12yr old NAP500 back to the Mothership for service and DR upgrade. Hello 300s. Hellllooo 500DR!

Dam....500 went back to Naim Friday and here I am Sunday climbing the walls with no music to listen to. How did you guys get by? 

My Naim is  Dusty...and I'm addicted to music...not silence!!!!

My dealer lent me a 250DR. 

It was a struggle.

..I love my music too and I am really not sure if I could go through with 500 DR upgrade if no amp in the house. My personal  route was buy an old 500 and immediately upgrade without even listening to it. This was/is upgrade from 250DR - so obviously holding on to 2 x 250DR while 500 away

Harry posted:

My dealer lent me a 250DR. 

It was a struggle.

you never the like the 250, even in DR form !

I've never liked it despite trying to like it and buy it on two occasions. The up side is that  I got to keep a considerable sum of money in my possession twice. I had hopes for the DR but nothing fundamental has changed. It's a Marmite amp and I remain in a disliking minority. 

The closest I can get to describing how it seems to present material is to use a photographic analogy. Take  a full length portrait shot, crop the top of the head and the soles of the shoes so close that they are not quite visible. Nearly but not quite. Over saturate the colour and render it ever so slightly out of focus. Not so much that it appears blurred but doesn't quite snap in.

Would I have preferred silence? Of course not.

Were we grateful for the loan? Of course we were.

Nothing comes up to 500 levels of magic. I wouldn't try to compare a 250 with a 500. But unlike the 500 I don't think it is peerless and I do think it can be bettered for less. I love Naim but I'm not *that* desperate.

that is true, 500 series is something else altogether....

what source do you use Harry...?

Dustysox posted:

Dam....500 went back to Naim Friday and here I am Sunday climbing the walls with no music to listen to. How did you guys get by? 

My Naim is  Dusty...and I'm addicted to music...not silence!!!!

After amalgamating my two systems I had 2 x NAP500! so I sent my 2006 unit for DR upgrade and used my 2010 500 until returned. The day it returned I listened to my system for around 30mins and then a quick swop over and fired up the DR'd 500 and wow instant improvement!! lovely base, clearer sound that just get better. Now just got to sell spare 500!!

Richard, Your 2010 500 is a great DR upgrade opp for someone....

analogmusic posted:

that is true, 500 series is something else altogether....

what source do you use Harry...?

NDS/555PS-DR/555PS-DR. The 250 (and 282) auditions were back in our CDX2 and CDX2/XPS2 owning days. We never dreamed we would get to something like CDS3/252/300 level and if you had told us what innovations lay in store with streaming and HiRes we would have laughed.

It's been a good ten years or so for music lovers everywhere.

I knew I would DR the 500 when I bought it so just pulled the 250 out the loft, compared to a unserviced 2000 vintage 500 it wasn't such a hardship.

Yeti 42, 

can you elaborate a bit?

Hi I did the same I compared the 250dr to 2000 unmodified 500 ..... absolutely no comparison the 500 was way way better in all areas ... it is not a subtle difference. One thing that I did not expect - with the 500 when you turn up the volume - the stereo image does not collapse - it is quite staggering. The 250dr is still a very good amp - unless you compare it with the 500 directly. My 500dr is getting better and better - fantastic clarity and timbre combined with powerful base drive - giving a superb stereo image with superb timing. A secondhand 500 is sensible proposition.

It’s not fair to compare them directly but it serves to illustrate that as you go through 200, 250, 300 and 500 you don’t get “more of the same”. The presentation of the 300 couldn’t be more different (or to my ears better) than the 250.  And the 500 is different again in all sorts of ways.  There is no Naim house sound and paying more doesn’t get you more of it. It’s about the difference between listening to HiFi and listening to music. Where I think the 500 and 300 differ from the 250 and 200 is that at their price points they are peerless or nearly so. To my ears the 250 and 200 can be beaten and for less money. But not the 155 which to my ears is another Naim bulls eye at its price point

Insert subjectivity disclaimer here.

Harry posted:

It’s not fair to compare them directly but it serves to illustrate that as you go through 200, 250, 300 and 500 you don’t get “more of the same”. The presentation of the 300 couldn’t be more different (or to my ears better) than the 250.  And the 500 is different again in all sorts of ways.  There is no Naim house sound and paying more doesn’t get you more of it. It’s about the difference between listening to HiFi and listening to music. Where I think the 500 and 300 differ from the 250 and 200 is that at their price points they are peerless or nearly so. To my ears the 250 and 200 can be beaten and for less money. But not the 155 which to my ears is another Naim bulls eye at its price point

Insert subjectivity disclaimer here.

Subjectivity indeed.   However, somewhat strange that you assert that there are viable alternatives to the cheaper amps for less - which of course there are - but the £20k amp has no completion? 

Regarding price point I have no doubt there are comparable amps as naim gear is not cheap ..... there is some great gear out there such as Vitus.... to my ears there is diffinately a naim sound ... a kind of explicit rhythmically charge presentation .... even present in the nait 5i .... what you get as the price increases is more control separation and detail.....in corresponding amounts.

Actually the 500 was OK but past its best. What wasn't OK was my stack order. I had turntable, CDX2(not ac powered), 552, superline and 500 on the left and initially NAD 4020A, 555ps,552ps,supercap and 500ps on the right. The 552 replaced a 282 and the 500ps replaced a 250-2 that preceded them. This put the 500's burndies on the floor with speaker and a power lead. This is how I first heard the 500 (I'd had the 552 a year by then) and it was revealing detail previously unknown and lyrics I'd never understood were obvious but it wasn't boogying as well as the 250. After a couple of weeks of this I moved the 500ps up the stack and the 552ps down to the bottom, this lifted the Burndies clear, by an inch, and there was an improvement but not full satisfaction.  It stayed like this for 6 weeks until I got the go for DRing whereat I put the 250-2 where the 500 head unit had been to save relaying the speaker cables again. The boogie was back, at which point I realised it had gone missing. When the 500 came back I put it back where it came from, with a similar result, the lack of boogie wasn't due to a lack of servicing.  Various experiments ensued resulting in the 552 going above the CDX2 and the right stack going tuner, 500ps, supercap, 552ps and 555ps. The one that returned the boogie factor in full was rasing the 552. When I'd tried that order with the 282/CDX2 I'd prefered it the other way round, a preference  I've since verified when I set them up in our second home in France.

The 552 really didn't like a big ps higher in the adjacent stack than it was, with perhaps, the iron cored transformer in the CDX2, though unenergised, also factor when above the 552 but not when below. Or something else entirely.

Proximity of Transformers to Pre, Source and (for me) Snaxo makes an unpleasant difference when you get it wrong - and you only find this out when you find there is a 'wrong'! 

Unless discovered for oneself, usually people scoff at this being possible and roll-out all sorts of ideas to prove that you are deluding yourself and no need to consider this - ho hum!

But I've found that a learning experience of trial and error re-stacking of one's system components can yield-up very significant results which are at least as significant as an esoteric cable upgrade. Since this effort is just that - an effort - and does not cost any money, it is well worth getting it right.

DB.

Harry posted:

 There is no Naim house sound and paying more doesn’t get you more of it.

interesting.... in that case the whole Naim business model of upgrading from Nait to 552/500 is based on...?

analogmusic posted:

Harry posted:

 There is no Naim house sound and paying more doesn’t get you more of it.

interesting.... in that case the whole Naim business model of upgrading from Nait to 552/500 is based on...?

Money......kidding!!!

yeti42 posted:

Actually the 500 was OK but past its best. What wasn't OK was my stack order. I had turntable, CDX2(not ac powered), 552, superline and 500 on the left and initially NAD 4020A, 555ps,552ps,supercap and 500ps on the right. The 552 replaced a 282 and the 500ps replaced a 250-2 that preceded them. This put the 500's burndies on the floor with speaker and a power lead. This is how I first heard the 500 (I'd had the 552 a year by then) and it was revealing detail previously unknown and lyrics I'd never understood were obvious but it wasn't boogying as well as the 250. After a couple of weeks of this I moved the 500ps up the stack and the 552ps down to the bottom, this lifted the Burndies clear, by an inch, and there was an improvement but not full satisfaction.  It stayed like this for 6 weeks until I got the go for DRing whereat I put the 250-2 where the 500 head unit had been to save relaying the speaker cables again. The boogie was back, at which point I realised it had gone missing. When the 500 came back I put it back where it came from, with a similar result, the lack of boogie wasn't due to a lack of servicing.  Various experiments ensued resulting in the 552 going above the CDX2 and the right stack going tuner, 500ps, supercap, 552ps and 555ps. The one that returned the boogie factor in full was rasing the 552. When I'd tried that order with the 282/CDX2 I'd prefered it the other way round, a preference  I've since verified when I set them up in our second home in France.

The 552 really didn't like a big ps higher in the adjacent stack than it was, with perhaps, the iron cored transformer in the CDX2, though unenergised, also factor when above the 552 but not when below. Or something else entirely.

Hi,

There is a rather informative little thread that may help in this department.....i'm not not sure if you have seen it.

https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...95#46901104054698795

Dusty update on DR upgrade....day 6...there is no update....yet!!!!

Listening to music, whats that all about!!!!

I don't know (and I say this with no disrespect at all, as I use to own B&W 805s speakers) if one can really obtain the Naim sound with B&W diamond speakers, as those speakers have got a very strong character of their own, and  in fact the attributes mentioned by Harry - over saturation, too much treble and bass, tends to be the trait of those speakers rather than any I can recognize in the 250, after having compared to a 500. Yes there are differences between a 250 and a 500, but why would there not be, look at their prices !

In fact I find their (Diamond tweeter) treble rather ear piercing. Still good fun, but after auditioning the latest range, it was a relief to come back and listen to my Dynaudio/Naim. I'm always open to going back to B&W, but now they are priced to a point where there is a lot of very good competition, and some of them really that outshine and outperform to a very large extent the diamonds to my ears.

I think Naim electronics are better able to show their qualities with more neutral speakers and phase correct crossovers, like from Dynaudio, Ovators, Focal, or Sonus Faber.

analogmusic posted:

I don't know (and I say this with no disrespect at all, as I use to own B&W 805s speakers) if one can really obtain the Naim sound with B&W diamond speakers, as those speakers have got a very strong character of their own, and  in fact the attributes mentioned by Harry - over saturation, too much treble and bass, tends to be the trait of those speakers rather than any I can recognize in the 250, after having compared to a 500. Yes there are differences between a 250 and a 500, but why would there not be, look at their prices !

In fact I find their (Diamond tweeter) treble rather ear piercing. Still good fun, but after auditioning the latest range, it was a relief to come back and listen to my Dynaudio/Naim. I'm always open to going back to B&W, but now they are priced to a point where there is a lot of very good competition, and some of them really that outshine and outperform to a very large extent the diamonds to my ears.

I think Naim electronics are better able to show their qualities with more neutral speakers and phase correct crossovers, like from Dynaudio, Ovators, Focal, or Sonus Faber.

 

I don't get this fascination with the 'Naim Sound' and trying to preserve this. Surely the most important aspect is the end result from the combination of components that the owner has chosen to get the sound they want ?

Step back a few years and Naim electronics used to show their best through some speakers which were very far from neutral (Kans, Saras etc...) !

yes but back then as I understand, Naim amps were themselves not that neutral, and analog sources like tape, Vinyl and FM radio didn't have the dynamic range of Digital sources.

Now there is a trend towards neutrality, certainly with Chord DAC sources, and the DR range from Naim, certainly more of the music comes through to my ears, along with the latest speakers like Ovator, and also the latest Dynaudio, Focals and Sonus Fabers.

As you go up the range, there is an effort to lower the noise floor, and I fully agree that the 500 series is a quite superior electronic design to every Naim  amp below it, but then at a price.

james n posted:

I don't get this fascination with the 'Naim Sound' and trying to preserve this. Surely the most important aspect is the end result from the combination of components that the owner has chosen to get the sound they want ?

Step back a few years and Naim electronics used to show their best through some speakers which were very far from neutral (Kans, Saras etc...) !

+1 James. WTF is the Naim sound anyway? Some virtual sonic image conjured-up in the mind of someone owning Naim components and for some reason on a bender beating an unending Naim drum? I really don't give a rat's ass whether my speakers are neutral or have phase correct crossovers. I only care that the end result of my system moves me and gets me involved with the music. One person's neutral is another's color. My gear, my ears, my room.

well no need to get defensive and emotional, just an alternative view to Harry's view of the 250.