colasblue
pfm Member
Here it is - the great Naim 82 Power supply bake off thread.
Firstly the rest of the equipment:
Mediacentre PC with RME HDSP9624 broadcast quality sound card running from JRMC17 under ASIO drivers.
Benchmark DAC1 connected electrically on SP/Diff & Benchmark DAC2 HGC on USB2
Naim 82 vintage 2000, final incarnation with pots 8 (no internal phono cards)
Assorted power supplies
Naim Snaxo 3-6 from 2002 normally powered by Supercap originally made as a 52PS in 1991 but upgraded to SC in about 1996.
Naim Nap 135 x 6 four from 1991 and two from 1987
Active Naim NBL’s
And the power supplies:
Two Naim Hicaps from 1997
One Avondale APX4 from about 2002
One Dual Teddy cap which is a couple of years old
One TPR4 chrome bumper Hicap, serviced and converted by Witch Hat last year.
Is it standard Naim? – well not exactly but not heavily modified either. My Naim 82 has been serviced wih Elna Silmic II decoupling caps and Evox Rifa MMK feedback caps but other than that is standard. It’s recently also had new pots.
The Naim power supplies all have Kendiel smoothing caps and were all serviced around 2007 by me
The APX 4 had its smoothing caps replaced last year like for like with Nippon Chemicon units supplied by Les.
The 135’s are all serviced as per my 135 servicing thread, the olive ones were done in 2012 and the CB ones about 6 months ago so Kendeil res caps, no SoA circuitry and Evox Rifa MMK’s for feedback, Elna Silmic II’s 50uF and Panasonic NHG 10uF on regulator boards.
The Snaxo was serviced 6 months ago with Elna Silmic II for decoupling caps and AVX tants.
I have no genuine Naim cabling except the black burndy for the supercap and NAC A5. Everything else is made of Van Damme 1.5mm2 blue speaker cable.
My preferred wiring layout is Avondale style, but I did try the dual supplies Naim style where possible too mostly to evaluate the Teddy Pardo cabling. The APX 4 can’t be used in this way.
Throughout testing I used the Naim Napsc rather than the alternative offered by the DTC.
The music:
I limited the auditioning to a relatively small repertoire since there are a lot of
PSU’s to get through. I used only digital sources for the main dem.
Tracks used were
Bad company – “Painted Face”, chosen because it’s quite busy, has a good beat an Paul Rodgers has exactly the sort of voice that Naim systems can often do very badly when underpowered. On a bad system he has a permanent headcold!
Joan Armatrading – “Tall in the saddle”, chosen because it’s well recorded and has an almost live feel, and has a change of tempo mid track.
Suzanne Vega – “The Queen and the Soldier”, chosen because it challenges the imaging and focus of weaker systems. All too often Suzannne sounds about a mile wide and is coming at you from everywhere at once.
Beth Neilsen Chapman – “Sand and Water”, chosen because the background vocalist is often difficult to discern.
So off we go!
Firstly the single supply options, which will probably interest shoe box preamp and 102 users more but will also answer the crucial question of whether one good supply can trump two mediocre ones.
In an absolutely solid last place is the single HiCap. The system just lost a lot of resolution all round, sounded a bit dull and had essentially just totally lost its mojo.
All of the alternative supplies were a considerable improvement and in fact there isn’t all that much to choose between them. What I certainly didn’t get (though other seem to have reported it) is any change in the frequency response of the system. No “mid range humps” appeared or disappeared, the bass extension didn’t change noticeably and no supply was noticeably brighter than any other. What I did get was a change in resolution and focus.
The best sounding option in my view was the APX2 (well actually half an APX4) which just gave a little more clarity and sparkle to everything. The texture of Joan Armatradings vocals and cleanness of Paul Rodgers’ were noticeably slightly better. Also the timing seemed clearer/easier to follow on the faster passages.
Almost equal overall but slightly behind are the Teddycap and TPR4 HiCap. These two supplies have subtly but noticeably different characters. The TPR4 is looser in the bass and the Teddy is perhaps a bit more controlled. I found timing slightly easier to follow with the TPR4 and it possibly gave the impression of slightly beter dynamics, but at the expense of that bass looseness. In terms of resolution I found the two of them very difficult to choose between. Ultimately I was happier listening on the TPR4 than the Teddy but I’m sure others would choose the other way . The comparison is actually very similar to Lingo VS Armageddon with the Teddy cap as the Lingo and the TPR4 as the ’geddon.
Ok so moving on to the 4 rail options.
First question for many is can a good 2 rail supply outclass two Hicaps? The short and blunt answer is no it cant! The first 4 rail option was the two Hicaps and immediately compared the APX2 the focus and clarity have improved and the soundstage got considerably wider. It was a bit like having a mono, a stereo and an extra wide stereo knob and selecting the latter. For me it was very much a case of “something close to normal service as now been resumed” so personally I can’t see that even the best 2 rail supply in the world is ever going to compete. Clarity of vocals, ease of following timing all better, but the big one is the huge gain in focus and soundstage.
Going into dual mode the DTC is a big improvement on the HC’s. The change is across the board and it’s a bit like going from DVD to blu ray. It’s obviously the same film but the level of clarity is higher. More texture on Joan Armatrading’s vocals, strings & transients all a little cleaner. Timing easier to discern as was Beth Neilsen Chapman’s backing vocalist. I was just left feeling that it was slightly lacking in dynamics but none the less way better than the two HC’s
The APX4, however, is a notch up again. Even more clarity, and importantly the dynamics seem a lot better. This is absolutely the supply to beat but unfortunately Les doesn’t make them any more since it wasn’t very cost effective. I think the pared down TPX4 was about £1200 when discontinued.
The DTC is clearly the best VFM.
Unfortunately I don’t have two TPR4 HC’s to try out but I’d guess they’ll be in the same sort of relative position as in the single supply test.
What about Naim vs Avondale style cabling? I repeated the HC vs DTC using Teddy’s cables and found things came out in the same order, but actually preferred my normal cabling over Teddy’s. The Teddy cabling sounded a little warmer and perhaps slightly less dynamic than what I’m used to.
So now comes the obvious question of where does the SC sit relative to all the others? Of course I only have one SC and it’s been running the Snaxo up to now, so in order to evaluate it i need to change (downgrade) the system by running the Snaxo on something else. The something else is a third Hicap I have lying around, which enables me to keep all the previous supply options for the 82 on the table.
At this point my new DAC2 also shows up so of course I have to give it a try out.
The first thing that hits me having done the downgrade to HC on the Snaxo is how big a downgrade it actually is. Not quite as big as the change from two rail to four rail supplies on the 82 but none the less still quite noticeable. I’m guessing that this will make the differences between supplies on the 82 appear less significant.
So it takes a couple of minutes to adjust to the new sound and a tweak of the volume up to compensate then I’m ready to go.
First HC’s vs SC. Preference exactly as I’ve previously expressed, not a whole lot to choose but I marginally prefer the two HC’s. They just seem to give a little more dynamic range and clarity than the SC.
On to the DTC and it’s still better but much less obviously so . In my system I’d get much more bang for my buck by upgrading from HC to SC on the Snaxo than changing my two HC’s for a DTC on the 82 and keeping the HC on the Snaxo. None the less the DTC brought a significant increase in focus on Suzanne Vega’s vocal and a general improvement in clarity across the board. In fact on that track, the Joan Armatrading track and the Beth Neilsen Chapman track I preferred its presentation over the APX4 with the system in this configuration.
It was the other way round on the Bad Company track though, again because I felt the APX4 could deliver a little bit more sheer grunt when required.
Hmm this makes things interesting. The BM DAC 2 is a bit (but not a lot) of an upgrade over the DAC1 . Probably about as big as one of the smaller PSU steps in fact but none the less DTC vs APX4 now has to be re-appraised with the SC back where it belongs and the DAC2 in situ.
The improved source actually makes it much clearer what the difference is between the APX4 and the DTC, and it is absolutely a slight lack of headroom using the DTC which slightly compresses the dynamic range of the music and makes it easier to focus on the main element which is often the vocal.
Interesting I think, nobody has previously raised that issue with the Teddy supplies so is there some peculiarity of my setup which brings it out when most other peoples doesn’t?
In fact there is! I use a professional level source and most people don’t! I have always used the DAC1 calibrated output from the hot pin of the XLR since that gives the lowest output impedance and the best sound. Other options all use some sort of Lpad made of either fixed resistors or a pot and turning it down makes it sound worse. I set the DAC2 up the same way but in fact you can turn the DAC2 down without loss in sound quality since it uses a 48bit dac and does volume control by simply sliding down the dac scale, i.e. no output impedance compromise.
Now that 5.5V level is really going to be spanking the input buffers of my Naim 82 compared to most sources.
The Teddy PSU’s are designed for minimum noise rather than the last word in voltage regulation so perhaps my source level is just pushing them a bit too far in terms of the available regulation.
So next I try various combinations of the DAC and Preamp volume settings with the APX4 and DTC. My findings are that the APX4 sounds pretty much the same with any combination of DAC output/preamp gain but the DTC is noticeably less happy with the DAC right up and the preamp low compared with the DAC half way up (which is about the same as a domestic digital source component) and the pre amp at more sensible gain. With the second settings the headroom issue disappears and the DTC and APX4 sound much closer, though I did still marginally prefer the APX4.
And now I’d better put the living room back together properly
Firstly the rest of the equipment:
Mediacentre PC with RME HDSP9624 broadcast quality sound card running from JRMC17 under ASIO drivers.
Benchmark DAC1 connected electrically on SP/Diff & Benchmark DAC2 HGC on USB2
Naim 82 vintage 2000, final incarnation with pots 8 (no internal phono cards)
Assorted power supplies
Naim Snaxo 3-6 from 2002 normally powered by Supercap originally made as a 52PS in 1991 but upgraded to SC in about 1996.
Naim Nap 135 x 6 four from 1991 and two from 1987
Active Naim NBL’s
And the power supplies:
Two Naim Hicaps from 1997
One Avondale APX4 from about 2002
One Dual Teddy cap which is a couple of years old
One TPR4 chrome bumper Hicap, serviced and converted by Witch Hat last year.
Is it standard Naim? – well not exactly but not heavily modified either. My Naim 82 has been serviced wih Elna Silmic II decoupling caps and Evox Rifa MMK feedback caps but other than that is standard. It’s recently also had new pots.
The Naim power supplies all have Kendiel smoothing caps and were all serviced around 2007 by me
The APX 4 had its smoothing caps replaced last year like for like with Nippon Chemicon units supplied by Les.
The 135’s are all serviced as per my 135 servicing thread, the olive ones were done in 2012 and the CB ones about 6 months ago so Kendeil res caps, no SoA circuitry and Evox Rifa MMK’s for feedback, Elna Silmic II’s 50uF and Panasonic NHG 10uF on regulator boards.
The Snaxo was serviced 6 months ago with Elna Silmic II for decoupling caps and AVX tants.
I have no genuine Naim cabling except the black burndy for the supercap and NAC A5. Everything else is made of Van Damme 1.5mm2 blue speaker cable.
My preferred wiring layout is Avondale style, but I did try the dual supplies Naim style where possible too mostly to evaluate the Teddy Pardo cabling. The APX 4 can’t be used in this way.
Throughout testing I used the Naim Napsc rather than the alternative offered by the DTC.
The music:
I limited the auditioning to a relatively small repertoire since there are a lot of
PSU’s to get through. I used only digital sources for the main dem.
Tracks used were
Bad company – “Painted Face”, chosen because it’s quite busy, has a good beat an Paul Rodgers has exactly the sort of voice that Naim systems can often do very badly when underpowered. On a bad system he has a permanent headcold!
Joan Armatrading – “Tall in the saddle”, chosen because it’s well recorded and has an almost live feel, and has a change of tempo mid track.
Suzanne Vega – “The Queen and the Soldier”, chosen because it challenges the imaging and focus of weaker systems. All too often Suzannne sounds about a mile wide and is coming at you from everywhere at once.
Beth Neilsen Chapman – “Sand and Water”, chosen because the background vocalist is often difficult to discern.
So off we go!
Firstly the single supply options, which will probably interest shoe box preamp and 102 users more but will also answer the crucial question of whether one good supply can trump two mediocre ones.
In an absolutely solid last place is the single HiCap. The system just lost a lot of resolution all round, sounded a bit dull and had essentially just totally lost its mojo.
All of the alternative supplies were a considerable improvement and in fact there isn’t all that much to choose between them. What I certainly didn’t get (though other seem to have reported it) is any change in the frequency response of the system. No “mid range humps” appeared or disappeared, the bass extension didn’t change noticeably and no supply was noticeably brighter than any other. What I did get was a change in resolution and focus.
The best sounding option in my view was the APX2 (well actually half an APX4) which just gave a little more clarity and sparkle to everything. The texture of Joan Armatradings vocals and cleanness of Paul Rodgers’ were noticeably slightly better. Also the timing seemed clearer/easier to follow on the faster passages.
Almost equal overall but slightly behind are the Teddycap and TPR4 HiCap. These two supplies have subtly but noticeably different characters. The TPR4 is looser in the bass and the Teddy is perhaps a bit more controlled. I found timing slightly easier to follow with the TPR4 and it possibly gave the impression of slightly beter dynamics, but at the expense of that bass looseness. In terms of resolution I found the two of them very difficult to choose between. Ultimately I was happier listening on the TPR4 than the Teddy but I’m sure others would choose the other way . The comparison is actually very similar to Lingo VS Armageddon with the Teddy cap as the Lingo and the TPR4 as the ’geddon.
Ok so moving on to the 4 rail options.
First question for many is can a good 2 rail supply outclass two Hicaps? The short and blunt answer is no it cant! The first 4 rail option was the two Hicaps and immediately compared the APX2 the focus and clarity have improved and the soundstage got considerably wider. It was a bit like having a mono, a stereo and an extra wide stereo knob and selecting the latter. For me it was very much a case of “something close to normal service as now been resumed” so personally I can’t see that even the best 2 rail supply in the world is ever going to compete. Clarity of vocals, ease of following timing all better, but the big one is the huge gain in focus and soundstage.
Going into dual mode the DTC is a big improvement on the HC’s. The change is across the board and it’s a bit like going from DVD to blu ray. It’s obviously the same film but the level of clarity is higher. More texture on Joan Armatrading’s vocals, strings & transients all a little cleaner. Timing easier to discern as was Beth Neilsen Chapman’s backing vocalist. I was just left feeling that it was slightly lacking in dynamics but none the less way better than the two HC’s
The APX4, however, is a notch up again. Even more clarity, and importantly the dynamics seem a lot better. This is absolutely the supply to beat but unfortunately Les doesn’t make them any more since it wasn’t very cost effective. I think the pared down TPX4 was about £1200 when discontinued.
The DTC is clearly the best VFM.
Unfortunately I don’t have two TPR4 HC’s to try out but I’d guess they’ll be in the same sort of relative position as in the single supply test.
What about Naim vs Avondale style cabling? I repeated the HC vs DTC using Teddy’s cables and found things came out in the same order, but actually preferred my normal cabling over Teddy’s. The Teddy cabling sounded a little warmer and perhaps slightly less dynamic than what I’m used to.
So now comes the obvious question of where does the SC sit relative to all the others? Of course I only have one SC and it’s been running the Snaxo up to now, so in order to evaluate it i need to change (downgrade) the system by running the Snaxo on something else. The something else is a third Hicap I have lying around, which enables me to keep all the previous supply options for the 82 on the table.
At this point my new DAC2 also shows up so of course I have to give it a try out.
The first thing that hits me having done the downgrade to HC on the Snaxo is how big a downgrade it actually is. Not quite as big as the change from two rail to four rail supplies on the 82 but none the less still quite noticeable. I’m guessing that this will make the differences between supplies on the 82 appear less significant.
So it takes a couple of minutes to adjust to the new sound and a tweak of the volume up to compensate then I’m ready to go.
First HC’s vs SC. Preference exactly as I’ve previously expressed, not a whole lot to choose but I marginally prefer the two HC’s. They just seem to give a little more dynamic range and clarity than the SC.
On to the DTC and it’s still better but much less obviously so . In my system I’d get much more bang for my buck by upgrading from HC to SC on the Snaxo than changing my two HC’s for a DTC on the 82 and keeping the HC on the Snaxo. None the less the DTC brought a significant increase in focus on Suzanne Vega’s vocal and a general improvement in clarity across the board. In fact on that track, the Joan Armatrading track and the Beth Neilsen Chapman track I preferred its presentation over the APX4 with the system in this configuration.
It was the other way round on the Bad Company track though, again because I felt the APX4 could deliver a little bit more sheer grunt when required.
Hmm this makes things interesting. The BM DAC 2 is a bit (but not a lot) of an upgrade over the DAC1 . Probably about as big as one of the smaller PSU steps in fact but none the less DTC vs APX4 now has to be re-appraised with the SC back where it belongs and the DAC2 in situ.
The improved source actually makes it much clearer what the difference is between the APX4 and the DTC, and it is absolutely a slight lack of headroom using the DTC which slightly compresses the dynamic range of the music and makes it easier to focus on the main element which is often the vocal.
Interesting I think, nobody has previously raised that issue with the Teddy supplies so is there some peculiarity of my setup which brings it out when most other peoples doesn’t?
In fact there is! I use a professional level source and most people don’t! I have always used the DAC1 calibrated output from the hot pin of the XLR since that gives the lowest output impedance and the best sound. Other options all use some sort of Lpad made of either fixed resistors or a pot and turning it down makes it sound worse. I set the DAC2 up the same way but in fact you can turn the DAC2 down without loss in sound quality since it uses a 48bit dac and does volume control by simply sliding down the dac scale, i.e. no output impedance compromise.
Now that 5.5V level is really going to be spanking the input buffers of my Naim 82 compared to most sources.
The Teddy PSU’s are designed for minimum noise rather than the last word in voltage regulation so perhaps my source level is just pushing them a bit too far in terms of the available regulation.
So next I try various combinations of the DAC and Preamp volume settings with the APX4 and DTC. My findings are that the APX4 sounds pretty much the same with any combination of DAC output/preamp gain but the DTC is noticeably less happy with the DAC right up and the preamp low compared with the DAC half way up (which is about the same as a domestic digital source component) and the pre amp at more sensible gain. With the second settings the headroom issue disappears and the DTC and APX4 sound much closer, though I did still marginally prefer the APX4.
And now I’d better put the living room back together properly
