Naim Nait 3 "pops" when turned on
 

Hi There

I've a Naim Nait3 which I have had for a couple of years and have found
to be a very capable amplifier.

I do have one question though, which may sound a bit "dumb" but I
really don't know if this should happen or not.

When I switch the amp on, I hear a sort of "pop" sound from the
speakers, then a pause before another similar sound, it's only after
the second "pop" that I can hear anything coming through from any of
the inputs.

Also, when I turn the amp right down I can hear a quiet hiss coming
from the speakers.

Is this all normal behaviour or does the amp have a problem?

Thanks
Jon

Naim Nait 3 "pops" when turned on
 

wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi There

I've a Naim Nait3 which I have had for a couple of years and have found
to be a very capable amplifier.

I do have one question though, which may sound a bit "dumb" but I
really don't know if this should happen or not.

When I switch the amp on, I hear a sort of "pop" sound from the
speakers, then a pause before another similar sound, it's only after
the second "pop" that I can hear anything coming through from any of
the inputs.

Also, when I turn the amp right down I can hear a quiet hiss coming
from the speakers.

Is this all normal behaviour or does the amp have a problem?

Thanks
Jon


Two questions he- The easy one is the hiss, yes that's normal for all
amplifiers, there will be a little hiss. How audible it is depends on how
much hiss, and how efficient your 'speakers are. Into horns, even a little
hiss from the amplifier is audible, into "normal" speakers, it should be
inaudible at the listening position, and only noticeable if you are close,
say less than 50cm, from the 'speaker.

Regarding the pop, firstly, it's quite normal, several amplifiers do it, I
would only be concerned if it has previously never done it, and only just
started. Basically, the pop is caused by the amplifier stabilising when
switched on. Amplifiers with split supply rails and no output capacitor will
not necessaily come up totally symetrically, so some out-of-balance current
will flow through the loudspeaker, causing a pop. Amplifiers with a coupling
capacitor will have the capacitor charging current going through the
loudspeaker, causing a pop. There may be a similar pop on switch-off.

I'm not familiar with the specific circuit of the NAIT3 so I don't know if
it has relay switching of the 'speakers which could account for the two
pops, separated by a few seconds. If it has always done it, it's not
something I would worry about if the 'speaker cones don't move violently
with the pops. No damage will result, just a mild annoyance. If, however,
the 'speaker cones move violently in or out with the pop, then I would have
the amp seen to, as it's likely to be a fault, and could well damage the
'speaker suspension.

S.

Naim Nait 3 "pops" when turned on
 

In article , Serge Auckland
wrote:

wrote in message
oups.com...


Also, when I turn the amp right down I can hear a quiet hiss coming
from the speakers.


The easy one is the hiss, yes that's normal for all amplifiers, there
will be a little hiss. How audible it is depends on how much hiss, and
how efficient your 'speakers are. Into horns, even a little hiss from
the amplifier is audible, into "normal" speakers, it should be inaudible
at the listening position, and only noticeable if you are close, say
less than 50cm, from the 'speaker.

FWIW for the last 20+ years I've tended to regard it as unncessary for a
power amp to produce levels of hiss that are audible even with your ears
close to the speaker. However I'd agree this isn't unusual, and is
'harmless' if it can't be heard in the normal listening position. With the
amps I use it is therefore 'normal' for no hiss to be audible even if your
ear is just an inch or two from the speaker. But otherwise I'd agree with
what Serge wrote.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/AudioMisc/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/Audio/armstrong.html
Barbirolli Soc. http://www.st-and.demon.co.uk/JBSoc/JBSoc.html

Naim Nait 3 "pops" when turned on
 

"MrTea" wrote in message
ps.com...
Thank you very much. I think this is probably normal behaviour in that
case (it's happened ever since I bought the amp second hand from a
reputable hifi specialist shop, who I presume would have spotted any
problems with it)



snipped


I have thought long and hard about this but I think Digital Audio is
improving all the time, and can now be stored at near hifi quality so I
would rather have a single media store (with all the benefits this
offers) and a decent enough amp to power my Kef Concerto floorstanders
whilst also thinking (later) about whole house distribution.

My budget is modest!

Any thoughts or suggestions welcomed.


A single media store does have advantages, especially now that storage costs
have come down such that you can store CDs as linear WAV files, so
absolutely no quality loss over the original CD. A 300G hard drive will
store some 500 typical CDs without any compression, and some 2000 is you use
a modest 4:1 compression like 320kbps MP3.

However, there are some disadvantages:-

The storage box will not be silent, as big hard-drives make a noise. Add to
that the internal fan usually present, and it's like having a PC in the
room. Not a problem if you can put the box out of the way in another room,
under the stairs etc, but a nuisance if you have it in the same room.

If you don't back up your music collection, one day you will have a disc
crash and lose the lot. Backup is relatively easy, but if effectively
doubles the cost of storage. Alternatively, you can back up by keeping the
original CDs, but restoring your library of, say, 1000 CDs won't be
something to tackle in an idle half-hour.

The media store softwares I've seen are very good at getting track
information for most pop/rock CDs, but less good with Jazz and folk, and
pretty poor with classical. If you have an extensive classical music
library, you may find loading the player somewhat tedious, as it's pretty
much a manual operation.

In my own system, I play CDs manually, but I have a 200G hard-drive for my
laptop to take away on holiday. Occasionally at home I will use the laptop
as a source as with a Digigram sound card fitted, the performance is
indistinguishable from a CD player direct - except for the PC's noise of
course.

Regarding amplifiers, your Concertos were rated at 30 watts and I remember
them being extremely well driven by a Quad 303, so any modern 50 watt
amplifier should do a good job with them.

S.

Naim Nait 3 "pops" when turned on
 

Just spotted room for ambiguity in my previous post, my speakers are
relatively new Concerto 1s

http://www.kef.com/history/1990_2/concerto1.asp

Naim Nait 3 "pops" when turned on
 

"Serge Auckland" wrote in message
...

"MrTea" wrote


I have thought long and hard about this but I think Digital Audio is
improving all the time, and can now be stored at near hifi quality so I
would rather have a single media store (with all the benefits this
offers) and a decent enough amp to power my Kef Concerto floorstanders
whilst also thinking (later) about whole house distribution.

My budget is modest!

Any thoughts or suggestions welcomed.


A single media store does have advantages, especially now that storage
costs have come down such that you can store CDs as linear WAV files, so
absolutely no quality loss over the original CD. A 300G hard drive will
store some 500 typical CDs without any compression, and some 2000 is you
use a modest 4:1 compression like 320kbps MP3.

However, there are some disadvantages:-

The storage box will not be silent, as big hard-drives make a noise. Add
to that the internal fan usually present, and it's like having a PC in the
room. Not a problem if you can put the box out of the way in another room,
under the stairs etc, but a nuisance if you have it in the same room.

If you don't back up your music collection, one day you will have a disc
crash and lose the lot. Backup is relatively easy, but if effectively
doubles the cost of storage. Alternatively, you can back up by keeping the
original CDs, but restoring your library of, say, 1000 CDs won't be
something to tackle in an idle half-hour.



As ever, good advice from Serge - I would like to endorse the view that,
sooner or later, there very likely *will* be a failure in a mass storage
system. A possibly pessimistic, but not entirely *unrealistic*, rule of
thumb for a domestic 'power user' (based on personal experience and what I
have heard/seen from others in a similar position) would be a failure rate
of *one hard disk per annum*!!

Not to have a full backup (secondary storage) is a disaster waiting to
happen. I am now over the 2 TB mark myself (1400+ CDs, 430 DVD-Vs) - if I
had that lot stored singly on hard disk only and lost it, it would be a
tragedy/****er to put it very mildly! Even with a backup, the task of
reloading it all would not be a trivial undertaking....

Naim Nait 3 "pops" when turned on
 

"MrTea" wrote in message
oups.com...
Just spotted room for ambiguity in my previous post, my speakers are
relatively new Concerto 1s

http://www.kef.com/history/1990_2/concerto1.asp


Same advice really. These new Concertos are a fair bit more efficient than
the old ones, and handle a lot more power, so again, any modern half-decent
amplifier 50-100 watts + will do the job admirably. Whatever you like to
look and price of.

S.

Naim Nait 3 "pops" when turned on
 

"Keith G" wrote in message
...

"Serge Auckland" wrote in message
...

"MrTea" wrote


I have thought long and hard about this but I think Digital Audio is
improving all the time, and can now be stored at near hifi quality so I
would rather have a single media store (with all the benefits this
offers) and a decent enough amp to power my Kef Concerto floorstanders
whilst also thinking (later) about whole house distribution.

My budget is modest!

Any thoughts or suggestions welcomed.


A single media store does have advantages, especially now that storage
costs have come down such that you can store CDs as linear WAV files, so
absolutely no quality loss over the original CD. A 300G hard drive will
store some 500 typical CDs without any compression, and some 2000 is you
use a modest 4:1 compression like 320kbps MP3.

However, there are some disadvantages:-

The storage box will not be silent, as big hard-drives make a noise. Add
to that the internal fan usually present, and it's like having a PC in
the room. Not a problem if you can put the box out of the way in another
room, under the stairs etc, but a nuisance if you have it in the same
room.

If you don't back up your music collection, one day you will have a disc
crash and lose the lot. Backup is relatively easy, but if effectively
doubles the cost of storage. Alternatively, you can back up by keeping
the original CDs, but restoring your library of, say, 1000 CDs won't be
something to tackle in an idle half-hour.



As ever, good advice from Serge - I would like to endorse the view that,
sooner or later, there very likely *will* be a failure in a mass storage
system. A possibly pessimistic, but not entirely *unrealistic*, rule of
thumb for a domestic 'power user' (based on personal experience and what I
have heard/seen from others in a similar position) would be a failure rate
of *one hard disk per annum*!!

Not to have a full backup (secondary storage) is a disaster waiting to
happen. I am now over the 2 TB mark myself (1400+ CDs, 430 DVD-Vs) - if I
had that lot stored singly on hard disk only and lost it, it would be a
tragedy/****er to put it very mildly! Even with a backup, the task of
reloading it all would not be a trivial undertaking....

Perhaps my experiences may be of interest. I have been a music lover and
Record/CD collector all my (rather long) life - and like to regard myself as
an audiophile. About a year ago I was persuaded to explore the advantages
of storing my large music collection on my PC and listening via a media
player. I haven't looked back since! Listening to music has never been so
easy and so enjoyable for me. Comments on my system are listed below:

* The media player I use is a Squeezebox made by Slimdevices Inc. See:
http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_testimonials.html for some testimonials. This
is a wonderful box controlled by open source Slimserver software which runs
on your PC. It is high quality, robust, reliable and extemely easy to use.
The PC is in a separate room and connected to the Squeezebox by Ethernet or
WiFi.

* After careful listening tests I have found that, for me (and everybody
else that I know), digital audio at 192Kbps and above is indistinguishable
from the original CD. I have therefore ripped my CDs and LPs to mp3 at
192Kbps.

* My music library currently consists of over 7500 music tracks and
occupies about 55Gb. The library is backed up to three other hard drives
(large external USB2 hard drives are readily available for about £100)

* It is essential to ensure that the mp3 tags are properly organised into
Title, Artist, Album, Genre etc. so that the powerful browsing and searching
facilities in the Squeezebox can be used effectively. This will require
good tag editing software. The best I have found is DrTag, see:
http://www.drtag.de/en/ In my experience tags on commercial CDs are
invariably full of errors and spelling mistakes. It generally takes me
about 20 minutes to rip and tag a CD. It takes about 45 minutes to rip,
split into tracks and tag the music from an LP - this is additional to the
playing time of the LP since this is a real time process. A good audio
editor is required, I use CoolEdit (which has now been acquired by Adobe and
sold as Adobe Audition). Incidentally there is a very large supply of high
quality music in all genres available (free of charge) from the
alt.binaries.sounds.mp3.* newsgroups. I use Forté Agent to retrieve these
binaries.

* In summary I am now able to relax in my favourite armchair with the
Squeezebox remote at my hand and, within seconds, select the music to suit
my mood played through my hifi system in effectively CD quality. Nirvana!

Naim Nait 3 "pops" when turned on
 

"Malcolm H" wrote

Perhaps my experiences may be of interest. I have been a music lover and
Record/CD collector all my (rather long) life - and like to regard myself
as an audiophile. About a year ago I was persuaded to explore the
advantages of storing my large music collection on my PC and listening via
a media player. I haven't looked back since! Listening to music has
never been so easy and so enjoyable for me. Comments on my system are
listed below:

* The media player I use is a Squeezebox made by Slimdevices Inc. See:
http://www.slimdevices.com/pi_testimonials.html for some testimonials.
This is a wonderful box controlled by open source Slimserver software
which runs on your PC. It is high quality, robust, reliable and extemely
easy to use. The PC is in a separate room and connected to the Squeezebox
by Ethernet or WiFi.

* After careful listening tests I have found that, for me (and everybody
else that I know), digital audio at 192Kbps and above is indistinguishable
from the original CD. I have therefore ripped my CDs and LPs to mp3 at
192Kbps.

* My music library currently consists of over 7500 music tracks and
occupies about 55Gb. The library is backed up to three other hard drives
(large external USB2 hard drives are readily available for about £100)


Yes, that's the way to go!

I currently have 15,515 MP3 tracks backed up on various hard disks here and
there and also on a set of DVDRS which I replace periodically. The early
ones were ripped at 128K, the later ones at 256K as hard disk space became
cheaper.

I use them mostly for background music and can't really differentiate
between MP3 and CD, especially listening 'askance'. The ease of selection
makes it a doddle to sample forgotten and little-known stuff and frequently
brings a nice suprise, but when I want to properly 'put a bit of music on'
nothing beats an LP in my book....

;-)