heavy bass presentation on 282

The 282 has a wider bandwidth presentation than its 202 cousin, and so I suspect you are hearing this... 

Short of changing speakers/amps and assuming the 282 is not faulty in some way (somewhat unlikely) the only other thing I can suggest is ensuring your 282 powersupply (HiCap or SuperCap) is a DR version. This makes for a slightly more open, clearer and tighter presentation... which may be what you are after?

Simon

When I first heard my 282 I was also overwhelmed by the amount of bass I was hearing. But...

Unless the bass is booming / resonating with your room, there is nothing to worry about.
Essentially you are starting to hear what the recordings can offer, but your previous systems were unable to reproduce.

Jerry - brilliant isn't it

Jerry - one thing to try, take the HC out and power the 282 from your 200. Might be a good compromise. 

hi simon, my Hicap is already DR version.

Hi Adam, my living room is very small so i can't further move the speaker forward, the bass is nearly booming on some tracks.

Since I'm using SL speaker cable, don't know if I go back to A5 speaker cable will less bass.

james n posted:

Jerry - one thing to try, take the HC out and power the 282 from your 200. Might be a good compromise. 

Hi James, as i know Hicap makes more control especially DR verison, let me know if you have same experience on 282 and did the same thing?

best_jerry posted:

Hi Adam, my living room is very small so i can't further move the speaker forward, the bass is nearly booming on some tracks.

Since I'm using SL speaker cable, don't know if I go back to A5 speaker cable will less bass.

If it's a 'booming' sound, then you may have acoustic problems in the room. Changing speaker cable will not really help I'm afraid. If you have an option - try it by all means. 

You already have stand-mounted speakers so they should be ok on bass handling (not too much).. Do you Athoms come with a mid-range adjustment?

Check the signal grounding, move away the napsc. Make sure there is no interference from snaics or powercords, no touching, no snaics on the floor, etc etc.

Anders

best_jerry posted:

james n posted:

Jerry - one thing to try, take the HC out and power the 282 from your 200. Might be a good compromise. 

Hi James, as i know Hicap makes more control especially DR verison, let me know if you have same experience on 282 and did the same thing?

I ran my 282 with a Supercap and 300 and wasn't troubled with bass issues. It was just a suggestion in your case as it's a simple thing to try. 

Aside from speaker positioning (perhaps also playing with distance apart/from corners and toe-in) within the limits your room permits, as well as the judicial placement of furniture that may act like a bass trap, the only other thing which will tame the bass a little (aside from reverting to the 202 which would be a backward step in other ways), would be to do exactly what you suggest: change back from SL to NACA5. I don't know your speakers, but it may be the 200 is having difficulty controlling the cones at the lower frequencies of which the 282 is capable and the NACA5 will help it here.

Anders in småland posted:

Check the signal grounding, move away the napsc. Make sure there is no interference from snaics or powercords, no touching, no snaics on the floor, etc etc.

Anders

Very good advice: the small things often overlooked....

I had never heard of these speakers, but have just read a very positive review in Hifi+. The review said that the bass is quite light and that the speakers are ideal in small rooms. 

The only concern I'd have is the rear facing port, which normally requires at least 30 to 45 cm distance from the rear wall. How far away are the speakers in this case? Possibly bungs in the relax ports would help, or even a change to sealed speakers, such as ATCs. It may be easier to stick with the 202...

stuff a couple rolled up pairs of socks in the reflex port

Seriously though, that may help and it sounds an awful lot like the 282 is now showing up other stuff as opposed to actually causing it. For a small room, it would not occur to me to try a rear ported speaker of any size.

feeling_zen posted:

stuff a couple rolled up pairs of socks in the reflex port

Seriously though, that may help and it sounds an awful lot like the 282 is now showing up other stuff as opposed to actually causing it. For a small room, it would not occur to me to try a rear ported speaker of any size.

Sad but true. It could be that the characteristics of that design helped compensate for the leanness of the 202 but are now showing the other side of their coin with the 282.

Hungryhalibut posted:

I had never heard of these speakers, but have just read a very positive review in Hifi+. The review said that the bass is quite light and that the speakers are ideal in small rooms. 

The only concern I'd have is the rear facing port, which normally requires at least 30 to 45 cm distance from the rear wall. How far away are the speakers in this case? Possibly bungs in the relax ports would help, or even a change to sealed speakers, such as ATCs. It may be easier to stick with the 202...

Reflex ports even - that bloomin' autocorrect. 

Michael_B. posted:

feeling_zen posted:

stuff a couple rolled up pairs of socks in the reflex port

Seriously though, that may help and it sounds an awful lot like the 282 is now showing up other stuff as opposed to actually causing it. For a small room, it would not occur to me to try a rear ported speaker of any size.

Sad but true. It could be that the characteristics of that design helped compensate for the leanness of the 202 but are now showing the other side of their coin with the 282.

This crossed my mind although in my experience the 202 is far from lean having quite a warm controlled sound - its just not as extended as the 282 and higher  - and of course if the room has a horrible resonance that is excited with the 282 to the extent of completely upsetting the sound says to me the room / speaker positioning needs fixing first. It probably was also apparent bit not as obvious with the 202.

Room / speaker coupling is one of the hardest parts of hifi to get right... and listening to some people's setup - clearly tastes vary hugely in this area.. over prominent bass or bass with overhang or one note bass resonances sounds absolutely appalling to me.. and most reflex ported designs of smallish speakers whether standmount or not  to me sound poor and inaccurate in the bass.

I got this same effect when I tried XP5 XS and one aftermarket PSU with my Naim DAC. The bass got totally overwhelming and out of balance. It might be as Simon wrote earlier that the PSU upgrade (282 in your case) only made the whole sound spectrum better available to the system. To me the sound is well balanced without the PSU so I decided not to get one. I was hoping that the PSU would bring more refinement, details and clarity to the sound, not an overwhelming bass. I haven't tried the higher end PSU's though. Will try XPS DR some day.

Other theory might be that there's even more of the legendary Naim mid bass hump with PSU or better preamp. Naim DAC certainly hits deep with the bass, even without the PSU so not sure what it was that happened with my system with added PSU. To me it just felt like there was much more (amount, not quality) of the bass with the PSU. I have big speakers so it didn't suit my system that well. 

I haven't heard a 200 against a 282 but I tried extensively a 282 against a 252 and I'm convinced that the 282 has a more prominent and warmer bass.  I've found that trait enjoyable.  More broadly, I've also found that on a number of occasions as I improved the components in my system the bass changed, usually increasing, necessitating some adjustment to the speakrs' position.  I even had this when I changed my rack.  So my advice would be to try re-positioning the speakers, especially moving them forward if they are close to a rear wall.

Mike 

best_jerry posted:

or suggest to back to 202?

That's what I did when I tried a NAC282.

Turned out I had a nicely balanced system all along, with CDS3, 202, 200 and (in my case) Neat speakers.

Chris

Very little experience of a 202 and zero with a 252.  

However, just seen this thread after a 3 hour session of fabulous listening to various genres of music (CD rips mainly) with the volume of the 282 between 9 and 9:45 - never a hint of being an unbalanced system (282-200, no HiCap) to my ears.  

FWIW, even a bass heavy track such as  John Campbell's 'down in the hole' was balanced - with well articulated bass, clear mids and unrestricted highs (this was an iTunes download).

When I moved from 202/200 to 282/200 I didn't notice any unbalanced bass, in fact 282/200 is a lovely amplifier.

If anything it is the 202 that has a heavy hand with the bass, and I guess that is why the 202 sounds best with a 200, and not as good with a 250.2 amplifier.

I still like 202/200 (as an amplifier) very much , but the 282 is a much better preamp, so I would not return it.

I did hear Atohm Gt1 speaker with a devialet system, and that speaker is capable of some very jaw dropping amount of bass (with the devialet SAM configuration), quite unbelievable for a speaker of that size, so I think maybe the issue is caused by that speaker.

Christopher_M posted:

best_jerry posted:

or suggest to back to 202?

That's what I did when I tried a NAC282.

Turned out I had a nicely balanced system all along, with CDS3, 202, 200 and (in my case) Neat speakers.

Chris

Forgot to say, my room is roughly 15m2. Hope that helps.

C.

The Atohms need a good stiff amplifier for tight bass - one reason they work so well with the Devialets. The 200 may not really be up to the job.

You had good synergy with the 202, your speakers and room. I'd go back to that otherwise you're going to having to spend more money (changing speakers etc) to get you back on track. 

How about upgrade to 300 (250 is not my taste)? Is this match with 282?