They told me 4 weeks but I’m in no hurry anyway.
Okay, boards received and installed.
First impressions is a perfect treble, very natural human voices and a very good separation between singers when signing all together.
If you install these boards to replace the original ones in a Naim NAP 110, you won’t be able to go back, this is a major upgrade in a good way.
I had the opportunity to compare against my other NAP 110 with Avondale power supply and NCC200 boards. Both are very good and differences between both are rather subtle.
The Phoenixed 110 seems to have a better treble, sweeter while being very detailed. Perfect is the word that best describes the treble with these boards IMO. I personally can’t think of anything better. The Avondaled 110 has a very good treble as well although a little less soft.
The medium is also a tad better with Phoenix as the human voices have a better separation between each signers and you can feel their throat vibration better when they throw lower notes. Piano notes sound more accurate as well.
Bass is where things get different IMO. The Phoenixed one seems to be a little more polite on bass notes with less transient and less impact and emphasis on bass drum kicks. The Avondaled one has more impact and gets more on your chest if I may say.
Snare drum is also hitting harder with Avondale keeping more of the famous Naim’s PRaT. Hammer hitting the piano notes is also more real with Avondale, Phoenix being a tad less percussion sounding.
All in all, both are extremely good and are significant improvements compared to the original Naim boards but I would recommend the Phoenix for people listening to human voices and the Avondale for percussion instruments, bass guitars and large bass drums.
NAP 110 before :
NAP 110 with Phoenix boards :
