Thoughts on New Audio Frontiers

My dear pals,
Never mind, forget it. No,no - it's too late now. I went and did it myself - without you - all by myself... Ha!

I know it's too late, but from my experience with the NAF Legend-II amplifier I can tell you that careful matching with cables and speskers is essential.

Thus, it sounds awful with my Silverline Sonata-III speakers but sounds marvellous with my Nightingale CTR.2 open baffle speakers.

It is excellent with classics, less so with Jazz, and does not "read" poor quality CDs - it becomes constrained and unnatural. With good quality CDs it sounds rounded and full-bodied.

Thanks for the heads-up Transl. I expect to take delivery either this week or the next. The Nightingales look interesting. I'm also keen to read the responses to Tvad's Audio Note loudspeaker inquirey.

Too late I know, but I have had their preamp for about 4 years now, and it has been a great find.

I have compared it against a decent amount of preamps and it is tough to beat, especially a the current asking price. At that price it is probably the best deal going, assuming you don't want lots of bells and whistles.

The phono stage is quite good as well.

Someday soon I will be upgrading amps, and the the 845 or 300B amps form NAF are something I will have to amke sure I get into to my room to ehar before going any other direction.

NAF themselves have been pretty easy to work with over the years.

Soliver, I'll be getting the Special Edition 300b Integrated. Based on the good things that I've read about your preamp, I was initially hoping that some of it's circuitry would be incorporated in the integrated, but I've been informed that the preamp function consists of a passive attenuator.

The manufacturer insists that the NAF will need a good 200 hours of break-in, but I'm elated enough, even at this very early stage, to report that this has been a very significant step toward the type of sound that I'm looking for. That said, there's still much tweaking to do and I'm sure that changes in associated equipment will be needed to realize the amp's full potential. If I was to choose a single element that stands out right now, I would have to say it's the frequency extremes. I expected that beautiful 300b midrange, but I wasn't quite prepared for such airy highs or the extended, tight base, especially since my current speakers are at the extreme low end of NAF's minimum efficiency recommendation.