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Naim past their sell-by date

Andrew,

I'd love to hear your system again when you've got the TPX.

As far as cases are concerned i think i've read in another thread that Les is shying away from supplying cases on their own because of the number of amps and psu's that pop up for sale claiming to be Avondale , but are not. I think you'll have to clarify that with Les.

stu
 
Paul Ranson said:
Different output transistors, different rectifiers, different board layouts, different wiring arrangement, VBE multiplier mounted on driver heatsink. Loads of possibilities.

But do they actually sound different?

Paul
Click to expand...

YES!

I was priviledged to visit the factory at the time they changed over (around 1980) and Julian himself showed us the difference (a collegue in the shop had a tri-amp system and he'd taken his three 250's over there to be checked over as a recent service had shown up irregularities in their servicing (can't say more here). What we heard at Salisbury confirmed our impressions in the shop.

The early chrome bumper 250's were quite aggressive and "in yer face," especially when new and stayed like this until around the time the 180 came out. The bolt up 250's were musical, sweet and almost "valve like" in their slight softness of impact (listen to a 180 and it'll give you some idea).
 
Is there a difference between the guts of an olive 250 and the newer black with centred logo cased 250? How about a difference in the sound?

The mono 135 seems to have been replaced by the mono 145 but I can't find a single comparison or review. Anybody know how the electronics of these differ? And the sonic differences?


Charlie
 
Charlie

The 145 model was introduced mainly for the av market. The new black 250 (sometimes referred to as 250.2) is, acccording to naim, a totally revised model over the olive/cb models.

Stuart
 
But the 145 is just a mono amp. Is it a 135 in a new box? Or a better 135?

And does the 250.2 sound better than the 250 olive? How much revision has been done?


Charlie
 
Pretty much a complete redesign:

250.2:

250p24aw.jpg


250

250_04.jpg
 
I am no expert but are Naim now copying Les? I suppose it had to happen but that 250.2 looks more like an Avondale 260 multicap job than an old 250!

Martin
 
I like Naim equipment a lot and have a predominantly olive system (82/HC2/180/CD3.5), bought entirely second hand because I couldn't afford it new. I wonder about the importance of "British manufacturing" though. Surely the value of Naim lies in the design rather than where the equipment is made. While I would not want anyone at Naim to lose their jobs, would it not be better for the company and for the customers if they made their equipment elsewhere, for example in China or India where it could be made more cheaply? They might then be able to price more competitively and sell more equipment.

Having lit the blue touchpaper, I will now retreat to a safe distance.

Damian
 
Those two 250's surely just show the evolution of the design and construction techniques. Two smaller smoothing caps allow a physically bigger and probably more linear transformer even if it's electrically equivalent. Surface mount kit in the later makes it more difficult to mod but won't bother most people.

Some things do genuinely seem to have improved from the looks of it, not just the move to surface mount to keep signal paths shorter and less prone to interference. Shorter cable runs in the newer, and it appears and bit better segregation of the power/signal paths. Crude single point earthing has gone along with those longish runs, apprently less push fit connector between the boards. Looks like a genuinely high quality construction, which is just as well as I doubt it's cheap.

Cheers
 
I've just removed the 'bye' from the thread title as it was really, really irritating me!

Tony.
 
One step at a time... I've also deleted the first locked thread that had 'sell buy' in the title. Exhausting work.

Tony.
 
DSG - interesting point. But since Naim appear to be 1) one of the few stoutly successful UK Hifi manufacturing concerns, year-on-year and 2) not apparently in the 'bargain' market - why fix what isn't broken? I bet at the level the chaps from Salisbury market at ' designed and hand-built in the UK' or somesuch is seen as a marketing edge - quite apart from maintaining nice people on the phone to answer questions helpfully and fast, as is the service dept. by reputation.

Second thought: given the typical markup vs: raw cost relationship c.6-8:1 due to distribution and middle-men, I bet the advantage of offshoring is much more apparant at the Cambridge / NAD end of the market rather than the Naim/Linn end. That's no reflection on the qualities or reliability of Cambridge or NAD (amongst others) BTW.
 
While we're on about spelling what about trade anouncements? That one drives me mad.
 
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