Asr basis exclusive or naim superline+hicap2

I think it depends on which ASR you get. If you grab an older 2006 model I think you are looking at the best of both worlds. I finally got to listen to the gold board vs my blue 2006 and I understand what the distributor means when he says it's more of a vintage sound. I think that you get more of the tactile instrument touching as well as a wonderful rendering of the the room that the music was recorded in. Air and warmth. It's really a wonderful sounding unit. I haven't heard the Naim in my system so comments would be useless. All I know is that a friend who has regular access to about 12 of the top units (a recording industry executive) prefers the ASR to anything until you get up to the Burmeister, Boulder, Constellation stratosphere. I'm surprised you can't find a Naim to demo. Those dealers are usually super accommodating. Nice thing about buying an ASR used at a good price is that you can always re-sell it.

It only get better! I leave mine in the Line position when I'm not playing it and switch to battery when I listen. Distributor agreed that keeping it powered up all the time is good but I hadn't really tested it until power went out at my house for a day and when I turned it back on, took a few days before it sounded as good again. It was really interesting because I was complaining that the power outage hurt something somewhere and my wife came over and listened for a bit. She said "It sounds good, but it doesn't sound special." I was special again in a few days. It's a really nice way to describe the ASR sound.

FWIW I got the same advice. I went with the Furutech AG12 Balanced XLR Phono Cable from my Moerch arm but I use RCA outs on the Basis.

Stanwal, if you are going to a passive, please try the Lightspeed. I have a custom LIghtspeed LDR-type preamp built by someone with Georges blessing. I can't describe the difference between it and the passives I tried, except to say it's just not there. Completely transparent. I compared it straight up most recently to the Dodd Audio Battery Tube Buffer passive and mine killed the Dodd, which still sounded great, but there something about those LDRs.

Enjoy! I'm sure it'll sound fantastic!