NACA5 OR Nordost Flatline?

Tony !

Naim + Naim =

Naim + XYZ =


Ozren

Personally I find nordost cable to be bright and a little thin. I don't like it. That said, a lot of people like it very much. If you're happy, stick with it. If you're in doubt get your dealer to lend you a demo run of NACA5 so you can try it over a weekend.

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

The Nordost is higher capacitance and lower inductance than NACA 5. This leads to a brighter sound with less bass.

Depending on the balance of the system/room/speakers at present, this difference may come across as welcome or not. I like a full, forward sound so its NACA 5 for me.

- GregB

Insert Witty Signature Line Here

...but seems to be the result.

I compared Kimber TC4 to NACA 5 and the result was as Naim Audio North America predicted. NANA also told me that longer runs of NACA 5 will lead to more bass and less up top.

- GregB

Insert Witty Signature Line Here

quote:

---

The Nordost is higher capacitance and lower inductance than NACA 5. This leads to a brighter sound with less bass.

Depending on the balance of the system/room/speakers at present, this difference may come across as welcome or not. I like a full, forward sound so its NACA 5 for me.

---

I have to agree with Greg. I was persuaded to try the recommended speaker cable to go with my Totem speakers. It was a bit bright and thin.
Returning to NACA5 produced the effect described above, which in my system suited me.

Incidentally given a piece of cable and no specs how does somebody measure capacitance without lots of electronic gizmos to hand?

Comments invited from the engineers

regards

GEOFFP

"Incidentally given a piece of cable and no specs how does somebody measure capacitance without lots of electronic gizmos to hand?"

Slot it into your Naim system and see how it sounds

Yea, Kimber TC4 was a non-starter when I ran it with Totems at home.

- GregB

Insert Witty Signature Line Here

Hmmm

my experience with snormost cables is that the impart a presence to guitar strings, and a far from neutral. Thinner in balance... ooopps could they in fact be working as a tone control? 'Screw up the timing less than most cables.

Back to the thread topic - NACA5.

Rico - SM/Mullet Audio

There seemes to be to be mixed reviews on Nordost cables.

My dealer pressed into my hand a Nordost Silver Shadow to dem against the basic IXOS I currently have connecting my Roksan DP-1 Transport to the DA-1 DAC. I'm not 100% sure yet but something has changed (I've left it playing away for 48 hours so far).

Anybody else used this connect and what they think?

Rest of sistem: 72/Hi/135/IBL Mk2s.

Looking for maximum PRaT and musical enjoyment. I notice bad treble more than no bass (hey I have IBLs so I wouldn't know bass if it jumped up and hit me).

I knew I should have bought a Naim CD player. All this cables stuff is silly

Andrew

I replaced a Chord digital interconnect with a Nordost Silver Shadow between a Theta Data Basic and a DataBasic Pro3 DAC - the effect was an incredible improvement - presumably due to reduced jitter - I was very impressed, but the Theta gear is pretty top-end stuff.

Nic P

Hi,
A year ago or so I compared the NACA5 and Nordost cables with a Linn speaker and a B&W speaker. The result was that the Nordost cable was better with the B&W speaker and the Naim cable was better with the Linn speaker.

Everything was clearer and more crispy with the Nordost on both speakers, but the bass got lost when connected to the Linns. An unnatural bright sound.

The Naim cable must have managed to give the Linn's more input bass to work with, since the result was so much better.

The B&W's had a slightly boomy bass when using the Naim cable. However, with the Nordost connected, bass was steady and natural.

So, if you have slightly bright sounding speakers, Nordost cables don't make a good choice, at least form my small experiment. But they probably make an improvement over the Naim cable if you are using more bass oriented speakers, such as Dynaudio or B&W.

Has anyone tried QED, Kimber or other brand?

/Mats

I had similar experience to Mats when I tried A5 between my Nait and Monitor Audio R352s. Compared with the pre-existing QED79, the A5 produced a rather flabby bass and lost a lot of the top-end detail. As a result I stayed with the QED79.

I know most people on here believe A5 is the best whatever your speakers are, but that's certainly not my experience and many dealers don't seem convinced by the argument either. It does seem speakers other than Naim ones may work better with alternative cables.

David

David

it seems you have just described a classic case of fault-masking in your system. When emplying the NACA5 the additional bass information presented to your R352s was not handled well which sounded like a flabby bass... could this have been the R352's inability to work right or something else in the system that was amiss?

Rico - SM/Mullet Audio

Sorry Rico, I don't buy that argument, for one thing it simply doesn't explain what happened to all the top-end detail which went awol. For another thing why do some people insist that any subjective preference for other than A5 is merely 'fault-masking'.
To my mind it's perfectly logical that Naim speakers and electronics which are designed to work with A5 will usually perform better with this cable, but equally it's logical that you can't extrapolate that to other makes of speaker that were NOT designed round NACA5. Many of these by example have been shown to work better with other makes of speaker cable. It's a pity some people seem unable to grasp this simple fact.

David

"Opinions are like belly-buttons, everybody's got one"

Nic

Thanks for the reply.

Just to let you know what I found.

I found that with my CD trans / DAC combo somethings (the treble in particular) was clearer and the instruments better spaced. However, the whole feel was not to my taste.

I tried a couple of other cables but what I have come to the conclusion is that while the Roksan is a good combo (it has been fully Attessa's etc) its not good enough for the rest of the kit any more.

I was going to get a 52/Supercap next and am now wondering whether a CD upgrade maybe a better option. After all source first then push though upgrading the 72/Hi to 72/Super then 52/Super (or equivalent).

The only question is whether the budget will stretch to a CDS2/XPS or CDS3/XPS and how long to wait for it.

Andrew