Naim 252 airport express connection
Posted by: djs1784 on 01 April 2013
I have 252 pre. It is connected to HDX and Naim 250-2 and SL2s. I also have the 252 interconnected to my beloved AV2. I decided to add airport express to the av2 ( I have numerous airplay zones around the house and garden) and it works great. I am clueless as to how to connect an airport express directly to to the 252. I am in USA and buy the Naim gear for the sound. The connectors baffle me. Big minus in my book. Any help appreciated.
You need a 3.5mm jack to RCA phono connector. The 3.5mm jack goes into the phono out on the AE and the RCA plugs into the aux RCA phono in on your 252.
djs1784, PinkHamster is correct, but you might want to do a critical listen before and after you make Apple AirportExpress connection - even on another input. I found the AE was quite electrically noisy - and the noise travelled through the return of ground lead. Best option is to use a TOSLink connector to a DAC if you notice your 252 doesn't quite the sound the same after connecting, but admittedly that means more 'stuff'
Simon
I have 252 pre. It is connected to HDX and Naim 250-2 and SL2s. I also have the 252 interconnected to my beloved AV2. I decided to add airport express to the av2 ( I have numerous airplay zones around the house and garden) and it works great. I am clueless as to how to connect an airport express directly to to the 252. I am in USA and buy the Naim gear for the sound. The connectors baffle me. Big minus in my book. Any help appreciated.
Is the Airport Express going to be of high enough quality as a source? I've not listened to it myself, but if I were going down that route I'd plan on needing to connect it to a high quality dac.
Unfortunately, the HDX does not have a 'digital in'
Thank you everybody. I will test and see if even non-acive connection AE degrades the 252. I am doing this just as a distraction. My music is still olfd fashioned CD rip on the HDX. But there is something cool about being able to see everybody's ( family- 12 and 17 year and wife) libraries and playlists on my phone or ipad and play them in any zone or computer or device. People around me, home or office, can hear the difference between their earbuds and great music playback such is my music room/home theatre but it does not trump the convinience and habit of the iTunes universe they live in. Not a big fan of itunes myself I hope the gear manufacurers who actually care for music pay attention.
Next question: my HDX is updated to 1.6d and still cannot see the music in my Mac based shares. (SMB is on, so are all permissions) Any ideas?
djs1784,
You say you already have the AE connected optically to your AV2, which is connected to the 252, presumably via AV-unity gain. That is the way I would do it, expecting the best possible result in your system. Moving the AE from the AV2 to the 252 should not be as good, for the reasons Simon gives, and because you bypass the DAC in the AV2 and use the DAC in the AE instead. Why do you want to do this?
Regards,
Nick
djs1784,
You say you already have the AE connected optically to your AV2, which is connected to the 252, presumably via AV-unity gain. That is the way I would do it, expecting the best possible result in your system. Moving the AE from the AV2 to the 252 should not be as good, for the reasons Simon gives, and because you bypass the DAC in the AV2 and use the DAC in the AE instead. Why do you want to do this?
Regards,
Nick
The AE mini-plug analog out is vastly inferior to its mini Toslink out at our house.