System Cabling

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Originally posted by Alex S.:

5. At least an all Naim cabled system is cheap.

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A very good point. When I bought my 92R/90.3 & Credos I was only about £150 quid for cables. For one of the alternatives I was considering (Copland CSA-14 and Sonus Faber Concertinos) the same dealer was recommending about £500 worth (and the demo was done with cables costing well over £1000).

Regards
Steve

From what my dealer tells me, the "Red Dawn" cable will improve my system no end..

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4. High-end cable companies must make a great deal of money.

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Very true i am sure..

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6. If 'Blue Valhalla Dawn' is the best interconnect for a given system, does that mean its the best speaker cable too?

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In my experience (limited) no, Blue Heaven interconnect was a bit forward, but all round excellent, however in the system i heard using the speaker cable aswell..it became unbearable.

However, I have heard a low(ish) budget system using all Valhalla, and it was truly stunning...(the cables cost more than the system, so a touch unbalanced) it shows how much information they were able to let through....(there was a report about this in Hi-Fi News very recently..the mag was still in WHSmith yesterday.)

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9. Should interconnects be as short as possible? Should they be of equal length?

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A recent comparison showed me that (using Blue Heaven) the shorter lead (0.6m) was brighter (more detailed?) whereas the 1.5m lead was more tolerable, but not as focused and accurate...my conclusion: compromise and buy the 1m lead!

AFAIK Naim recommend 1m runs minimum anyway. I assume all lengths should be the same to maintain consistency..could be worth investigating tho...could affect different things.

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10. That's enough cable talk.

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Agreed..no pun intended I assume..

Scott

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1. Surely 'Source First' applies to cables as much as to anything else. Presumably one should upgrade mains cable first, speaker cable last. Surely just bunging an expensive interconnect between CD and pre is hardly the best use of resources.

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It's interesting, but I've found mains cable to have less of an effect than speaker and interconnect cables. However, it's a different sort of effect. Ultimately, I think you need to consider the nature and delicacy of the signals which are to be carried on cables, and choose accordingly. Thus, I think more money spent on a tonearm cable and less on speaker cable is sensible - due to the fact that the tonearm cable is likely to have a greater influence on the overall sound as the signal is generally very small.

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2. Synergy and balance between cables must be almost as important as same between electronics.

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Not sure about this - one would think so, but then so long as they're electrically 'in balance' then I think cables might also be a way of 'fine-tuning' the overall sound - e.g. 'brighter' cables to lighten a muddy system, 'richer' cables to add a little bass definition, etc.

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3. Do minute strands of fuse wire about the place foil all one's attempts anyway?

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Great point - a question I cannot answer.

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4. High-end cable companies must make a great deal of money.

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Depends on how the cables are made and the size of the production runs. I imagine if some sort of agreement were made between manufacturers, large scale, top end cable production could be done much much less expensively, but why bother? It's a cash cow!

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5. At least an all Naim cabled system is cheap.

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And for that one should be grateful. The cynical argument is that you've already bought into the system and lined the Naim coffers by buying your 135s and CDS-IIs, but in fairness to Naim they could equally charge premiums for the cables too, but they don't. Likewise the DNM you mention.

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6. If 'Blue Valhalla Dawn' is the best interconnect for a given system, does that mean its the best speaker cable too?

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I guess it depends on what you like and what you don't like. Blue Heaven is great stuff, no question, but it's bright and oh-so incredibly fast sounding. Perhaps this might tip an edgy system over the edge, so to speak. It's also unshielded, so Blue Heaven may attract RFI on longer runs or in proximity to your unshielded mains cables...

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7. If a system has any deficiencies will it just sound worse with more revealing cables?

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Not necessarily; I think of cables in the way I think of lens filters for cameras - they come in all manner of grades and colours; a blueish filter can compensate for flourescent lighting, a red filter can add contrast to black & white, etc. Cables (to my mind) work in a similar way - if a system is by its nature bright, cabling can help balance it. Shielding or non-shielding is important also. More revealing cables may make a system worse but they may also improve it, as they may allow the requisitie amount of 'air' and 'transparency' facets to pass to make that system sound acceptable...

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8. Because of amp design Naim consider 3.5m of speaker cable to be a minimum. If your amp can run on any length is shortest best?

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Definitely, I'd think. It's cheaper, you can therefore use a better cable for a given price, and more importantly it is likely to be more transparent as it has less opportunity to subject the signal to colouration during propagation.

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9. Should interconnects be as short as possible? Should they be of equal length?

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Yes and yes. Length is probably more important for impedance reasons than for timing ones (due to the extremely fast propagation of electricity) and a smaller interconnect will, like for (8) above, allow a better grade to be used for a given price. Saying that, though, a little extra so that you can dress cables properly may make any individual differences less significant or even a moot cause.

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10. That's enough cable talk.

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What, do you want to go back to stands' talk?

My feeling about cables is that (a) it's expensive, but they do make a difference, (b) the argument for and against different cables seems to boil down to preference in tonal presentation once you pass a certain point, (c) cables influence the sound so can be a good or bad thing depending on application, and (d) if you buy a 0.5m interconnect, you will eventually realise that a 1m one is what you need, so allow for some excess unless funds are tight - the same goes for speaker cables...

TC '..'
"Girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a Muffin..."

1) Changing mains and speaker cables produces a much larger overall effect on the sound whilst changing interconnects seems to change detail and transparency. I have tried several types of Interconnect between CD player and amp and none had as profound an effect as the mains leads (I'm not saying the effect was good).

In terms of flat and round earth the effect seems obvious, removing NACA5 gives a wider soundstage, more frequency range and sometimes a warmer sound. Mains leads CAN clean up the sound at the expense of a little timing - but it depends on the system. Interconnects, such as Nordost, can expose more detail and change the sound in a subtle way but I have found the Naim sound is maintained.

I have tried Russ Andrews products at great length and remain unconvinced by his mains conditioners. The changes were subtle and I'm not sure I can quantify them but after living long term with them I will not be trying any more. His interconnects do not sound that much different to Chord or Naims own in my system, in particular they did not have the warmth in the bass of Chord cables or the pace of Naims.

2) Not everyone wants the same things from their system - If I want a massive soundatage and can get it by using non-Naim speakers and cable, why not. Most people I know with low-mid priced Naim systems seem willing to exchange a little PRaT for deeper bass for example.

Obviously the above is specific to my system!

The round:flat-earth trade-off is always present, but your point re: bass/PRaT trade-off is so true - I don't think it's much to do with the speakers but the nature of the sound - midrange sound just sounds faster than bass; if our perception of speed is based upon normal music, there's a fair chance that a bigger speaker, with a greater percentage bass content, will sound slower purely due to the presence of more bass. It's not necessarily any slower, it will just sound that way - in the same way you don't notice garlic so much in a hot curry as you do in a mild one (if you get my analogy!)

TC '..'
"Girl, you thought he was a man, but he was a Muffin..."

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Originally posted by Top Cat:
The round:flat-earth trade-off is always present, but your point re: bass/PRaT trade-off is so true - I don't think it's much to do with the speakers but the nature of the sound - midrange sound just sounds faster than bass; if our perception of speed is based upon normal music, there's a fair chance that a bigger speaker, with a greater percentage bass content, will sound slower purely due to the presence of more bass. It's not necessarily any slower, it will just sound that way - in the same way you don't notice garlic so much in a hot curry as you do in a mild one (if you get my analogy!)

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TC,

really deep bass is very expensive to do well.

It might also take some hassle to get it working in-room, unless you're lucky. It seems to me that better built, more expensive houses actually give less problems in this regard.

cheers, Martin

I'am going to sell the Hi-FI, house and wife to move into a mansion with a Matsui mini-system.

Source (walls, floor, celing) first ?

DS

There is a forum member, to whom I am deeply thankful, who knows a lot about fuses but I'm not sure if he wants the publicity - let's see if he responds. . .

Alex

Alex

Going from crappy normal mains to 1 spur was a bigger leap than going from 1 spur to 2.

Alex

Emmanuel

Sorry but I'm all confused as this is definitely more complex than the usual debits and credits.......

If you would be kind enough to enlighten me:
1. Is fuse necessary in the whole chain?
2. If yes, and only one fuse is required, where should it be? And what rating should it be?
3. If no fuse is required at all, what is the rating of MCB that should be installed?

Help please............

King

Thanks

P.

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Originally posted by Mr Tibbs.:
Alex,
One spur a bigger leap than two? - Your original supply must have been crap.
Now go get that third spur in for the DV pre, but don't come here saying it now sounds better than a 52, you WILL be barred.

Paul D,
See above, three WILL be better than two.

Richard,
No earth ? - Are you one of the dangerous brothers then?
MCB = Miniature Circuit Breaker. Much much better than fuses, not just my opinion.

King,
Are fuses necessary?
They are MANDATORY.
At the consumer unit you can use the equivalent rated MCB for a big improvement, the plugs and the items of hifi need to be fused though, to protect the cables after each fuse. Seek advice from an electrician if you're not sure about doing your own spurs.

Mr Tibbs.

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Thanks mate,

All government built apartments here have MCBs at the consumer units, which is a good thing.
What I'll probably do is to change to better grade 13A fuse then, guess not fool around with 15As................

Thanks again.

Cheers.

King

However, with regard to interconnects and speaker cables I think there is one basic thing which it is very easy to lose sight of, and it is this:

No interconnect or speaker cable can add musical information. If there is something in the recording which doesn't get fed into the cable, it isn't going to appear at the other end. The effects of all cables are therefore wholly subtractive -- and TC's "photo filter" analogy above was spot on here IMHO, since the filter selectively reduces the amount of light allowed through to the film in exactly the same way.

What you are therefore looking for is which piece of wire removes the least music, which is really difficult as something which masks inherent problems elsewhere will often sound "better".

I am not a "cable sceptic" by any means, but it seems to me that there is generally an awful lot of money being wasted on the use of cables as tone controls, which (if anyone remembers them) are no substitute for getting the setup right in the first place.

In your place, I would stick with what you have until you've worked out what, if anything, it is removing. Surely "better", in this context means "closer to what the hardware designer used when developing the product".

Just my 2p...

Best;

Mark

(an imperfect
forum environment is
better than none)