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Naim 202/200DR/Audionote J –– too much bass.

B

Blackforest

Member
I am in a bit of a dilemma due to several upgrades I made.

System as of now is Naim 202/200DR/AudionoteJ (with original Naca 5), a Heed Quasar, DV20X2L (new) which sits on an Ortofon 12" on a Raven One.
Some months before amp was a NAP140 instead (sold the original NAP200 due to trafo hum) and a "lowly" Shelter 301. I know these speakers scream
"tubes" but I am not ready to give up on the Naims yet.

With my new setup have way too much bass (gain too) – my speakers are quite sensitive @93db. The new cart has quite a lot of bass – that I know.
I have switched out the phono stage (DV P75 3, EAR Phonobox, Lab12 Melto 2 (!)) but the Quasar wasn't the problem. Going from the nice little 140 to
the 200DR has given me more finesse with the 202, bigger stage resolution and (I also suspect) more oomph.

I then switched the Naca 5 to Audioquest Rocket 33 (Bi Wiring) and that was a HUGE difference – if being critical I'd say there's still a bit of a bass bloom
and it does sound too polished / cd-like if you know what I mean. But: a LOT better. Mediocre pressings or pressings with too much bass (the new Abbey Road
50th A. for example) sounded way better and more transparent in the lower mids. (I also demmed some very expensive Transparent cable as well as Nordost
Purple Flare – they were both complete rubbish in a Naim system).

So what do you think: shall I demo more cables like Tellurium or Chord? Another higher or lower version of the Audioquests?
Shall I address the old grey interconnect between the pre and power amp?
Will the old NAP200 have less oomph?

Appreciate your thoughts on this,
Christian
 
I had much the same issue when I 'upgraded' my system a few years ago. I suspect the biggest issue was buying a speaker which was capable of greater bass extension.

What I discovered was that the system was now exciting room bass nodes, which are defined by the room dimensions and which were previously benign due to the lack of bass performance from my previous small speakers. Changing appropriately sized cables and competently designed amplifiers really isn't going to make significant changes if any.

My suggestion is to review your room using a programme such as REW 'Room EQ Wizard' I believe, this will show the frequency peaks and troughs around your listening room, allowing you to understand why the issue is occurring and how you might be able to change your listening/speaker position to improve things. Whilst the main purpose of the programme is to take actual measurements using a microphone in your listening position, it is possible to use the room simulation function which allows you to discover the main issues without taking sound measurements. I was surprised, having done both just how accurate the sim was! Plus it takes the guess work out when moving things about.

In my case the floor to ceiling height created a very pronounced bass peak at my listening position. The answer was: move my listening position forward by just 70cm, temporarily leaning forward made a clear difference for the better, measurements at the new location showed that the peak was significantly reduced. My final solution, because I cannot move my sofa that far, was to add Parametric EQ (PEQ) into my system through my choice of DAC, an RME adi-2-fs, this is able to reduce the amplitude of specific frequencies flattening the overall frequency response of the system in the room and controlling the bass boom. There are other more sophisticated means of achieving this such as Dirac and other room correction packages, but I find the basic PEQ addressing the one main peak worked very well in my situation.

Many HiFi enthusiasts massively underestimate the impact of the room acoustics on their system, resorting to box swapping instead. This view was backed up by the members of professional acoustic engineers that i work along side. Get the room and positioning right first.

Give it a go, the software was free to down load and try when I last tried it.
 
Thanks hifinutt – I do have the dedicated stands for the Js and some audioplan Antispikes beneath it. Also played around with room positioning. Was more concentrating on the amp / ls cable side of things...
 
some nice amps to demo instead of the Naim maybe . how about the superb moonriver reference 404 which would be super

the-ear.net

Moonriver 404 Reference Has The Power | The Ear

Before I discovered the Model 404 Reference I spent some time with the Moonriver Model 404 amplifier and I heaped a great deal of well-merited praise upon it.
the-ear.net the-ear.net

then a user of many ANj ANe speakers on here swears by the norma amps . the 70b or 80 worth a listen . may be better

should be dealer near you

https://www.audiothesis.com/product-page/norma-audio-revo-ipa-70b-integrated-amplifier
 
Thanks Moog – helpful as well. Thing is I am not really too free to move stuff around. Also the whole thing sounded pretty decent with the NAP140 in the
system. Will have a look into the PEQ thing :=)
 
I have a somewhat similar problem, in that my seating and speaker positions are pretty much set in stone. It doesn't matter which amp or speakers I have, so I am going down the ridiculous overkill route. I have ordered an Accuphase DG-68. :rolleyes:
 
Blackforest said:
Thanks Moog – helpful as well. Thing is I am not really too free to move stuff around. Also the whole thing sounded pretty decent with the NAP140 in the
system. Will have a look into the PEQ thing :=)
Click to expand...
I would summarise my thoughts as 'find out what the issue is' rather than randomly trying different things.
 
Imho, norma amps sound great with ANJ’s, though of course, this is inextricably dependent on cables/source etc. I had The 70B. However, the same system could and probably would, sound completely different in different rooms. It’s a puzzle!!
 
tellurium Q has more bass than naca5, but what would be worth a try is kudos ks1 with its thin conductors and the naim forum users report a faster lighter bass with it..
 
Roog said:
I would summarise my thoughts as 'find out what the issue is' rather than randomly trying different things.
Click to expand...

I don't find my approach so random :) The issue here is the room so I'll check that out but as I have to live with it I'll now look deeper into speaker cables and the interconnects... Thanks for your thoughts.
 
Blackforest said:
So what do you think
Click to expand...
Move the AN-J a bit further out in room.

If you haven't a Napsc ?
This might tighten up a loose bas

Ditch the A5 cable, get a long run Kudos KS1 - or TQ/EWA.
Some of the latest Chord Co is nice too.

If you run old grey Snaic4, maybe a Black would tighten up ?
 
Thanks pfbaat – NAPSC is installed (for over 10 years I think).

Kudos KS1 is on my demo list (as is Audio Note AN A and AB as well as Phonosophie and Atlas Hyper.) The one to beat is Audioquest Rocket 33.
They also make a dedicated Naim configuration – also for Bi wiring imho.

I will get new Chord interconnects and Snaics to demo from my dealer – Shawline and Clearway. Have a black Snaic 4 already.
 
Neither electronics nor cabling are going to fix the problem. Only realistic ways to reduce bass ouput of your system are:

a) Pull the speakers further out from the walls
b) Change the cart to one that has less bass output - though of course this'll only solve the problem when playing records
c) Change the speakers to ones more to your taste
 
gez said:
Neither electronics nor cabling are going to fix the problem. Only realistic ways to reduce bass ouput of your system are:

a) Pull the speakers further out from the walls
b) Change the cart to one that has less bass output - though of course this'll only solve the problem when playing records
c) Change the speakers to ones more to your taste
Click to expand...
and
d) Use EQ
 
e) buy a SET amp :)

PS. I do have other carts – Shelter 301, Denon 103... Problem remains. I know that it's a bit unlogical to tackle it from the cable side
but when I put in the Rocket cable for a couple of days it was like the mess was ALMOST solved... That gave me a bit of hope :)
 
I set up my 202/200 yesterday hoping to ditch the Hicap for financial and clutter reasons but found the bass boomy. It’s the room at fault not the amp as others sound worse and I’ve used this set up in other scenarios successfully. Once I added my Hicap dr the bass was much better controlled.

Contrary to the post above I found Tellurium Black a lot lighter in the bass and clearer at the top than A5 but at the expense of musicality. I couldn’t live with it for the reasons you suggest with the Audioquest.

A very ’Naimish’ post but I wasn’t trying to justify an upgrade, it was quite the opposite!
 
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