You must be my audio inverse or complement or something: I think Naim sources are great, and some of their speakers I love, but Naim amplification I just can't get on with!
Life after Naim
- Thread starter cayorob
- Start date
You must be my audio inverse or complement or something: I think Naim sources are great, and some of their speakers I love, but Naim amplification I just can't get on with!
I once compared the Rega Elicit mk2 which I own to a Naim Nait XS about 11 years ago. To my ears, both amps sounded very similar. A friend who was at the listening session with me also concluded that there isn't much between the 2 integrateds. He is the owner of the Nait XS. Speakers were Harbeth SHL5.
After several months later, I moved from the Rega Elicit mk2 to the Naim 202/200. Not exactly a move as suggested by the thread though.
Loafermattaeus
New Member
This is an interesting thread. I got hooked on Naim via an Atom. It's streaming ecosystem was addictively good. Especially if you like Roon, I don't think is bettered by any company. So of course I then got into separates, but only as far as a 250Dr and Nac 272 with xps. The Naim amplification just didn't move me. Of course the pratt is cool and clarity too but Naim tonality is dull TBH. I feel that I need tone to make music musical, if that makes sense? I went back to an old Arcam A60 which trounced the Naim for tonality and musicality. Now I have a VTL tube amp and am very satisfied.
Scrutinizer
Member
That's how I felt.
Naim amps sound as if they have an EQ curve applied permanently - Rolling-off highs, accentuating mids while leaving the bass lacking in tone and timbre.
The whole presentation is condensed, perhaps to make it impactful, but the result for me is very uninspiring and not true to the source.
None of you mention the impedance of the speakers that you were trying to drive with the Naim amp. This is crucial. Due to their design ( with the exception of statement) all Naim amps are current limited and if you try to drive a difficult load, then they run out of current. Speaker matching is key. I moved away from Naim power amps some time ago due to this and my love of Shahinians. Still use the pre and sources.
pocketkitchen
Registered User
All amps are current limited by their transformer rating. Naim are no different to anything else. Shahinians work fine with Naim. I’ve sold or used every single model of Naim Olive amp with every single model of Shahinian, bar Diapasons. All were fine although the smaller amps were clearly very limited in terms of volume with anything above an Arc. Of course Naim doesn’t suit everyone. Thankfully there’s plenty of other stuff out there.
I think Naim amps drive difficult loads fairly well. They're not as powerful as fan-boys seem to think they are but they're not gutless and cope better than most with low impedance loads.
Gervais Cote
Predator
I bought a NAP 250.2 to make sure I can use pretty much any speakers including isobaric monitors and can confirm it works great. The 7 inch diameter transformer probably helps.
My Exposure 4 dual mono unregulated and my Musical Fidelity dual mono P170 give me similar results as well.
Got nowt to do with watts
The reservation is not unwarranted. While Naim amps deal well with transient high power demands they run out of puff just as quickly as other similarly speced amps do when faced with a more continuous load. And they don't do it gracefully, sounding hard, edgy and shouty as they try their best to convince you all is still well.
For me it's always been classical first and foremost, and that's probably what steered me towards Linn rather than Naim for amplification. Having said that, electronica sounds pretty good to me on what I have too.
4 years ago I bought a (used) pair of Shahinian Obelisk 1s and expected my olive 250 to cope well - how wrong!
They sounded like the tweeters were blown (all 8 of them). Apologies once again to John & Paul for questioning the quality of the speakers I'd bought!
Turned out the power supply regulator design used in the 250 ( &135s ) has a frequency dependent current limiting characteristic and, as suggested by Shahinian, the non regulated NAP 180 did a much better job of driving the Obs in the treble.
With their 2 ohms impedance at high frequencies the Obelisks present a load that some 250s (perhaps not all, I may have a bad combination of amp & speakers) find difficult to drive.
Like Matt I still use my Naim pre with an Avondale power amp and it works fine.
Yes , at low frequencies (see above) - that's how they became famous for driving Isobariks (sub 2 ohms at bass frequencies, but not so good with Obelisks - sub 2 ohms at high frequencies.
As always speaker matching is relevant but if you have a 250 you expect it to drive anything whilst pairing a NAP 140 with a pair of Diapasons would seem a complete mismatch.
James
Lord of the Erg\o/s
My departure from Naim started with my 135s struggling to drive my Ergo E-Vs, which have an DCR minima of around 3.8 ohms at 100Hz. They were fine at sensible levels, but not when you crank it playing Korn. The pair of Densen B-350s I replaced them with had no such difficulty.
It was one of the reasons I switched. The 250 struggled to drive Isobariks and was worse with Saras! Sounded nasty at high volume and shut down often. At that time, Naims answer was 135s, double the money for 15 watts more.
Enter the Meridian 105s. 40wpc more than the 250, and a more rounded, musical sound. Never felt any desire to change them.