Anticipation

Greetings Dave,

I have been on the Naim road for thirty three years and feel fortunate to have attained ownership and the continuing musical pleasure of 500 series equipment. The NAP500 will open your musical window for sure, exposing those less than brilliant recordings/masterings in the process. It is for me 'the subtlety amp' in the range as opposed to just being about power, and it was the delightful difference in the resolution and portrayal of female vocals (plus lots of other stuff) which made me lust after a 500, when I owned a 300.

Super Lumina cabling really works at this level, and the nice bonus is that it seems to have the remarkable ability to wring the best from less than stellar recordings. They are somehow less irksome and lo-fi sounding than than they were on standard Naim cabling.

Congratulations and good listening.

John.

Anticipation...

I have also been adding the 500 after the 552.

It was astonishing to me.

The textures, the timbre, the bass, the extra layers of the music, the realism, the empathy of the music, the sense of a feeling of a concert hall, the drama, the extraordinary soundstage.

It was a blind buy and definitely not my style and I must say its one of my best buys.

I was scared I wouldn't love the bigger amp as much as I loved the 300.

After a few seconds I said I would undoubtedly spend time with it every day.

What a fantastic amplification!

BP.

So I feel a slight tinge of regret that this particular path has reached its end. No more steps or aspirations on the ladder, certainly no Statement even in my wildest dreams.

Well, there are the Superlumina cables to consider. Replacing the HiLine with a Superlumina between the CDS3 and 552 will really show what these two components can do, and give you much more time (clicky) to enjoy your music

All,

thanks for the chat. The anticipation is now heightened as I just got the boxes home. Some reconstructive surgery now on the racks before I can report what the fat-cat amp can do.

Dave

ps Superlumina, Hum, Christmas is coming!

Congratulations - it will do wonderful things, but not usually until it is nicely warmed up. 

I received mine at the end of last year and it had been sat boxed up for about 6 months prior to me plugging it in.

At first I thought there was something wrong - the exiting 135s had sounded better. Things came more on song after a few days but it really was weeks before firing on all cylinders. Be patient, it is a stunning amp. 

As John mentioned above it is the subtlety and nuance that gets you not the power. The ability to really hear everything and enjoy music at lower than headbanging volumes was one of the biggest bonuses for me. The 135s had to be driven hard to give their best, not so with the 500. 

Enjoy your weekend

Sam

Hi Dave

My 552/500 journey also took the best part of 10 years and it has been so musically rewarding. I would like to wish you many many many hours and years of enjoyment

ATB Minh

running 2 of these beasts active into SL2s. Oh my!!

enjoy

ken

Congratulations Ken - I guess it was always just a matter time.

Must be a real joy in your room.

SL2s must be on my horizon - I don't know how much more my SBLs can take.

They are singing beautifully mind. Amazing how well they have responded to every upgrade up the chain.

ATB

Sam 

Thanks Sam. And you are right, i more or less "sleep-walked" into this upgrade. Triggered in fact by the 135's sunding so good i began to wonder what he 500's would be like. dangerous thinking!!!

sometimes this system sounds frighteningly good i begin to doubt whether i should bother with additional SL cabling -- i have only the SL interconnect between NDS and 552. hopefully i will not 'sleep walk' into these wires... 

If my experience of the SL2s is anything to go by, you'll love them!I and thisis from a previous SBL owner -- though of course the SBLs are absolutely wonderful in their own right.

enjoy

ken

Originally Posted by Minh Nguyen:

Hi Dave

My 552/500 journey also took the best part of 10 years and it has been so musically rewarding. I would like to wish you many many many hours and years of enjoyment

ATB Minh

running 2 of these beasts active into SL2s. Oh my!!

 

enjoy

ken

There's a surprise Ken, finally you have come out!  ENJOY Peter

Congratulations to Bodger too, fantastic amp the 500 

Originally Posted by ken c:

Originally Posted by Minh Nguyen:

Hi Dave

My 552/500 journey also took the best part of 10 years and it has been so musically rewarding. I would like to wish you many many many hours and years of enjoyment

ATB Minh

running 2 of these beasts active into SL2s. Oh my!!

 

enjoy

ken

Nice work taming two of these beasts. May they serve their exceptional master for many years to come

"exceptional" ????

Easy now Minh...

enjoy

ken

Well I began the works at 5:30 (Greek time) and finished just before 7pm. Powered up, all the lights came on, then some, the good ones went off. Getting the hand of these connections and will be happy to edit the next rev of the wiring manual now.

The system is stone cold. We had an electrical storm on Sunday so I powered down. I had to anyhow to ship off the NAP300. So the whole system is warming up as I type. I had to try a CD so what better to test the new toy than the Naim Sampler#2. Track 1 Antonio Forcione and Sabina Sciubba. Hope that is spelt correctly. First impression is simply based on the loudness dial. I had it much higher than normal listening levels which for me is promising. No harshness at higher levels and wonderful detail. I could almost see the guitar. Timbre, decay, breathy vocals all to the front.

A leap up from the 300 after almost 39 seconds of warming up! It will be a wonderful weekend.

Dave

You really have to be patient with the 500s. I had a pair of 300s before them and when I put the 500s into my active system (555/555PS/555Ps/552/late SL2s) they were rather disappointing. At one point I was even considering going back to the 300s. A month later, with improvements coming every day during that month, the 500s really began to sing, and have remained glorious ever since. I've now put Super Lumina into the system and it's a bit of a bumpy road again, but based on my experience with the 500s, I'm being very patient...

It will be for a while Mike, but then........  ( Cheshire cat) ATB Peter

By way of an update to my original post, I would like to share a few observations after living with full 500 series amplification this weekend. This will not include comments on the shimmer of the ride cymbal on track x compared to the old system. There are others on the forum with a more natural ability to use these terms than I can.

Firstly, I have not really considered my listening in the context of the previous system. How did this sound with the 300 compared to the 500? Once the music began, how things used to sound just floated away to irrelevance. This is how it sounds now and how much fun is this. Listening now to music and enjoying it in the context of this is what they recorded in the studio or this is as good a job of recording as they could do at the time. Hearing a performance through 500 amps is relaxing also knowing that there is really not much else out there that could do a better job of playback so all I heard before was just the appetiser to what I hear now.

The irony is not lost on me that the time it has taken to get to this point, and the time it takes for most to get in a position to acquire such goodies, ones ears are probably not as sharp as they were. I am hearing really what the amps are doing?

The other oddity that struck me right from the off was the relevance of the recent post on time slowing down. At first I thought the 500 sounded slow out of the box. This took a short adjustment period for me. There is no way that a 3:17 track on a 300 now takes 3:47 on the 500. No, it is simply that the music is "right" now. As someone who has played bass for hours along with a metronome, the timing is certainly correct – just a trick of the ears/brain to adapt.

Luckily, adapting is an easy and enjoyable experience. I look forward for more treats to come.

Dave

interesting. this reminds me of the time i listened to the NAC S1 at Grahams place. the natual comparison is of course with the old NAC552, but i recall at the time how irrelevant the comparison was -- to me anyhow.

enjoy

ken

Hi Dave.

I know exactly where you are coming from. There is an unforced ease and flow with the 500, where you almost go " Ahhhh, life is ok".

There is another thread going re system satisfaction and I have come to believe after 27 years of upgrades ( been great fun), that once the moment of ' having landed' arrives ( For me that was going passive 500 with full SL loom and new speakers), you realize that you have come to the end of the road in a very good way!  You enjoy Peter

Peter,

this move has certainly cured the problems we discussed after the 552 arrived and I put the supercap on the superline. Vinyl and CD both back in balance now. Perhaps the 300 is due a re-cap?

I plan to put some pictures on the system pics thread covering the installation. These phones today take pretty good snaps.

Dave

I think that I will have to block this thread 

You never 'come to the end of the road with Naim - they're planning to release Statement's big brother next week - 'Ultimate Statement'. So start saving & get ready to travel a bit further along that road... 

rackkit,

that is not an option. For me this is the place to insert a full stop, for the amps anyway. There might be some room for SL cabling however as all posts on these are positive. That option can wait as things are very enjoyable where I am today. I'm sure my speakers are now the weakest link in the chain. The last thing I want to do is provoke another forum speaker war asking advice on this.

Dave

I am posting some pics of my installation on the System pics thread.

Here is a quickie of the Bad Boy who arrived last Friday.

Dave