Hi. Cdx2, xps2, 82, 250/2, HiC, hiline all on ikea corras derived wooden equipment stands. B&W nautilus 804. Sound verges on harsh on occasions. Any obvious suggestions for areas to concentrate on next. Preamp? Power supply or maybe even what it all sits on? Thanks.

I would seriously consider a very good system support. I use the corras and they do a job, but with your kind of setup you are not getting the best out of it with the corras. Depending on your budget I would look at the Fraim, or if thats too expensive then maybe the Isoblue or Huttter. Again depending on your budget maybe replace the 82 with a 282. You have a few options.

Fraim or Allaes

quote:

Originally posted by uham:
Hi. Cdx2, xps2, 82, 250/2, HiC, hiline all on ikea corras derived wooden equipment stands. B&W nautilus 804. Sound verges on harsh on occasions. Any obvious suggestions for areas to concentrate on next. Preamp? Power supply or maybe even what it all sits on? Thanks.

I would do the followings in the order of priority:

1) Sell the 82, get the 72.
2) Get some sensible stereo rack. Fraim is too expensive and it looks nice but I doubt that it brings better sound improvement over some cheaper alternatives.
3) You do not say anything about the speaker cable. However, if they are non-Naim, get the Naim one asap.

uham,
whatever you do...dont take the bad advice offered by imperialline. you dont want to go from the excellent 82 to a 72 !
everything depends on your budget of course but the sensible approach would be 282/fraim and even possible supercap.
scotty

quote:

Fraim is too expensive

cheaper than most decent furniture and one piece of kit you'll never want to upgrade

until the Super-Fraim comes out with Corian rather than MDF shelves

wouldn´t say imperiallines advises are bad , but maybe a 282 / and a fraim would fit better in

your set def. deserves the fraim. and don´t underestimate the effect of that support. in my set ( old olive reference set up ) the fraim solved all problems ( before it sounded boomy and slow and boring ). one year ago i sold the refernce set up , but kept the fraim ..it is expensive though and you could look for some alternatives. i don+t doubt , that corras works some places, but not necessary everywere.

regards
p

quote:

Originally posted by scottyhammer:
whatever you do...dont take the bad advice offered by imperialline. you dont want to go from the excellent 82 to a 72 !
scotty

This is actually based on my own personal experience. You would of course get to listen to the 282/72 and make a decision yourself. I know I did before going to the 252 eventually.

Uham,

I'm looking at your system and the speakers you have and understand them to be very power greedy. I reckon if you biamped with another 250/2 or got a NAP300 the power will be greater for the bass and the harseness will dim.

I experienced something similar to that but the extra power of my NAP300 made my B&W805s sing. The 804s can only be more greedy.

I think I'll buy the 804s myself, but I advise you note the power issue!

Good luck,

Jon

I second that a Fraim audition is a good idée. (It’s my most recent upgrade)

I am not that familiar with the olive kit, but I would at least audition a supercap(2) with your 82 if you consider the preamp route. I still think that going from HC2 to SC2 on my 282 was the musically most rewarding upgrade I have done. Also, it leaves the door open for 282/252 or a 52 in the future…

CDS3 or PS555 are also very nice!

If any of the options are sensible!? Hmm, maybe a used SC could be considered that? (or not)

Good Luck

quote:

Originally posted by imperialline:

quote:

Originally posted by scottyhammer:
whatever you do...dont take the bad advice offered by imperialline. you dont want to go from the excellent 82 to a 72 !
scotty

This is actually based on my own personal experience. You would of course get to listen to the 282/72 and make a decision yourself. I know I did before going to the 252 eventually.

And very interesting to me, who kinda does not disagree. The 72 is likely to be much more to the taste of some than the 82, which is a pre-amp that would have me listening to my Model One Tivoli in preference.

To better the 72, for me, would require a 52 [which I once had, so my current 72 fills some fairly big boots you might think!], but the 52 is still too expensive for what is not a big enough jump in quality. I do like every one of the new series pre-amps [except the defunct 112/112x], and any would be better than the 82 for me, and some are not more expensive than the 82 second hand. A 252 would be decisively finer, I do agree. Where the 72 exactly fits into the new series in terms of listenability, I have never tried to find out, as I simply find it without flaw and therefore have no particualr interest in this aspect just now.

George

quote:

The 72 is likely to be much more to the taste of some than the 82, which is a pre-amp that would have me listening to my Model One Tivoli in preference.

Wow - how we hear things differently.

I have listened to the 72 on numerous occasions both before and after the 82 became available and I have heard a 72/Supercap - but it for me it is nowhere near as good as the 82.

I adore Royd Minstrels though George

Chris

quote:

Hi. Cdx2, xps2, 82, 250/2, HiC, hiline all on ikea corras derived wooden equipment stands. B&W nautilus 804. Sound verges on harsh on occasions. Any obvious suggestions for areas to concentrate on next. Preamp? Power supply or maybe even what it all sits on? Thanks.

Hi Uham - how much money are you thinking of spending on your next upgrade?

Cost aside, I think your pre-amp should be your next focus. Though I've never tried doing this myself, just from reading other posts here it seems that mixing olive and black amplification can yield mixed results + the 'house sound' of the new black kit seems less in-your-face/harsh than the 'house sound' of the olive kit (though some think that the new kit is less involving)... so I'd consider replacing the 82 with either a 202 or higher (plenty of reading here on the 202 vs. 82 if you play with the search function).

I have a 202/250.2/B&W804S setup, and while moving up the Naim power amp chain will obviously yield better results (even with less hungry speakers), I think the the 250.2/804 combination works rather well. Never felt that my current combination was harsh or ran out of oomph, so if you like the Naim+B&W sound, I'd leave the power amp and speakers well alone for right now and see if changing your pre-amp gives you the result you're looking for.

Also - not sure what speaker cable you're using, but if not NACA5, I'd give that a try too.

Probable an open door but the occasional harshness is not from specific recordings? (there are a lot of them out there) Looking at your kit harshness is not the first thing that springs to mind imo.

I do think your components deserve a somewhat better support though.

Richard.

Thanks all for your comments and advice. As much as I'd love to go for Fraim even I am struggling to rationalise and justify in my own mind laying out best part of £2k to do so. So rack wise I think the consensus seems to be Isoblue or Hutter. Isoblue certainly well inside target price range.

I think the occasional harshness seemed to come along when I went 82 from 102, though I did see and continue to enjoy the positives of that move overall.

A further alternative thought, should I also consider a second HiC?(by the way my HIC is a yr2000 Olive series.

Thanks again

quote:

Originally posted by uham:
A further alternative thought, should I also consider a second HiC?(by the way my HIC is a yr2000 Olive series.
Thanks again

This has been mentioned a few times on this forum, and the general finding seems to be that the two hi-caps on a 82 need to be balanced... similar age, condition and service history.

It would probably make sense to buy a supercap and use the burndy cable, this has been reported on before to very agreeable effect.
(Also, this may help to solve that occasional harshness you hear).

Supercaps are expensive, even second hand olive's, and you'll need a burndy cable too, but you could sell your present hi-cap to help fund this...?

Also, when you have a burndy/supercap you could, when funds permit, upgrade from the 82 to a 52 or 252 : )

regards ~
nymph

555PS