Nap 250-2 D R

9 o'clock is hardly loud 

Agree. Things don't get really rockin' til midnight .

9 o'clock? Very dependent on speaker sensitivity and room size so meaningless!

I'm always getting told to "turn it down" by my good lady as the 250DR and ATC SCM40's can really upset the neighbours if required. However, in all my years of playing music probably far to loud, the only time my room rattles is when the guns get going on Salisbury Plain as they did at 4:30 this morning 

Get a hearing test Analogue music as it may also explain your V1 comments. 

It's a long-shot, but do you have a Powerline on the 250DR?  I've had a similar problem with a 200 and 250 (non-DR on demo) in the past.  After many months of switching off, reassembling and getting great sound back for a short while, I've always ended up back in the same place.  Turns out, for me at least, that although the Powerline has some amazing, ear-catching benefits initially, it does tend to diminish bass and drive on these amps once everything settles. I'm back to the standard Naim power cable on my NAP 200 now and have been consistently happy for weeks now.  Of course, I don't know the 250DR (which is likely to have been "voiced" with a Powerline in mind), but it might be worth a try?

I don't need any hearing test. As I said many times already my 202/200 sounds great to me. 

I don't use power lines anymore

Analogmusic, not sure you are going to get any further enlightening advice on here re the bass on your 250DR. The bass on mine sounds great and so it should on yours (as it did when new). I strongly recommend you talk to the dealer and then take it back if necessary.

Good luck with it and would be interested to know how you get on.

nigelb posted:

Analogmusic, not sure you are going to get any further enlightening advice on here re the bass on your 250DR. The bass on mine sounds great and so it should on yours (as it did when new). I strongly recommend you talk to the dealer and then take it back if necessary.

Good luck with it and would be interested to know how you get on.

this sounds like good advice to me...

bass issues that i have experienced before have been mostly to do with mains -- but then it wouldnt be only bass affected -- the coherence of the music would be affected as well.

can you exchange system environments? -- i.e. install the 250DR system were the other (apparently OK) system is -- just moe the black boxes -- nothing else -- for example do not move mains blocks.  if the 250DR then sounds OK in this other environment, then that tells you something.

but nvolve your retailer soonest...

enjoy

ken

This is sounding to me as though the DR'd 250 is coming on song with run-in and developing an iron grip on the bass compared to a 200. The irksome paradox of a Hi-Fi 'upgrade', is that it can expose a weakness elsewhere. And this can be as simple as room acoustics. Sometimes; a subtle repositioning of the loudspeakers can help.

I shall be very pleased to get back my DR'd 500 and report accordingly. I'm picking up on a bit of a consensus of a leaner/cleaner sonic character from DR'd amps.

John.

musicnuttyboy posted:

Get a hearing test Analogue music as it may also explain your V1 comments. 

 Uninformed advice. Hearing loss affects the high frequencies first, so could not explain the perception of less bass.

Jan

J.N. posted:

This is sounding to me as though the DR'd 250 is coming on song with run-in and developing an iron grip on the bass compared to a 200. The irksome paradox of a Hi-Fi 'upgrade', is that it can expose a weakness elsewhere. And this can be as simple as room acoustics. Sometimes; a subtle repositioning of the loudspeakers can help.

I shall be very pleased to get back my DR'd 500 and report accordingly. I'm picking up on a bit of a consensus of a leaner/cleaner sonic character from DR'd amps.

 

John.

Good points John. Hopefully his retailer will be able to step in and get to the bottom of this.  with a second system around, it ought to be possible to methodically swap things around to nail down the issue. sometimes, it does turn out to be something quite simple...

enjoy

ken

Hi Analogmusic  we both seem to have the same problem cold seems to be getting better so i have had a listen ,still does"nt sound right so i"m going ring dealer or naim tomorrow thanks for your comments.

J.N. posted:

This is sounding to me as though the DR'd 250 is coming on song with run-in and developing an iron grip on the bass compared to a 200. The irksome paradox of a Hi-Fi 'upgrade', is that it can expose a weakness elsewhere. And this can be as simple as room acoustics. Sometimes; a subtle repositioning of the loudspeakers can help.

I shall be very pleased to get back my DR'd 500 and report accordingly. I'm picking up on a bit of a consensus of a leaner/cleaner sonic character from DR'd amps.

 

John.

I've just replaced a ten year old and much loved Quad 909 with a NAP 250 DR (both were fed in the last month from my new NAC N272) and I'm noticing a lot less very low bass. I think that "iron grip" can sound underwhelming in passing but in due course the clarity and tightness of properly controlled bass will sound much better.

I've just remembered that when I moved from a (standard) 250.2 to a 300, one of my first thoughts was "Hang on; where's the bass gone?". One can become accustomed to a beguilingly warm and fruity bass and miss it when it's gone.

Acclimatisation to my 300 of course educated me that the bass was simply much more effectively controlled and nuanced in perception of its timbre and texture.

John.

i'd be interesting to know if other 250.2R owners share this 'a lot less very low bass'?

enjoy

ken

I came from a NAP 200 to a Nap 250.2 DR and both the quantity and quality of the bass has improved significantly.  Having made the change I can see why people comment that the NAP 200 is somewhat lean in presentation.  I would say it is fun but unrefined.

I use Kudos C20's and had a small issue with them when I used the NAP 200 where at certain frequencies one of the cables inside the cabinet would vibrate and come into contact with the woodwork making a buzzing sound.  Under instruction from Kudos I resolved this problem, but when I changed power amps the issue came back in abundance, worse than originally.  This was no doubt caused by the increased bass energy present in the speaker.  It is surprising how much more comes through.  My 2nd attempt at moving the cable was more successful and I have now resolved the problem.

There is certainly plenty of bass now in my system and it goes down pretty low.  Any more would be too much.  Whilst I haven't heard the old 250.2 non DR there is an opinion that it can sound rather bloated.  If this is true I'm glad I didn't try the old model as it wouldn't have been to my liking.

Richard

J.N. posted:

I've just remembered that when I moved from a (standard) 250.2 to a 300, one of my first thoughts was "Hang on; where's the bass gone?". One can become accustomed to a beguilingly warm and fruity bass and miss it when it's gone.

Acclimatisation to my 300 of course educated me that the bass was simply much more effectively controlled and nuanced in perception of its timbre and texture.

John.

I remember thinking pretty much the same thing when I went from one NAP 250 on Isobariks to three driving the Briks active. The initial impression was so profound that I thought I'd connected something up wrong. That's just a recollection, I'm not suggesting that the OP is experiencing something similar given his initial impression from the 250DR.

trickydickie posted:

I came from a NAP 200 to a Nap 250.2 DR and both the quantity and quality of the bass has improved significantly.  Having made the change I can see why people comment that the NAP 200 is somewhat lean in presentation.  I would say it is fun but unrefined.

I use Kudos C20's and had a small issue with them when I used the NAP 200 where at certain frequencies one of the cables inside the cabinet would vibrate and come into contact with the woodwork making a buzzing sound.  Under instruction from Kudos I resolved this problem, but when I changed power amps the issue came back in abundance, worse than originally.  This was no doubt caused by the increased bass energy present in the speaker.  It is surprising how much more comes through.  My 2nd attempt at moving the cable was more successful and I have now resolved the problem.

There is certainly plenty of bass now in my system and it goes down pretty low.  Any more would be too much.  Whilst I haven't heard the old 250.2 non DR there is an opinion that it can sound rather bloated.  If this is true I'm glad I didn't try the old model as it wouldn't have been to my liking.

Richard

I'm using 250.2's active with my Naim IBL's and they certainly don't sound bass heavy or slow in any way. That may be because the IBL's are not a bassy speaker which makes the old 250.2 a great match. On the flip side I often hear it said that the IBL can't do bass at all. That's definitely not my experience either. Again, maybe a good synergy.

J.N. posted:

This is sounding to me as though the DR'd 250 is coming on song with run-in and developing an iron grip on the bass compared to a 200. The irksome paradox of a Hi-Fi 'upgrade', is that it can expose a weakness elsewhere. And this can be as simple as room acoustics. Sometimes; a subtle repositioning of the loudspeakers can help.

I shall be very pleased to get back my DR'd 500 and report accordingly. I'm picking up on a bit of a consensus of a leaner/cleaner sonic character from DR'd amps.

 

John.

+1 any gear under a year old , have an open situation with best placements.

A year to fully run in ? Darke bear did say his nap 500 took 9 months and sounded perfect at 12 months . Which is seriously long time 

Update : I solved the issue. I switched off the NAP 250DR, left it alone for 5 minutes, and switched it back on.

The bass is back. 

Very strange that this should happen but relieved for now....

analogmusic posted:

Update : I solved the issue. I switched off the NAP 250DR, left it alone for 5 minutes, and switched it back on.

The bass is back. 

Very strange that this should happen but relieved for now....

 

Strange indeed, let's see if this remedies the the lack of Bass, for others!

This sounds like the "500 bloat" issue and gives me a concern over the new DRs used in the NAPs. 

Posted by Chrissu:

"Maybe the easiest one to check is cabling: disconnect all mains leads, interconnects and speaker cables, re-insert them (several times to scrape off corrosion) and POWER UP.  After all that your system should sound great, probably because your neighbor just finished using the hairdryer."

Good thing your 250 DR is sounding great again!

It was the 500 bloat issue that gave me the idea to switch it off. I don't like switching off my Naim kit as it takes a while to come back on song.

It has never happened before though. Maybe a surge or power fluctuation caused it. I will keep monitoring this and update if this happens again.

I would not be concerned about the usage of the DR regulators or the 009 transistors, as the 250 DR sounds fantastic to me.

I would say the 250 DR takes a really long time to run in, and has been in performance fluctuation almost daily I never noticed this run in with my new NAP 200 5 years ago.

I've not heard of a problem to that extreme before but many on the forum (myself included) have found that the 250 (all generations) starts to sound a bit dull unless power cycled sometime between the 1-3 month uptime mark.