Neil's Secondhand Naim Buyers Guide
ACTIVE CROSSOVERS
Naxo 2 or 2-4
The older Naxo 2 units came in a long thin box (rather homemade looking)
for 2 way speakers such as Linn Kans and Saras, which had a mother board
with 4 slot-in boards. It would be powered from a single 24 v supply (ie,
a Snaps). If you going to tweak the crossover then these old ones are good
value as you can rehouse them and change the old components etc. Second
hand price about 60 quid. The newer Naxo 2-4 units come in the preamp
style boxes and will tend to go for somewhere around 200 pounds. These
days Naxo 2-4s are for the SBL speaker. In fact there isn't a lot of
difference between, say, the Kan and SBL crossovers.... the treble part is
the same, and the bass rolls off at slightly different frequencies (quite
easily adjusted by replacing a few components). In my experience, the SBL
crossover works fine with normal 2 way speakers that have a crossover
somewhere in the 3 kHz region. Naim will however, modify old boards (eg,
to move a crossover point).
Naxo 3 or 3-6
This was the same as the 2, but was designed for 3 way speakers (ie, the
Linn Isobariks) and has 8 slot-in boards (the mid range uses 2 lots
cascaded). Again ran from a single 24 v supply. Second hand price about
75 quid. Again the newer ones are in the newer boxes, and the modern Naxo
3-6 affairs are designed for the DBL rather than the Isobarik (I'm not
sure what differences there are).
Snaxo
As I understand it Naim have basically kept the same circuit as before,
but relaid the circuit out, and cut the power rails such that each part
(eg, left high freq) is powered with 2 separate rails. So although the
`Super Naxo' can work with a Hicap (and sounds better than the old Naxo so
I'm told) you can power it with a SuperCap so utilising many of the power
rails. I doubt any of these have yet hit the second hand market
unfortunately.