NAP 250.2 getting DR'ed later in the week

Strange ? I'm running a 250DR into D7s and both the bass and midrange are excellent, low level listening is also particularly good I would suggest a dealer visit to clarify your findings.

Dingding posted:

I know there's always one but I'm a good few months in with my 250DR and I'm just not getting on with it at all. The bass is lean and not overly tuneful And the midband is a complete mess , it a very 2D sound all over there somewhere. I still have my old 250.2 as a reference in a second system and its in another league all together. There's bags of control weight in the bass and very tuneful indeed. Sadly I think will see if I can source a non DR nap300 to replace it with very soon. Maybe I'm a little old school for the new Naim sound. 

Hi Dingding,

Based on your description, something would appear to be very wrong here.  Whenever I have heard the switch from 250-2 to 250DR in a system, I would describe the 250DR as having bags of control weight in the bass and very tuneful indeed. In other words, the opposite of what you are experiencing.

Time perhaps for a call to your friendly Naim dealer?

I hope the issue is resolved to your satisfaction.

Best regards, FT

Dingding posted:

I know there's always one but I'm a good few months in with my 250DR and I'm just not getting on with it at all. The bass is lean and not overly tuneful And the midband is a complete mess , it a very 2D sound all over there somewhere. I still have my old 250.2 as a reference in a second system and its in another league all together. There's bags of control weight in the bass and very tuneful indeed. Sadly I think will see if I can source a non DR nap300 to replace it with very soon. Maybe I'm a little old school for the new Naim sound. 

Entirely possible. My 250DR sounds better than before it was DRed in almost every respect. Scale, solidity, soundstage; all are just vastly improved. But it does have different voicing that has thrown the balance out with regards to low end punch. I can hear that the 250DR is going deeper but somehow it still lacks the punch my 250.2 had. Most noticeable on rock and some simple miked blues and funk.

I discussed this with my dealer. Considering I clearly think the 250DR is much clearer and feel it goes deeper but with less punch, the feeling is that the 250DR is showing up the the PMC Twenty.23s. Not as a bad speaker but maybe a bit on the small side for the size of room (8x6 meters but I chose the 23s for the size of the listeneing area in the room which is small rather than the size of the room itself). I've never agreed that the 250.2 had a low frequency "bump" but my dealer assures me it was more frequency limited in the low end than the DR and I had probably become used to it or that it balanced out right with the speakers and room.

It is not a devastating problem since overall I feel the DR sounds better and could never go back. But, Dingding is not alone in at least finding problems. I was thinking of swapping the 23s for Twenty5.23s but now that I have the 250DR in situ, I'm thinking about Twenty5.24s to bring some of the punch back I had with the 250.2. Everyone writes on the forum like the 250DR can be dropped in place of a 250.2 in every system but I 100% disagree. Even if it is much better (which I completely agree), If something is voiced differently then there is no guarantee that a carefully matched system will still be... well "carefully matched".

feeling_zen posted:

Dingding posted:

I know there's always one but I'm a good few months in with my 250DR and I'm just not getting on with it at all. The bass is lean and not overly tuneful And the midband is a complete mess , it a very 2D sound all over there somewhere. I still have my old 250.2 as a reference in a second system and its in another league all together. There's bags of control weight in the bass and very tuneful indeed. Sadly I think will see if I can source a non DR nap300 to replace it with very soon. Maybe I'm a little old school for the new Naim sound. 

Entirely possible. My 250DR sounds better than before it was DRed in almost every respect. Scale, solidity, soundstage; all are just vastly improved. But it does have different voicing that has thrown the balance out with regards to low end punch. I can hear that the 250DR is going deeper but somehow it still lacks the punch my 250.2 had. Most noticeable on rock and some simple miked blues and funk.

I discussed this with my dealer. Considering I clearly think the 250DR is much clearer and feel it goes deeper but with less punch, the feeling is that the 250DR is showing up the the PMC Twenty.23s. Not as a bad speaker but maybe a bit on the small side for the size of room (8x6 meters but I chose the 23s for the size of the listeneing area in the room which is small rather than the size of the room itself). I've never agreed that the 250.2 had a low frequency "bump" but my dealer assures me it was more frequency limited in the low end than the DR and I had probably become used to it or that it balanced out right with the speakers and room.

It is not a devastating problem since overall I feel the DR sounds better and could never go back. But, Dingding is not alone in at least finding problems. I was thinking of swapping the 23s for Twenty5.23s but now that I have the 250DR in situ, I'm thinking about Twenty5.24s to bring some of the punch back I had with the 250.2. Everyone writes on the forum like the 250DR can be dropped in place of a 250.2 in every system but I 100% disagree. Even if it is much better (which I completely agree), If something is voiced differently then there is no guarantee that a carefully matched system will still be... well "carefully matched".

Some interesting deals going on the Twenty.26 just now if you have the space.

G

Hi Feeling Zen, I am note the 250.2 is limited in the low end compared to the 250DR from what I have read.. but an interview with Naim did say the current regulation was tighter with the DR so that will have the effect of a tighter resonance with the speaker so bass will be tighter with faster  transients  , so my interpretation of that is that the bass content's  harmonics will be  less filtered under load etc.. So it may feel brighter,.. but it is probably simply being more truthful. But if I am right.. a bigger speaker assuming it's a wide bandwidth one will not necessarily be better.. if it's the higher energy presentation you don't like.. It might be more a case of positioning or simply different speaker HF design. More bass and the same high end on the same speaker design could then lead to a recessed mid.. and that is something I sometimes notice when listening to various PMCs in different rooms.

@GREAMEH  I floated the idea of Twenty5.26 to my dealer since budget allows but as much as they'd love to take my money they said any version of the 26 needs a fair amount of space behind and between them which I don't have (the thing about large open plan rooms is you still have a limited zone for the hifi) whereas the 24s, like the 23s can get away with being positioned closer to a rear wall than they were designed for without disastrous effect.

[@mention:1566878603876589] Yes I suspect this is true. My dealer also said what I am hearing is more truthful. It just happens that the less truthful version of the 205.2 may have matched better with a small floorstander with snall drivers in a big room.

That said, going to a larger speaker is not a foregone conclusion yet. I may need to get used to it.

I went from the Twenty.23 with SN2 to Ovator S400 with a 282/250.2 and now with the TT/250DR. The amp and speakers work nicely together - as you might expect.

It is a very revealing set-up with a real feeling of musicians actually playing in the room - A very visceral presentation.

G

I don't know how much space you've got but my PMC 20.26's are around 6 inches from the wall and sound great.