A suggestion for Naim-audio re. interconnects.

Rico:

Has your system always sounded wonderful, right out of the box? You never had any setup problems to deal with? If so, you're either extremely lucky, or more tolerant of bad sound than I am.

I once had an active SBL system that sounded absolutly dreadful in my room. Describing what was wrong required the use of those "hifi" terms you treat with such disdain. Nevertheless, BECAUSE of the awful sound, there was NO MUSIC to be listened to. Can you wrap your mind around this concept?

Those of us futzing around trying to find the most pleasing system are doing it in pursuit of enjoying music more. I don't care much about "spacious soundstages," etc, etc, but I don't want saxophones to sound like kazoos, or for the entire presentation to sound as if it's being sat on somehow.

Do cables have a sound of their own? Who knows?! The only relevant factor is how they sound in the context of the equipment they're connecting. Those of us asking the question in this thread are all using a Naim source component on one end, at least. In my own situation, even if I go back to using a Naim preamp (which solves the cabling problem between cd player and pre) I'm still faced with a din-to-xlr cabling issue between pre and active speakers.

Once again: if you haven't got any sort of relevant answer to the question posed at the top of the thread, just smirk to yourself and go back to listening to music content in the knowledge that there are some things in the world you needn't worry about because you've got it sussed.

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Originally posted by RSH:
Sorry for getting annoyed in the beginning. I can't stand arrogant people that pretend to have all the answers. I usually find that what they think they know isn't as good or equaled to others around him.

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OK, here's one for you. Have you actually tried your CDX, in your system, on a Fraim?

Racks aren't just for all-Naim systems.

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Here's a concept for the full Naim owners. If you really insist that it is ALL Naim ONLY or no way at all then it seems that most people here are missing the mark. If you want to be a purist than there is no middle ground, you have to have everything ALL Naim including the speakers along with having all components sitting on the Naim Fraim. Sorry but that's the way Naim insists on doing things for the TRUE Naim sound. Going all Naim but different speakers with a non-Naim rack seems to miss the mark of all Naim ONLY for true Naim sound. Different speakers would definitely create a different sound even with ALL Naim components. That's for all you purists out there that get offended when someone asks about a particular I/C.

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Nearly there now - 1/2 my racks to be replaced and I'm there (for CD, anyway).

cheers, Martin

E-mail:- MartinPayne at Dial.Pipex.com

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Do interconnects really have a "sound" of their own? Aren't the sound primarily dependent on the compenents between which it is connected, impedance matching etc?

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'No' and 'yes'.

Unfortunately this thread is only for true believers so your questions are 'non-platform'.

Paul

jimlevitt said

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Has your system always sounded wonderful, right out of the box? You never had any setup problems to deal with? If so, you're either extremely lucky, or more tolerant of bad sound than I am.

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Of course it hasn't, Jim. I've just worked through these issues sensibly. And where appropriate, just left the system to settle for a couple of weeks before launching in to the fix process - rather than making unpteen changes to fix something that needs to settle. Mike Hanson will no doubt recall the repetitive nature of such advice in response to his posts many years ago, where a new bit of kit was installed, "didn't sound right" and prompted a ten-page thread on the forum and loads of anguish.

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I once had an active SBL system that sounded absolutly dreadful in my room. Describing what was wrong required the use of those "hifi" terms you treat with such disdain. Nevertheless, BECAUSE of the awful sound, there was NO MUSIC to be listened to. Can you wrap your mind around this concept?

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of course, Jim! I trust you were able to banish such troubles and get back to the music, though. Do tell, what sort of fixes did you deploy in your system. Were there all sorts of radical cables to distract you further, or good old-fashioned careful setup and optimisation deployed to calm your troubled ears?

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Those of us futzing around trying to find the most pleasing system are doing it in pursuit of enjoying music more. I don't care much about "spacious soundstages," etc, etc, but I don't want saxophones to sound like kazoos, or for the entire presentation to sound as if it's being sat on somehow.

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Of course! Who likes kazoos anyway? I must ask at this point: for those spending so much time "find[ing] the most pleasing system" - what's your reference?

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Do cables have a sound of their own? Who knows?! The only relevant factor is how they sound in the context of the equipment they're connecting. Those of us asking the question in this thread are all using a Naim source component on one end, at least. In my own situation, even if I go back to using a Naim preamp (which solves the cabling problem between cd player and pre) I'm still faced with a din-to-xlr cabling issue between pre and active speakers.

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I feel for you, Jim. All these complex issues to deal with.

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Once again: if you haven't got any sort of relevant answer to the question posed at the top of the thread, just smirk to yourself and go back to listening to music content in the knowledge that there are some things in the world you needn't worry about because you've got it sussed.

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So what your saying is "F.R.O.", as I display little time or understanding for those who insist on collective sympathy and a body of agreement before spending further time and money on a system/interconnect/component, yes? Sir, I think thats more than a little out of order. Why are you so steamed up? I think we're both looking for the same thing - it appears you're having difficulty with an alternate approach. You might call this approach "KISS". Try it, you might like it!

warmest regards from sheepsville

Rico - SM/Mullet Audio

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My next move is to get a Mayware Din adapter.

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Good luck with the adaptor, Robert. I note that you're ignoring the advice of your dealer, and a number of posters here. Good for you! Get in there and do the hard yards!

Just remember to extrapolate a useful change in performance from what you hear with the adaptor to what the equivalent DIN-RCA terminated cable will provide, when you've settled on that ideal blend.

I know I should have mentioned this ages ago, but could someone take pity on Robert and send him a length of ARO cable? Please?

cheers

Rico - SM/Mullet Audio

Ooh I say.
Nowt upsets folk more around here than cables, stands and spurs.
I changed the lot in my system - interconnects and power carrying cables, and felt there was a beneficial 'effect'(see my public profile fo what I settled on).
Cables do affect (and have an effect ) on the sound IMO, but so does most equipment IMO.

I enjoyed trying differant cables, and feel my Naim sounds more musical with the usual naim attributes to boot.

Rico,

What does "F.R.O." mean ?

FYI, FRO = F*** Right Off.

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I know I should have mentioned this ages ago, but could someone take pity on Robert and send him a length of ARO cable? Please?

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I know someone else who swore by Aro cable but then he got a Densen amp and it didn't quite work as he had hoped, iirc.

This is the point - it's a case of square pegs into round holes. In an all-Naim system "expensive" or just different cables are a waste of money. In a system comprising of Naim at source and amplification by A.N. Other they make a difference.

I'm not suggesting that i/cs be used as tone controls and attenuate any part of the frequency range that doesn't behave itself.

Indeed it is because the Chrysalis interconnect is not telling the truth about the sound emerging from a CDX that the results are so unsatisfactory in musical terms. It is adding its own distortions/colorations, masking detail, limiting the bandwidth and generally strangling the CDX. All these deleterious effects are picked up by A.N. Other amplification in a way that isn't picked up by Naim amps, for whatever reason.

Why? I don't know and it's not the issue, so please, let's forget the religion and sheep worshipping at the altar of sacred cows. Let's just be honest and get on with the task outlined above - that is to make a Naim CDX sing to the best of its abilities into amplification by other manufacturers.

I/cs such as the Anthem (for exaple) are much more revealing and a a result make the CDX sound better, not worse. So, all I ask for is an i/c approved by Naim and/or its followers because it will be "capturing more detail and presenting it with even more tightly defined pitch, rhythm and timing" from a CDX (or any other player in the Naim range) into amplification that is not Naim but that which may posses many if not all of the musical virtues of Naim amplification.


Regards,

Steve.

[This message was edited by Steven Toy on THURSDAY 11 September 2003 at 01:44.]

Robert,

I may be getting the chance to hear another pair of i/cs that do the business. The guy in question is prepared to knock up a DIN/RCA i/c for me to try with no obligation to buy as well as a ready-made matching RCA/RCA. If I get to try them and I like them, you've then got two options:

1) Try my own Anthems.

2) Try what he has to offer.



Regards,

Steve.

RSH

I have in my possession 3 cables by the Chord Company. I use these to hook up a Rega cd player, Sony vcr and Panasonic dvd player to a Naim 32-5 pre amp. Different to your system I know but..

One of the cables is a Chrysalis, nuff said. The other two are both Cobra 2. One of these Cobra's is called a Super Cobra.
The difference is that the 'Super' has different plugs and is laid out in dual-mono construction ie 2 seperate leads into a 5 pin.

The dual mono cable yomps all over the standard one. Not subtle as they say. The top is sweeter, the bass less clunky & one note and the thing times better as well*.

You may think the Cobra is a waste of time, fair enough. But the 'Super' version sounds a lot nicer to my ears

Could be worth borrowing one for a listen?

Best o luck
redeye

* and NO I'm not imagining this

Hi Rico,

I'm wiped out at the end of the day, no fight left in me. So I'll likely be less rude than otherwise!

There was no solution to the SBLs sounding awful in my room, short of moving to another house. The SBLs went off to a friend up in Canada, where they lived very happily. Set up, warm up, and time were not sufficient to deal with fundamental issues of room layout and construction. I went back to searching for speakers that would make music in my living room (lounge for you chaps). My house does not have a room suitable to boundary design speakers, or I'd have been happily moving up the chain from Credos to SBLs to NBLs, all of which I owned for a time.

I settled on the active ATCs, which had less problems than anything else I'd tried. Of course, six months after I bought them I stumbled across a wonderful French speaker (the JM Reynaud Trente) that made beautiful music in my living room, though it was too small to do the business on all types of music. I've stuck with the ATCs, even if sometimes I feel like Captain Ahab chasing the great white whale.

My reference is live jazz, which I hear several times a month. My "realest" reference comes from a series of "house concerts" I'm lucky enough to attend regularly. These are put on in a modest house, with a living/dining room not much larger than my own. No amplification, save occasionally for a small amp on the acoustic bass. Performers are the cream of the Seattle crop (a very good crop indeed) with some bigger names popping up on occasion. I've heard pianist Jessica Williams there several times. No dishes clanking, no people yakking during the music, only about 40 people in the place. It doesn't get much better than that. Hearing a drum kit in a room like this gives one a sense of dynamics, I'll say that. There are the occasional problems, like a trumpeter who doesn't put a mute in it: not a pleasant experience from six or eight feet away! Short of being able to reproduce that with a hifi - some dream, that! - I look for something that pulls me into listening to discs straight through.

Why did I get steamed up? Leaving other completely unrelated issues aside, it comes back to the point I made earlier. Someone new to Naim pops up on the forum with a straightforward question about interconnects. He's very clear about liking his system as it stands. All he wants to do is tap into the collective experience of the forum for suggestions on a better sounding interconnect so he can better enjoy his Naim cd player in the context of his existing system. Why then must he, and others before him, get subjected to ridicule, insult, and abuse? He's not about to go buy a complete Naim system. He shouldn't have to do that to enjoy the Naim cd player he was smart enough to purchase.

Unless, as some people on the forum seem to think, there is but One True Way, and elements of the One True Way must never be defiled by being placed in close proximity to The Other. I made a passing reference to religion in an earlier post, because this unhelpful attitude toward an "outsider" smacks of religious dogmatism. And we know what joys that has brought to us all.

"KISS" works great if you can get a Naim system to work in your room. In my own case, the problem was always speakers. I had full Naim systems, up to six-packs, while seeking speakers that would make music in a difficult room. By happenstance I wound up with active ATCs, which meant the Naim amps weren't in the picture anymore. Then the question arose as to whether the 52 was the best preamp to use with the ATCs, particularly given the long interconnects necessitated by my room. My ears told me that something was "off," so I checked out other possibilities.

That said, I just had a 252 in the rig for a couple of days. It was quite refreshing to be able to just plug in the din cables from the cd player and tuner, and be done with it. I might wind up with that preamp yet.

What I need more than anything is a different room. But that upgrade would cost more than a 552 and active 500s. Unless the winning lottery ticket falls into my hands, it's not a likely scenario. Gotta get the components that do the business in the place where I already live. This is frustrating as hell, because the room has got to be at least 50% of the sound we hear from a hifi system.

Without being tactless enough to tell you to "FRO," I'd simply urge you to pay attention to the question being asked, recognize the operative parameters, and answer accordingly. Maybe someday RSH will want to try Naim amplification to go along with his Naim cd player, at which point he'll have a completely different set of questions, unrelated to interconnects. But unless he gets to that place, giving wonderful answers to some other question is not helpful. Repeated over time, it gets annoying.

Time for some calm music before bed...

I forgot to add earlier - I've also had the benefits of the patient and detailed advice of four excellent dealers (depending on my location), which also contributed greatly to the success implementations. Or was it just that I paid attention? I should "out" these paragons of excellence - they seem to be able to get a system working anywhere. Anyone lucky enough to live within their catchment areas has the chance to sort something special.

* Real Music Company, Wellington NZ.
* Studio 99 (now The Studio), London UK.
* The Audio Works, Cheadle, UK.
* Grahams HiFi, London UK.

And the odd chat with those friendly helpful folks at Naim. In addition, this forum has played a useful part.

Jim said:

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I'd simply urge you to pay attention to the question being asked, recognize the operative parameters, and answer accordingly.

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Jim, I think you'll find that I did. In fact, I maintained the same advice when Robert e-mailed me some weeks ago with the same questions. I recommended Chysalis or Cobra - pure and simple. I've auditioned a number of other Chord cables, and others recently such as some of the snormost etc. Perhaps I've been here so long (and owned an all-Naim system so long) that many here (seem to) assume I am completely one-eyed and never listen to other kit.

At any rate, I have indeed congraulated Robert on his decision to do the hard yards for himself rather than take anyone else's word for it, albeit via a particularly difficult route. I am sure his dealer will be on the edge of her seat awaiting his findings.

Saludos!

Rico - SM/Mullet Audio

PS - I'd like to point out my system ain't perfect. It's running in... and there's a little more optimisation to do. Not losing sleep over that, though.

I've just borrowed The Anthem from my local dealer for a few days just to see if it does a make a significant difference to my system (112/150 CD5 Flatcap 2 powering both CD and amps and Montitor Audio S8's) Early impressions are promising it has changed the sound, tighter bass cleaner midrange and it does carry the music across very well. Is it worth £300 I don't know yet I've got until Monday to decide!

Regards
Clive

The Anthem is not worth the money in an all-Naim electronics system.

The standard i/c is not broken in this particular context.



Regards,

Steve.

RSH,

Sounds like you've had your fill of the "Why don't you get yourself an all Naim sistem" league, so I won't even go there ...

I have not read all of this thread, so I might be repeating something already offered, but IMHO, since the optimum (for the CDP at least) would be a Naim interconnect if it fitted into your RCA-based pre-amp, then the next logical step (IMHO again) must be to simply change the ends, this rules out the cable drama (allowing that you agree that Naim interconnects is the ideal of course).

For the kind of money we are talking about here, surely there must be a manufacturer of RCA plugs which could re-terminate your Naim interconnect for you for a fraction of the price (no ??). I don't have your problem since I don't own a Naim CDP (so I'm in no position to offer advice), but I have had to go the other way, and buy an RCA to DIN connector to connect a non-Naim CDP to a Naim Pre-amp, and it worked just fine (bought from an alternative cable supplier for about $35 believe it or not).

I must repeat though, that since my entire sistem is worth less than your CDP, I could be way out of my depth here, just thought I would try to be pragmatic.

Luck
Mike

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Cunningplan,
Please let me know your thoughts on the Anthem. Please inform me without regards to the price. Just let me know if it's one heck of a cable musically with as much details as possible in regards to treble attacks, bass control, etc. You can decide if it's worth the money. Hopefully you can compare it against some other cables you have tried or are now using.
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Robert check your private topics

Regards
Clive

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I have not read all of this thread, so I might be repeating something already offered, but IMHO, since the optimum (for the CDP at least) would be a Naim interconnect if it fitted into your RCA-based pre-amp, then the next logical step (IMHO again) must be to simply change the ends, this rules out the cable drama (allowing that you agree that Naim interconnects is the ideal of course).

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Yes, you need to read the thread. The Chrysalis is a clone of the standard Naim interconnect but can be ordered in a DIN/RCA version. This particular cable simply doesn't work satisfactorily outside of an all-naim system. It is the wire that doesn't work and not simply what you stick on the ends of it.



Regards,

Steve.

Ever used Eichmann Bullet Plugs ? it is the plug that screw thing up no the cable....try them on your on your Cobra.

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She claimed the local distributor had one for me to order and metioned that the arrow was going against the proper flow but didn't matter with Chrysalis. She claimed that even Chord and Naim agree that the Chrysalis has no directionality to it.

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Chordco do a DIN-RCA Chrysalis with the correct direction.

Rico - SM/Mullet Audio

PS - it works well.

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Chordco do a DIN-RCA Chrysalis with the correct direction

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I did borrow a Chord Chrysalis for about 24 hours once. I loved it for the first hour - all that leading edge excitement. Then the top end started to grate, and I noticed that my stereo image had disappeared. I also noticed that I was running what was an RCA/RCA Chrysalis at the time against prescribed directionality, so I rectified this.

It was better - not quite so harsh, but still I couldn't live with it.

This was using a Rotel RCD 991 CD player, but I later got equally unsatisfying results with Naim CD players into the Densen B100 I had at the time.



Regards,

Steve.

Sounds like you lot are looking for perfection.
Well,

YOU AIN"T GONNA GET IT!!!!!!

Soon as you figure that out you'll all sleep better.


IMO get the synergy right and hours of cable agony need not apply i.e. all Naim systems, all Meridian, all Linn et al. How many people who have cable grizzles have systems that don't work together?

All of them I reckon.

All abuse to the contrary taken manfully on the chin.

Joe90

Joe,

My own system works just fine when pitched against an all-Naim system of similar or even higher hierarchical status, imho.

The proof of this is that I haven't changed my interconnects for over two years and they have seen me through a CD player and power amp upgrade in that time.

I am sure that they will even see me as far as an XPS and even a CDS2/3 player should I ever get that far.



Regards,

Steve.

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All abuse to the contrary taken manfully on the chin

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No abuse required from anyone, although I hope you're well equipped emotionally to take truthful accounts on the chin without resorting to such abuse yourself!



Regards,

Steve.

Also provision for balanced connection for preamps would be nice as I need to run a long run of IC across the room to the valve amplifiers, I am hesitant to use single ended ICs.

Altho, Naim preamps were highly recommended as one of the few solid state preamps to work with my amplifiers, I am reluctant to demo because of *sockets* situation.

As for Chord cabling, these must be well suited for Naim gear since other aftermarket cabling and even the power cords seem to work well with them.

Certainly I have heard lot worse than Chord Crysallis for lot more money.

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Or maybe Just different? A CDX will only sound like a CDX if used in conjunction with the intended partnering control components, i.e. those made by Naim. Steven, you may like the sound of your CDX, but used in the way you have described, it almost certainly will not sound like Naim intended. There's nothing wrong with this of course, but all you've achieved is a sound tailored to your requirements, nothing more. The I/Cs supplied by Naim are designed to work best in a particular application.

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Using the Chrysalis between CDX and a pre by another manufacturer sounds more different in comparison with using hierarchically-balanced all-Naim system than using the Anthem.

The Anthem actually enables my system to resemble more closely that of an all-Naim rig.

The Chrysalis to Anthem is like going from a 102 to an 82.

I fel that using Naim's currently recommended Chrysalis, a Naim-at-source mongrel system will perform sub-optimally in all areas, imho.



Regards,

Steve.

[This message was edited by Steven Toy on TUESDAY 16 September 2003 at 16:21.]