In the six years since the last NAIT integrated amplifiers were released, our research and development team have worked on a range of amplifier improvements. The result is upgraded power amplifier sections for SUPERNAIT 3, delivering greater pace and intimacy to their musical delivery – whether it's driving a pair of loudspeakers or your favorite pair of headphones.
SUPERNAIT 3 has received significant performance upgrades, including a built-in phono stage, making it a perfect partner for turntables, as well as for streamers, CD players, or any other music source people want to enjoy with the signature Naim sound.
It also includes a Class A preamp output stage which doubles as a headphone amplifier and ceramic heatsink technology that minimizes capacitive coupling between the chassis and output transistors for optimum sound quality.
Its inputs are each individually decoupled and hand-wired to minimize noise and interference while internal switching employs ultra-low-noise, constant current sources which are derived directly from the electronic design of the flagship NAC 552 preamplifier.
The SUPERNAIT 3 can be upgraded with our external power supplies, power amplifiers and even cabling upgrades to get the best from all sources.
Features
With our typical obsessive attention to detail – all in service of achieving the most authentic musical performance – the SUPERNAIT 3 benefits from the following features:
- Class A headphone amplification
- Alps Blue Velvet volume control
- Reed relay input selection
- Ceramic insulators for the power transistors
- Galvanically isolated microprocessor control section
- Microphonic-isolating PCB mounts
Step up from the NAIT XS3 to the SUPERNAIT 3 and you benefit from a range of superior features, all designed to deliver even better sound quality:
- Full 24V DR module built-in: enjoy the purer power and performance improvement of Naim's Discrete Regulation technology for the entire pre-amp stage.
- Larger toroidal transformer in the power supply: provides greater power and speed of recovery
- Additional led through-hole components in the signal path: further minimizes negative effects of vibration and transient thermal conditions
- Chassis-mounted input sockets hand-wired to the circuit boards: offers enhanced vibration isolation
- Full Alps Blue Velvet balance control
Technology & Craft
The upgrades in more detail:
- Our R&D team has found a way to more than double the speed of the voltage gain stage, which in turn doubles the rate at which the speaker output stage can react.
- The second gain stage transistors have been optimized, so they no longer need to be shielded by a cascode stage transistor. Removing the cascode means less amplifier stabilization is required: that doubles the slew rate and delivers an uplift in sound quality.
- The phono circuit topology comprises 3 stages: the gain stage, passive equalization and final gain and active equalization. This enables excellent noise performance, extended RIAA equalization beyond the audio band and great overload headroom.
- All RIAA equalization capacitors and the RIAA resistors are 'through-hole' mounted film designs, with low microphonic pickup and excellent transient performance. As phono stages are 1000x more sensitive than other inputs, this greatly benefits the sound quality.
- Input impedance is 47kΩ in parallel with 470pF capacitive loading; the gain is perfect for 5mV moving magnet cartridges.
