I know I said I would wait till the TeddyCap was fully warmed up and bedded in, but I thought it might be useful to pen my first reactions.

The TeddyCap arrived a couple of hours ago. It’s a small, unasuming, lightish in weight box. Well made but nothing special. Connections are a doddle; they are similar to my existing, borrowed from a friend, Hicap.

The Hicap is chrome bumpered and works well but is in need of recapping. The Hicap has been installed for about a month and went through the usual Naim sonic rollercoaster of warming up. It came on true song about a week ago after three weeks.

First off I will say that just about all my listening to the TeddyCap was using my existing grey SNAIC 5. I briefly used the new one supplied and quickly switched back to the Naim one. I preferred this by quite a margin.

The TeddyCap after just two hours playing has the edge over the Hicap, I really wasn’t expecting that! I can tell from decades of Naim experience that there will be a burning in period of the TeddyCap; it sounds very, very Naim like, thank goodness. My fear was that the TeddyCap would be chalk and cheese compared to the Hicap, IMHO it’s actually quite close.

The plus points to the TeddyCap after just two hours are. More information coming off the CD and record, quite a lot more actually, my 72 has really opened up. There is no loss of prat, in fact I think there might even be a touch more.

The minus points so far are there is a bit less perceived bass and there is not quite the flow to the music that the fully warmed Hicap had. That said when the Hicap was first installed it nearly came out again as there were quite a few negative things that it did cold that have all but gone after the warm up.

The TeddyCap is already giving me shivers when a solo female voice is pretty much in your room or one can hear for the first time the use of the left hand on double bass hearing the about of sustain and vibrato the player was using. This all bodes very well.

As I said after just two hours the TeddyCap has the edge, can’t be bad for something that costs less than a third of a new Hicap. I promise I will not bore anyone with interim reports but I will tell you the updated story in about a month’s time.

Hats off to Teddy!

Bob,

I run a DTCII on a 282, and I love what it brings. I think that it might have slightly less impact in the bass than a single Hicap, but I felt that was a minor trade off for the naturalness of the rest of the range. I'm using Tedy snaics, and I'm on the point of trying some AR_sound snaics. Ari Rabinovic is a compadre of Teddy's and sells what he calls "green" cables on Ebay. I've got one between my phono stage and the preamp and one between the DTCII and the 200. A DTCII is half the price of a HiCap and can fulfill the role of two Hicaps (do the sums).

The slightly less impact in bass is likely down to lack of large electrolytic smoothing caps compared to the HiCap, meaning no stored charge for the PSU to rely on during low frequency transients?

Richard

The slightly less impact in bass is likely down to lack of large electrolytic smoothing caps compared to the HiCap, meaning no stored charge for the PSU to rely on during low frequency transients?

Richard

Hmm.. not so sure that's true in a preamp?

In the dual PSU I built for my pre-amp (torroids, large NAP 250 smoothing, VBE's and ALWSR's) I had noticeable changes when swapping the stock NAP 250 rectifiers with Schottky's, and also when going from full wave rectification to half wave (centre tapped xer's to remove 2 diode junctions) - so PSU changes do affect the pre-amp. Although the aforementioned changes cleaned up the blackness, preceived transient speeds and space around each instrument more than adding or removing bass.

Agreed that this is more so in a power amp with the larger current demands, but you also need to consider transient speeds to my mind. Teddy has previously commented that a big torroid and large smoothing values could potential offer gains over the smaller scale approach, but that he didn't feel the gains outweighed the costs.

Another consideration is that a more defined bass sound can sometimes come across as less bass, because poor control of the power rails can make for wooly bass.

All IMVHO - I am no engineer and have limited experience of such things outside of the PSU's I have built for my own use.

Richard

Another consideration is that a more defined bass sound can sometimes come across as less bass, because poor control of the power rails can make for wooly bass.


I think that's the main point. I have done many listening tests comparing the HiCap to the different power supplies that I've built over the years. There was one thing that remained constant, the HiCap has some emphasis of the mid-bass that makes it as you said, wooly. Sometimes this emphasis is pleasant (with some types of music), but IMO it's less natural. The TeddyCap goes lower with the bass, and the bass is more controlled. With small speakers the effect is less bass, with large speaker that can go lower the effect is more bass.

Arie Gur can probably comment on that, few weeks ago we compared the DualTeddyCap to his two olive HiCaps with his NAC82 and his first reaction was that there's *more* bass with the DualTeddyCap than with the two HiCaps.

BTW, larger capacitors will not add more bass to the TeddyCap. There are other ways to achieve more bass, but I don't think it's the right thing to do.

Teddy

it might seem like less bass to the uninitiated from a Teddycap, but trust me- I run a sub, it isn't, it's just tighter and righter with less overhang.

The worry of losing PRaT was something i had thought about like Bob has stated in the opening post. I was very pleased that it was all still there (and maybe more) along with bags of detail. I now have 4 Teddycaps (2 single and 1 dual with napsc output). I have never tried a Hicap but the Teddycaps walk all over the Flatcap2 and napsc i had previously been using.

I have done many listening tests comparing the HiCap to the different power supplies that I've built over the years. There was one thing that remained constant, the HiCap has some emphasis of the mid-bass that makes it as you said, wooly. Sometimes this emphasis is pleasant (with some types of music), but IMO it's less natural.

That about sums it up for me, I like the leaner more fleet footed approach of the DTCII.

I have the DTCIII instead of the DTCII, and the DTCII is soon to be on it's way to a new lowland home. I won't be able to make any direct comparisons. The first impression of the DTCIII is of even more clarity compared with the DTCII, but that doesn't takle away from how good the DTCII is.

The upgrade is about $250 all in by Teddy, including postage in both directions, sounds like it's worth it :)

Peter, I have gone from TeddyCapII to TeddyCapIII. I am very happy as you will be too..:)

It will take about two weeks to really sing.

I really had little time to listen last night, I must confess I'm not too scientific in my evaluations of new kit, I just bung on stuff I want to listen too and see how it touches me ;)

I'd say that the DTCIII is not so easy on the ear as the "new" DTCII was straight out of the box. It still sounds lighter than the run in DTCII, but even a couple of hours of use had it sounding sweet and very very subtle. I had time to listen to some of a CD by Enrico Rava (Tati, it's trumpet, piano & drums), this music is not interesting under some circumstances, in the car for instance.

The very low noise of the DTCIII brings the subtle interplay on this disc into very much clearer focus. I know that you can't actually see musicians whilst listening to a CD, but when you watch a group live you see how they are paying attention to each other. The DTCIII highlights that sense of co-operation and interplay.

I'm looking forward to the DTCIII settling even more. I'd add that the DTCIII highlights, even more, the "fat" mid bass of a Hicap. If you like sugar in you coffee, you might well prefer the HiCap sound.

I'm looking forward to the DTCIII settling even more. I'd add that the DTCIII highlights, even more, the "fat" mid bass of a Hicap. If you like sugar in you coffee, you might well prefer the HiCap sound.

Peter, I also thought this at first but over the next two weeks I found that the scale and the PRAT of the mkIII was greater than the mkII. To start with I found the mkIII a touch too refined but it develops 'balls' quite soon ;)

Peter, I also thought this at first but over the next two weeks I found that the scale and the PRAT of the mkIII was greater than the mkII. To start with I found the mkIII a touch too refined but it develops 'balls' quite soon ;)

Bob,

Quite a lot of kit is light from the word go and then fills out. The Beresford was like that. I just don't remember with the DTCII a particularly dificult break in period, but the DTCIII did appear a different beast.

My system does need to stabilise, I'll be getting an avondale 260 very shortly, in fact I should be reminding Les this week, but I'm going to wait at least another week to give the DTCIII some time to settle ;) The audicom CDX has hardly 30 hours of listening since I got it back, so you can see it's really hard to eveluate at the moment.

I must also try a green, yellow or blue in place of the Hiline one of these days, and then there's the Teddy XPS, which now I have the DTCIII strikes me as a mandatory buy :D

So, loads to do :D

More time with the DTCIII last night. Teddy was right when he said it impoved over the DTCII and that it was worth the extra cost. 5 days of DTCIII being on and it really let's you into the music. Subtelties that are masked with a HiCap are easily heard, such details as vocal harmonies, complexity of guitar licks etc.

I feel it's less "forward" than a HiCap, and more "open".

As I said after just two hours the TeddyCap has the edge, can’t be bad for something that costs less than a third of a new Hicap. I promise I will not bore anyone with interim reports but I will tell you the updated story in about a month’s time

Had mine since the middle of May; bloody marvellous. Leave it on overnight during the day with the mute switch on in fact anytime you are not listening to it.

Not heard a HiCap on my system the teddy was a bargain. The bass is superb and just gets better.
Goes great with the dacmagic and squeezebox I bought this week.

The house we moved into is not an ideal listening environment but since I got the Teddy I've not listened to so much music in a long long time.

to warm up this thread: i am about to order a DTCIII (202 & Superline).

regarding the cables - are the supplied ones okay or shall i buy addtl. black snaics and stuff?

regards
+BF

I'd stick with the supplied ones, which are very good quality and unlikely to be bettered by stock Naim cables.

I'd stick with the supplied ones, which are very good quality and unlikely to be bettered by stock Naim cables.

I would agree there given my experience of the TCII I bought last Dec

ok thanks. very much looking forward to try the cap on the 202...
i will report here ;)

regards
+christian

ok thanks. very much looking forward to try the cap on the 202...
i will report here ;)

regards
+christian

You will be in for a treat :)

The supplied cable is excelent BTW, it takes about a week to burn in but so does the TC3.

I now have well bedded in TC3 and Teddy XPS. No going back to Naim power supplies now....

I'd already gone with AR_Sound snaics and passed the cables delivered with the DTCIII to the person who bought my DTCII.

peter

just a quick one: what did the ar sound snaics do what the teddy cables didn't? weight/body? prat? naturalness? smoothness?

just good to know when i have to finetune...

regards
+christian