NAIT XS 3

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 NAIT XS 3, delivering greater pace and intimacy to their musical delivery – whether it’s driving a pair of loudspeakers or your favourite pair of headphones.

The NAIT XS 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 signature Naim sound.

The NAIT XS 3 offers much of the performance of our reference-quality SUPERNAIT 3 in a simpler, slimmer package combining a 70W power amplifier with five analogue inputs plus a phono stage. Its high-performance preamplifier stage is as transparent as you would expect from a Naim Audio amplifier, and it also shares the single-ended class-A headphone output of its larger sibling.

The NAIT XS 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 NAIT XS 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

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 optimised, so they no longer need to be shielded by a cascode stage transistor. Removing the cascode means less amplifier stabilisation is required: that doubles the slew rate and delivers another uplift in sound quality.

• The phono circuit topology comprises 3 stages: the gain stage, passive equalisation and final gain and active equalisation. This enables excellent noise performance, extended RIAA equalisation beyond the audio band and great overload headroom.

• All RIAA equalisation capacitors 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 470F capacitive loading; the gain is perfect for 5mV moving magnet cartridges