Ordered

Posted by: stuart on 06 October 2017

Had an interesting afternoon at my dealers today. I requested a demo of the Nova to satisfy my curiosity before placing my order for 272/250. It was set up with a pair of Harbeth P3esr. The brand is new to my dealer and I have certainly never heard them before. They had been on demo from the morning and so were insitu.

What a great combo this was. Fantastic mid range and very sweet treble. Surprising scale for the size and much more dynamic than I expected. Bass was plentiful but maybe a little less defined than I would have liked. They surprised me with their ability to rock with some proper old ac/dc fronted by the irreplaceable Bon.

Derek Trucks slide guitar had superb tone and texture.  

For a single box the Nova sounded superb. I also tried it with Pmc 25/23. In contrast to the Harbeth the mid range was less pronounced. I think I preferred the Harbeth but it was a short demo. It was long enough however to persuade me to place my order for 272/250 after 18 months of demo's. My dealer has been very patient, obliging with loan equipment but I suspect there may have been a sigh of relief as I left the premises.

Speakers after the electronics settled in. Hope that doesn't take as long.

Now need to make sure I sort the streaming thingy out with the thing........?? ¿? 

Posted on: 06 October 2017 by Innocent Bystander

So, the Nova was good, but you preferred the 272/250. I wonder how much of that was due to the 250. Did you by any chance try the Unity Star/250?

Posted on: 06 October 2017 by Gazza

I would hope it was better it’s a few thousand pounds more. I could not resist a second hand 250dr for my Nova, still comes in less than 272/250, and will still get the updates to the new platform. But I hope you enjoy your purchase, it will be lovely to listen to.

Posted on: 06 October 2017 by stuart

I agree that the 250dr is a great amp. I didn't listen to the star as I was a little short on time. When I had the 272/250 on home dem I compared the internal streamer and dac with my cd5xs and ndac as sources and couldn't identify any discernable difference.

I wonder how the new unity dacs compare with the older ones. I got the impression that the amplification in the 272/250 was superior. 

Posted on: 06 October 2017 by The Strat (Fender)

Vastly superior. 

Posted on: 06 October 2017 by 2WheelsRBetter

...and then you can add the XPS DR at some future point. I just added it to my 272/250 DR and it's quite a pleasant improvement, although I must admit I had zero complaints with the 272/250 prior to the update.  It's just the nature of the disease...

Posted on: 07 October 2017 by HiFiman

The new 250dr is a great amp and the P3esr would certainly sound great on the end of the 272/250dr I run my 272 into a recently serviced CB250 with Proac Tablette 10s on the end and this system rocks.