Connecting RP1 to Nac 102

Does your NAC102 have phono boards fitted?  If not (they were an option) then you could get some NA522 MM boards.  Best ask your Naim dealer to fit them as on the 102 there are links that need to be dealt with on the main board.

I have no idea if there are MM boards fitted - bought the amp second hand about 10 years ago.

Is they're a way too tell without taking it to a Naim dealer? I live in Hamilton New Zealand and there's a dealer a couple of hours drive away in Auckland,  but they will almost certainly not have much/any experience with olive series gear. ..just retailers for new stuff. 

About how much are we talking to buy and get MM boards fitted? 

And are MM boards going to be a far superior end result than an affordable phono stage? I'm thinking maybe a cheap phono stage for now to see if the vinyl bug bites hard,  then upgrade to MM boards later?

There are plenty of fairly cheap phono amps around if you don't want to mess around inside your preamp, from Rega, Project and others. Having said that, if your amp is getting on a bit, it might be due for a recap/service, which could be done (or at least checked out) at the same time as the phono boards.

A first step might be to open up the pre and take some photos, which someone would be able to look at and advise re any boards that have been fitted.

Look at the Rega Fono external MM phonostage

Excellent choice and fully match your turntable, will need interconnect to preamp though, Flashback do some nice priced samples

New design Fono version just around the corner so maybe get discount on the outgoing version or buy it S/H

You can easy open up the preamp and look for eventually phonocards inside

Just unscrew four feet and one umbraco, take care when sliding.

If you intend not to use 522 cards, and if they are inside, pull them out and have a free upgrade as the preamp will perform better with no need to power these anymore.

If 522 cards are inside your lucky, keep them, they are great phonostages allready.

Biggest let down is most people use bnc to phono connectors, these screw the final performance imo.

Great advice, thanks Chrissu. Will investigate and post photos

Thanks B_LUND, I took the cover off but sadly there were no 522 cards in there.  I'll order some cards and my electrician brother in law will install them for me.

There were several metal posts that we assume will slide into terminals on the cards, and a plastic mounting post to hold the card in place.  Is it as straight forward as that to fit them?  He's got a lot of experience with soldering, but is there even any of that required?  Will we need to cut any wires to hook the boards up?

Any details you can provide would be fantastic, thanks for your time :-)

I guess the cards are discontinued by now, but I may be wrong

Should be available s/h or from a dealer network

Guess you need to cut but others know better than me.

Have found an NZ dealer who can get me the cards - also got Naim customer support to send me the circuit diagrams ...so just need those 522 cards to arrive, will be using a crappy little phono stage as an interim measure till they get fitted.

thanks for your help all :-)

I take it that there were no boards at all? If so, then the internal wire links will most likely be connected to the DIN socket 1a. So if you wish to use 522 boards then the links will have to be moved. Also if you wish to use an external phono stage into the BNC sockets (1b) then you will need to have the straight line boards (526) fitted and the links set to the correct position.

Hi Suzy

I intend to use a cheap and crappy external phono stage until the 522 boards arrive, so this should work plugged into the left and right RCA phono inputs without any internal mods, right?

Then when the 522 boards arrive I have the circuit diagram and instructions for moving the wires for the boards.

To use the BNC sockets, you will need the straight through 526 cards. Are there any cards at all in the 102?

Pretty sure there were no boards - just one big flat circuit board.  dammit.  will have to use my spare stereo amp until the 522 boards arrive.  thanks for the heads up

With an external phone stage you can connect it to any of the other inputs

Try the external phono stage into DIN socket 1a. You will either get sound .......or not

If you get sound then the links are wired towards the DIN socket and will need changing when you put your phono cards in.

If no sound then the links are already wired towards internal boards. In this case try one of the other DIN sockets for your external phono stage.

Simples, no?

Thanks Gavin and Suzy, that makes sense to me now.