Alternative Naim PSUs

[MikeMusic]

I improved the sound of my Naim 82 with a 2nd HiCap
I see I can make it even better with a SuperCap
but
some say
TeddyCap
or Sonic Bliss
is even better for a lot less dough ?

Anyone have experience of these ?

Mike

[sq225917]

Mike, the list goes like this,

Avondale Audio: ASR (hicap internal upgrade) MSX, TPX1 and TPX2
Teddy Pardo: teddycap, teddycap+ (inc napsc) dual teddycap, and superteddycap

The Sonic bliss supplies are reasonably well regarded on a budget but have neither the technically prowess or proven brand backup offered by teddy and Les.

I currently own an MSX and a TPX1 from Avondale, at other times I've have Hicaps (straigth and 3rd party modded) Teddycap and quad railed Superteddyregged power supplies and dual rail Avondale TPR2 regged supplies of my own construction in my set up.

They all sound a little different, some may light your candle more than others. There is more to life than than the NAim option that is for sure. it would be difficult to sum up the differences in a few words and there are such difference between how they react with components. For example I prefer my TPX on my Prefix, but it wasn't my preferred choice with my 72 was a teddycap. You really need to try them.

[Artifolk]

Teddy's SuperCap.

This is one option i'll be looking at later this year to compare against my SuperCap2.
Teddy appears to be held in high esteem regarding his PSU's.

[sq225917]

His psu's are very low noise, but they are filters and not active regulators and they don't have a zero output impedance as many regulators effectively have. Horses for courses, i found them very good for lower bandwidth circuits but I prefer other regulators for digital and output stages.

I have an Msx that someone can borrow if they'd like.

[ursus262]

Teddy Pardo: teddycap, teddycap+ (inc napsc) dual teddycap, and superteddycap


?????

[MikeMusic]

Thanks Charles
Do you know someone who has compared the 2 ?

[MikeMusic]

Thanks
Any stories of damage to the Naim Pre amps anywhere ?

[MikeMusic]

Thanks. Wish it was simpler !
Whose PSUs ?
Where on earth could I/we listen and compare Naim/Avondale/Teddy/SonicBliss ?
I assume the best we could hope for is 2 at a time

[sq225917]

Never heard of any damage from using Avondale of Teddy PSU's.

Neither Avondale or Teddy have dealer sin the Uk so you are at the mercy of friends of the brand. Pinkfishmedia.net would be the best site to ask for help. Both Les and Teddy post there.

[MikeMusic]

Thanks Simon
I forget why but I had discounted Avondale as viable
Just the one guy isn't it ?

[DSJR]

No, I believe he has an engineer assistant at least..

FFS, you can get a really good sound out of a maplin 24V linear supply hidden in a HiCap box, according to Rob Holt, who fooled a good few people with this trick I understand. No need to be too anal about it as it's not rocket science. I do very much respect les's work now I understand it rather better and his power supplies aren't just a transformer with a handful of cheap components in a box, yet sell for half that of the originals which are just that...

[chrism]

If you do decide to give the Avondale PSU's ago look at two of the MSX supplies. Les told me that they work very well with the 82 and better than the TPX1 type.

He offers a return policy if you are not happy with things so you can't really go wrong.

Regards

Chris

[YNWaN]

I've had he Naim, Avondale and Teddy options in my system and as sq states, they are all slightly different flavours of much the same sort of thing. Ultimately, I'm more than happy to keep my Hi-Cap driving my pre-amp and didn't feel the alternative options were actually better (just different). If I didn't already own the power supplies I do, I may feel different (I might also just buy a second-hand Hi-Cap).

I don't know about the current Teddy options, but the Avondale doesn't allow the earthing to be configured in the way Naim prefer. I know that Avondale feel their choice of grounding scheme is better, but I have compared both ground systems and significantly preferred the Naim option.

Both Avondale and Teddy are, essentially, one man bands. I don't really know anything about Teddy but Les has a couple of helpers - all Avondale stuff is very neatly made and professional.

[Artifolk]

Thanks Charles
Do you know someone who has compared the 2 ?


Sorry for the late reply,

No, hence why i want to give it a try.
Another company producing there own versions of XPS and Hicap. http://www.custom-hifi-cables.co.uk/

I know nothing of them, just came across their site while browsing.

[MikeMusic]

Thanks
And Russ Andrews has one customer say on his website the PowerPaks he has now are better than the HiCaps he replaced ....
Gets me to wondering what we could knock up in our shed to replace a lot of our kit

[MikeMusic]

I generally go for 2nd hand kit now, that I can sell on for little loss - even though a little voice inside me says I kept everything I bought
Keep being taken by the idea of a 52, Supercap, 552 and other.
If I'm tinkering I'm happy to do that
What I really should do is make some time and go listening to a lot more kit and, gasp, it may not be Naim :-)
What I really need to do is more music and less work !

[MikeMusic]

Ah thanks. Very nice to know that. Gets confusing when you have people saying how wonderful whatever they have is compared to x
Sounds like I ought to leave this one alone unless I get a silly cheap option to try out for myself

[MikeMusic]

No prob's
From what we have above 'different' rather than 'better'
I much prefer a clear 'better'
When I have 'different' I gets confused !
More and more Naim clones coming about
If there was sensible way of measuring the amount of business Naim do in their target market I wonder what sort of percentage and what volume - cos all these clones must be making money - or thinking they can

[alan47]

I used an olive hicap,a new teddy cap mk2 and an early sonic bliss,with my Naim CD5 and i have to say that the hicap was "better".Mind you i sold them all and got a Squeezebox Touch which i think is even better...:D And i very nearly got all my money back on all of them...

[MikeMusic]

Like it.
That's what I think/hope I can do when I move on to another piece of kit