!

The new room alone is a big improvement! Compliments for the courage to change from
the main listening room.

The music floating out of this amazing speakers
was wonderfull. I had never heard an allae that
good. From Ulrich i know the benefits a 552 brings
to the equation, but i was not prepared to hear
such a good CD-Player. The new cdx2 is a quantum leap in reproduction. Stefan demoed it without
the xps2, cause this was deliverd the day and
cold like stone. The cdx2 was playing around a week, like the rest.

The tt was ok, but i still have problems with the
stageline, and miss inbuild phonoboards in the
new line :-(((. (Dear Naim, not all people can mount prefixes in the TT...)

Nevertheless the CDX2 was up for the job. There
was no wish open.

Thanks Stefan, Ruediger and the rest of the team
for making this day happen.

****

The next monday i popped again into the holy halls. (Thanks for the invitation from ulrich to stay a few days.)
Here i compared new 250 against 300, and it's
a big difference!!!

The new 250 seems to play on 135 level.
( So far i heard sbl's, nbl's with 135. but i think here there is typical "sound" in presentation.) The 300 is more like 500.
I would like to compare aktiv against 300, whether
the 300 betters aktiv like the 500...

gosh, the new stuff is good!!


have fun listening

Regards
-mb
Posted on: 04 December 2002 by Lightkeeper
I have found it somewhere
Posted on: 05 December 2002 by M. Brandstetter
not to be a cascaded circuit layout like the 500?

For me it looks like the "normal" circuit
design, with one trani per half wave?

what does the others think about it?

Bye the way, somewhere i read that the
500 consumes 60VA for nothing, has
anybody else figured this out?
If so, isn't the 500 more working in the "A" mode then A/B? I know i raised this issue in another
thread and was blamed for it....

If so,is this the reason for the higher internal
bandwith of the 300 (quoted on the naim product
page)? Cause the original Vereker design is better
then cascading transistors?

Conclusion could be that a 300 with non demanding
speaker loads eats a 500 for breakfast? comments?

anybody out who compared 500/300?

Regards
-mb
Posted on: 27 February 2003 by Wolf
yeah I'd like to hear more info on 300 and how it compares to 250 and 500. can't afford the last
Posted on: 28 February 2003 by Frank Abela
Hey mb

The 500 murders the 300 unfortunately, even with relatively easy loads, like Naim speakers for example. I say 'unfortunately' because the 500 is a little bit expensive...

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.
Posted on: 03 March 2003 by David O'Higgins
Frank, how does the 300 compare to a pair of 135's?
Posted on: 03 March 2003 by Wolf
At being twice the price of a pair of 300's the 500 is out of my range entirely unless some great unknown uncle passes and leaves me his fortune. Is Dickens still viable?

I'm interested in the comparison of the new 250 and 300s to the old 135s. Not that I can afford $9 grand either for an amp. I'll be stuck in the middle of the road for a long time.

glenn
Posted on: 03 March 2003 by bob atherton
It is only a hunch, but from what I heard at the recent Bristol show I would guess that SBL’s driven by active 250’s might well outperform a 300. I’m sure a single 500 would eat the 250’s for breakfast…

Bob