DR vs Drama..?

Please provide more details. What DR component are you referring to, and what are you comparing it with? What is the system?

FWIW I just recently installed a fresh NAP 250 DR. I would reserve comment as it is barely run-in. Though, initial impressions are it is not quite a significant improvement from the NAP 200 when matched with the NAC 282. I am trying to figure out how long the NAP 250 DR needs for burn-in.

Thank you for the censorship. God knows what chaos would ensue if us kids could speak or minds..

Pard...o, n

Dat better?

X 2

SN2 replaces SN

other room..

250DR replaces 250

Not sure this is better at all. More hifi definition but less musical thrill

That's pretty much my experience at the moment. I hope things will improve through time.

My impression is that the so called hi fi benefits come first and musicality takes longer to break in. How long have you had the the 250DR? I've had my upgraded 300 DR a week and it's clearly better and I look forward to the continuing improvement.

Keith

Mark J posted:

 

... The DR seems to clean everything up, lowers noise, makes things sound "nicer". Less racket in the mid band etc...

But somehow robs me of the drama and excitement I'm used to from Naim. It sounds lovely and civilised but bores me. More pretty sounding hifi equipment. ... 

Hi Mark,

What you have described above neatly captures my impression of when I replaced an olive Supercap with a Supercap DR on the 52 pre-amp.  Swapping back resulted in less hifi yet a tangible sense of musical relief.

Conversely, the Superline absolutely excelled when powered by the Supercap DR, yet was merely good with the olive Supercap.

Perhaps there is some mystical synergy thing going on, in which black goes with black, olive with olive.

Having said that, I have heard 3 demonstrations of 250-2 versus 250DR and the 250DR was unequivocally, obviously and wonderfully more musical than the 250-2 on all 3 occasions.

Best regards, FT

Clean, tight, punchy and realistic is how I would characterise the DR gains in my system. But this is why I dislike some mid range Naim amps, too much drama and not enough realism. Each to our own. However, if you've only recently unboxed it I wouldn't draw any firm conclusions just yet.

The dilemma for anyone reading this is that we can't hear the before and after.  So we can't really comment in a meaningful way.  You have a particular combination of gear in a particular room and your taste in music and sound is probably completely different to mine.  I have seen plenty of people in stores preferring sound that was clearly inferior to the other options. They just liked a particular version of events for whatever reason.

moving towards neutrality is my preference, probably because I learn the systems "character" over time and here it in everything I play. With only about 1,000 albums I probably do more repeat plays than some people with massive collections and this might also impact on my taste in gear. I probably don't want no character, but I prefer less to more,

Scap Dr can require a period of functioning. I had preferred my Olive Scap. After several months of listening of I preferred Scap Dr !

My early impressions of what DR brought to the party left me underwhelmed.  I first tried a 555PSDR on my nDAC and felt it too forced and digital. A little while later I tried a non-DR 555PS and much preferred it.  I later tried a  SCDR in place of my non-DR SC on my 282 and felt the improvement marginal (it was much more noticeable on a 252 but I didn't like what the 252 did to rock music).  However roll forward a couple of years and I've come to appreciate what the DR does.  My view of the 555PSDR has completely reversed.  I tend to think that there's a multiplier effect as more DR components are introduced into the system.      

Drama - definition please?

My experience is with my system is that SN2 has/adds some drama. With NAP200 it is more sophisticated. SN2 power amp works well with NAC 282 with some drama. Please, note that SN2 preamp has built in DR power supply.

Maybe SN2 is the one with DRama.

Tuomo posted:

............. SN2 preamp has built in DR power supply.

Yes but its a single rail - one 24v feed is split (inside the link plug) to feed each of the two stereo channels.   HC-DR is two rail & each separate rail feeds each stereo channel without any influence from the other.    

Yes some DR and some DRama in Supernait2.

Maybe it just takes an adjustment period. Suspect that if DR was a backward step musically there would be a zillion posts on here already saying so

Hope so as played a real fave last night, sort of album that never fails   to bring a lump to the throat and... nothing. Just pretty aural wallpaper.

I hope I'm wrong about this

How long have you had it Mark?

Couple of months. Pre owned so all run in I would imagine

Mark J posted:

Couple of months. Pre owned so all run in I would imagine

How many hours have you had the 250 DR powered up? Perhaps it may open up in 4 to 5 days time?

FWIW I think I am going through a bad transition at the moment. Music sounds disjointed and bass is soft and wooly. I am not sure if it is the HCDR or 250 DR though I suspect it is the latter. My equipment are new with less than 50 hours on them at the moment. If your NAP 250 DR is pre-owned, I would expect the amp to be on song in 4 to 5 days, max. 1 week. If it still sounds unremarkable after 1 week, I suspect you prefer the house sound of the NAP 250 more than the 250 DR.

Ryder, having walked the 'upgrade' path many times before, I suspect part of what you are hearing is speaker/room balance. The 200 is a leaner presentation, and as such might not have excited the speaker/room resonances/reflections the way the 250 does. The 250 in my experience offers more energy in the lower frequencies and this can excite speakers.. it absolutely has done with me in the past.. Therefore you might want to reposition your speakers to reduce the wooliness / resonances.. this might adjust the balance elsewhere so there will be a degree of getting used to it... but only after you removed most off the destructive reflections and resonances which can lead to a disjointed, woolly sound.

in my experience true amp 'burn in' / stabilisation achieves most of its change within a few hours, thereafter it's a subtle roller coaster ride slowly offering more refinement/clarity. Your description does not sound like subtle burn in.

For the record I have not found DR always positive. Specifically the NDAC to me sounds netter with the original 555PS rather than the 555PS(DR), the NDS however needs the 555PS(DR) to 'sing'. In  the NAC world I have yet to hear DR sound negative.. still open minded on power amps.

Ryder you do not use Naim sources, therefore your NAC 282  maybe is not not signal grounded.

Unless the NAC 282 is signal grounded, in my experience with my own 282/HCDR/250 DR, the 250DR is more accurate in telling you that that the 282 needs this signal ground to sound fully 100 % optimal.

Please look for previous posts on how to achieve this with non-naim sources, or speak to Naim Salisbury

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Ryder, having walked the 'upgrade' path many times before, I suspect part of what you are hearing is speaker/room balance. The 200 is a leaner presentation, and as such might not have excited the speaker/room resonances/reflections the way the 250 does. The 250 in my experience offers more energy in the lower frequencies and this can excite speakers.. it absolutely has done with me in the past.. Therefore you might want to reposition your speakers to reduce the wooliness / resonances.. this might adjust the balance elsewhere so there will be a degree of getting used to it... but only after you removed most off the destructive reflections and resonances which can lead to a disjointed, woolly sound.

in my experience true amp 'burn in' / stabilisation achieves most of its change within a few hours, thereafter it's a subtle roller coaster ride slowly offering more refinement/clarity. Your description does not sound like subtle burn in.

For the record I have not found DR always positive. Specifically the NDAC to me sounds netter with the original 555PS rather than the 555PS(DR), the NDS however needs the 555PS(DR) to 'sing'. In  the NAC world I have yet to hear DR sound negative.. still open minded on power amps.

Thanks Simon. Yes, the NAP 200 certainly has a leaner presentation than the NAP 250 DR at the moment. The bass of the NAP 250 DR doesn't sound good to me at the moment. I will certainly follow your suggestion and reposition the speakers. Will do that in a week's time. I still suspect the 250 DR needs some time to burn in. If it still doesn't sound good in a week's time, I will then reposition the speakers.

Yes, there is more bass resonance with the 250 DR and the bass is woolly and not as clean and tight as the NAP 200 at the moment.

analogmusic posted:

Ryder you do not use Naim sources, therefore your NAC 282  maybe is not not signal grounded.

Unless the NAC 282 is signal grounded, in my experience with my own 282/HCDR/250 DR, the 250DR is more accurate in telling you that that the 282 needs this signal ground to sound fully 100 % optimal.

Please look for previous posts on how to achieve this with non-naim sources, or speak to Naim Salisbury

Thanks for the post Analogmusic. Will look into this signal grounding issue to see if it is affecting the system. Though when I was on the NAC 282 / HCDR / NAP 200, the music sounded great. It is just this NAP 250 DR that skewed the balance. 

I had similar experience.

282/HCDR/200 sounded very good, but 250 DR was way more accurate and told me something was wrong, but I didn't know why or what was wrong. Later on after quite a few months, Simon-in-Suffolk mentioned this to me and I knew what was wrong !

later on when I read this and implemented it, issues solved. There are other way to do achieve signal grounding, but this is the way I tried it and it worked. By the way it is not necessary to hear a buzz, but if your Naim preamp is not grounded, there is some loss of performance to my ears, which I think is what you are also hearing.

 "Naim amplification has the mains safety ground and the signal ground separated. Naim grounds at source."

To ensure that there is no possibility of mains hum or buzz when the Hugo is connected to a mains charger, it is simply necessary to ground the Hugo as it will be a source component, and Naim expects it to be grounded.

The easiest way is to connect a wire from the earth pin of a standard 13A plugtop to the Naim Supernait terminal marked 'SIGNAL GROUND' on the back panel. This terminal is internally connected to the braid of the signal connections connecting Hugo to the Naim amplifier.

There are no high currents or voltages involved and a simple piece of thin flexible insulated wire will suffice.

The 13A plugtop with the single earth wire added is plugged into the wall adjacent to the Naim amplifier mains plug and completes the ground path and eliminates the hum.

(This is often not required as introducing a correctly wired Naim source into the system will deal with the signal and electrical ground connection and so no hum would ever be experienced.)

Please contact Chord Electronics if further assistance is required.

In simple terms, DR'ing the amps opens the window. Thereby placing more pressure on everything else in the rest of the replay chain (and room acoustics) being optimal.

I could hear manifold benefits from my DR'd 500 within the first 30 seconds - and from friend's DR'd 300's. The run-in ride can be bumpy, but I've found it to be generally wonderful, apart from the rare off-day.

DR'd amps also seem (logically) to work best with Super Lumina.

John.

Thanks for all responses. I'm currently on the 282 / HCDR / 200. Just sublime music. I just don't know how the 250 DR is going to surpass this level of quality but I hope it would. I don't know what is wrong but I will get to the bottom of it. The problem is it will take some time.

I was expecting the 250 DR to sound appreciably if not significantly better than the 200 but it appears that the tables have turned in my system.