NAC 552 Record buttons not working - fixed
Posted by: rjstaines on 02 May 2016
Having had my 552 back from Salisbury for DR upgrade a few weeks ago, I had not checked the Record buttons, but had noticed that on the Narcom4 pressing REC then MUTE had no effect. This Narcom wasn't the one that came with the 552 - I had sat on that and it stopped working - so I assumed the lack of Record Mute was a remote handset problem and left it at that...
...until today when I wanted to check the functionality of a Nak DR2 cassette deck I've just sold. I pressed the Rec Tuner button on the 552 and nothing happened. In fact none of the REC buttons responded and it stayed firmly on input 2.
I thought "Oh gosh the DR upgrade has jolly well messed up the REC functionality"*... and prepared myself for the awkward chat with my dealer along the lines of "why didn't you notice this earlier?"
But then it dawned upon me... this 552 thingy is nothing but a jolly expensive computer (well sort of), and being a computer expert, I remembered there are two things that will make most broken computers work again: firstly a thump on the case (or if a mainframe, a gentle but sharp placement of the footwear to the casework) and secondly, if that doesn't work, power cycling the thing.
I'm not advocating physical violence toward your 552, so skip the thumping, but power cycling did the trick... all the REC buttons now work and can be operated with the remote handset too. I was relieved to say the least, and able to verify my DR2 is working fine, and ready to ship. And I was also able to resume listening to the Titan 808's that I have on dem and comparing to my B&W802 Diamonds... of which the Diamonds are staying and the Titans are going back... but that's another post I guess.
So, for the archive and anyone searching "REC buttons not working" in future, I thought I'd offer this as a 'first try this' solution - power cycle it.
PS * - these are not the actual words I thought, but the meaning is the same.
rjstaines posted:... "And I was also able to resume listening to the Titan 808's that I have on dem and comparing to my B&W802 Diamonds... of which the Diamonds are staying and the Titans are going back... but that's another post I guess." ...
Hi rjstaines!
Can you please write a few sentences about you impressions from comparing your B&W802D2 against Kudos Titan 808 or are you planning to report your findings in a separate thread? It would be interesting to hear your impressions from such a home demo! 
Was your 802D2 “better” than the Titans or was the Titan 808 better but not worth the extra cash?
I have listen to B&W 802D2 and were not that impressed but this was with Classé electronics and not Naim! 
I also listened to 803D3 and 802D3 in the store with the same Classé electronics and finally tested B&W 803D3 at home in my own system. For me the D3 were a clear step up in performance but they are also more expensive than the D2s so maybe no surprise. The 802D3 was also clearly better than the 803D3 during the demo with Classé electronics.
I have heard Kudos Titan 808 one time with a Naim 500-system and was very very impressed. The best hifi-system I have ever heard, I would say. In this 500-system all was clearly better than my own system which sounded broken when I got back home. It is obviously very hard to say what was gained from the Kudos Titans and what was gained from the rest of the system compared to my own system. My impressions from the Kudos Titan 808 was very positive to say the least… 
Best regards!
Marcus