hydra problem?

"Cable dressing" is the term for making sure all your cables run neatly and the mains stays away from signal cables.

thanks prowla,

So I take it that the break up of signal from the right speaker was likely to be caused by the mains cables being too close to the signal cables.

Is it possible that a fault with the hydra could have caused this symptom?

regards

David

Having assumed that it had been sorted on Wednesday evening, the problem returned last night on the first track I played! A distorted / intermittent signal from the right speaker.

I turned all the kit off immediately and disconnected the interconnect from Nait to CD5 and the speaker plugs and reconnected them. I also attempted some cable dressing and ensured that the mains leads were seperated from the signal leads.

On turning the boxes back on the problem did not return, but the system doesn't sound quite right.

I phoned grahams to ask if it was a possible problem with the hydra. They said that as long as the boxes were receiving power (lights were on) then the hydra was working and it must be something else, like a loose connection that had resulted from going behind the boxes to connect the hydra leads. As the naim interconects / snaics are locking DIN connections this doesn't seem plausible and the NACA5 with the Naim terminations are very strong connections into the back of the Nait.

It is all very odd. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Many thanks

For what it's worth, I wouldn't expect a problem with a mains cable to manifest itself in the way you are experiencing. I.e. I would expect both channels to be affected, if not simultaneously, then randomly.

Hi David

Intermittent problems are of course the most difficult to sort.

I would comment as follows :-

1. If your problem is on one channel only, then Grahams are obviously correct to assure you that the Hydra is not responsible - it is only a mains lead & is not carrying any channel information. The fact that the problem first manifested itself after you inserted the Hydra has to be coincidence.

2. Correct cable dressing is adviseable for optimum sound quality but is highly unlikely to cause intermittent loss of a channel - in fact, I would say it's impossible.

3. Therefore, it seems likely that problem lies either with a failing component on the right channel of the CD5 or Nait, or perhaps simply an intermittently poor connection inside one of these. Since the physical act of plugging/unplugging the IEC leads seems to make the problem appear/disappear, I would suspect the latter.

If you know what you are doing, it might be worth a look inside to see if anything is obviously loose.

Do you have another source component available - tuner or cassete deck ? If so, I would keep it powered-up ready for the next time you have a problem on CD replay - quickly switch the input selector on the Nait to the other source. If the right channel is still down, then the problem is clearly with the Nait - if the tuner/cassette sounds OK, your CD5(or Flatcap) is the culprit.

Otherwise, I would telephone Naim's service department for guidance.

Paul

Paul,

Thank you very much for taking the time to consider this and for replying in such detail.

I will try to diagnose the problem using another source as you suggest and will also look at the connections inside my intro 2s as helpfully suggested by Adam.

I will let you know how I get on.

Kind regards

David

David,

I know this wont help, but can assure you that i never experienced any problems with the CD5 and FC2 in the time i owned them.

Would have to agree with the others though that its unlikely to be caused by the Hydra.

When it happens again i guess you could disconnect both sets of speaker leads at the amp end and swap them over from left to right ( or whatever) ( do you use the Naim speaker plug blocks?? ). If the sound continues to be distorted from the same speaker, then you know its the speaker thats at fault. If the other speaker sounds wrong, then you know its one of the black boxes.

Hope you get it sorted soon

Craig

(keep us posted)

Thanks Craig,

I agree that it can't be the hydra causing it and the CD5 / FC2 have been superb up until Wednesday evening! It does seem bizzare however that the problem occurred straight after removing the old ICE leads and plugging in the hydra ones! I just wonder whether physically plugging in / removing the IEC leads may have caused an internal component (controlling right channel signal) in the CD5 to come loose. I have no idea, however whether the internal boards controlling right channel signal are sufficently close to the loose rear panel of the CD5 to cause this. I very much doubt it as it would surely be a common problem if this was the case.

I will no doubt learn more this weekend.

Regards

David

Re-reading, I agree that the mains cable seems unlikely to cause one channel to go on a wonk.
It could be that turning off/on happened to provoke a component failure.

All,

The problem appears to have been rectified. I uplugged the whole system on Saturday including speaker plugs and interconnect / snaic and set it up again along with some "cable dressing". Both speaker plugs were firmly into the nait and the speakers (as were the din connections) Since then the right channel has been fine and the whole system is sounding good again. I hope that is the end of it and the whole episode was very odd indeed! Many thanks again for all your helpful comments - much appreciated.

I also purchased two 300mm squared slabs of Belgian Blue Stone (on sale from the Fired Earth Factory outlet) to try to isolate the Intro 2s from our pine floorboards. The difference this granite-like stone has made is quite stunning. Bass so much more controlled and tighter and the detail in the treble / midrange is far better. For an outlay of £16.00 this has to be the best value for money upgrade I have made and I would thoroughly recommend it!

Regards

David

I guess it's also possible that one of the plugs wasn't in properly or was dirty.
Or maybe you've got a dodgey cable, and it now happens to have been positioned so that it makes a good contact...