Super Lumina for 'Classic' System?

Lazy am I?

Yes, the SL speaker cables are expensive but compared to what? Why are the cost of these cables being compared to speakers? Why not compare the cost to the power amp? Better still, hear what kind of SQ improvement they deliver and decide if they offer value for money. The only comparison that really counts is the change in SQ and how much you are being asked to pay for that improvement. The fact that they are mere bits of wire is neither here nor there.

Well this lazy person was never going to spend this kind of cash on bits of wire without a demo in my system in my home listening with my ears. So I decided to stop lying around, get off my butt, go to my dealer bring the offending bits of wire home and conduct a thorough evaluation. The only comparison I made was with my existing cables and the SQ before and after inserting the SL cables. As I could not believe my ears this chopping and changing of speaker cables went on for sometime. I was exhausted!

Anyway I summoned up the energy to go back to my dealer to part exchange my old speaker cables for the SL cables.

Laziness is often exhibited by those who pass an opinion without making the effort to conduct a proper home demo of the kit in question.

Oh, by the way as you seem such an expert on the SL speaker cables, I assume you have taken the trouble to evaluate them with a home demo. You surely would never be that lazy.

Yours, exhausted of Chesham!

one of the few undeniable truths uttered here on the forum. that's correct, speaker cable is actually amp cable! and in case of Naim power amps, it really has a huge technical part into the whole mix...

QED!

What a lazy reply!

Nigel, sorry you have felt it personal...it was not. and laziness is sometimes bliss... but not when it imples money, a lot of...

as for the lazy reply, please read above, plenty of food for thought methinks, just be open...

it all started with OP buying 3k worth of speaker cable for less than half worth of speakers... as HH observed first...

and i dislike and discourage the attitude of testing just Naim equipment... be it amps, or cables. many have NACA5 cause the dealer or forum said so, and will buy SL, for the same reason...(i exagerated here just to proove a point...)

well in between, there might be many cables worth the try...

of course, for some naim amps, namely 200, 250, 300 and 500, the NACA5 was actually designed by Naim to work woth the final stages of the amps, BUT, that doesn't mean that one cannot test and like something else! the way i see it, the gap between the naca5 price and SL is - for now in Naim's portfolio - way too big... many of us here barely have or aspire at the NAP200... you cannot ask for a jump from naca5 price to SL, because the obvious "shorter" choice would be to replace the 200 with 250... i'm not saying that it would be better, just that it is an unfair race...

so until Naim has at least in between offer from naca5 to SL, and i see many here testing whatever cables they can grab, i don't buy this with "i had naca5 and SL was the obvious choice" cause it' ... well... lazy!

Catlainmetal,

Thank you for the 'clarification' and I do agree that there might be some out there who see Naim accessories (I include cables in this rather loose category) as the default 'go to' solution. I just don't happen to be one of them.

For example I moved from a Hiline to a Chord Sarum Tuned Aray interconnect. I will admit this was partly because at that time there was no Niam alternative but I chose the Chord after my usual rigorous home demo.

I used to use NACA5 and I also wish there were an intermediate cable between it an the SL but there isn't. Neither is there a plethora of alternative non-Naim speaker cables to try. I was interested in TQB as others on here have reported good things but couldn't find a set to demo at home.

I was intrigued by the SL speaker cable and wondered if it could be as good as everybody said it was. I also wondered if my mid classic Naim kit could benefit sufficiently from this very expensive cable. Only one way to find out as explained in my earlier post.

It is my impression from spending a lot of time at home demoing the SL cable that in particular there is a synergy between the DR power amps (well certainly the 250 which I have) and the SL speaker cable.

Are the SL speaker cables expensive? Yes. Are they worth it in your system? Only one way to find out. Are there cheaper alternatives that give the same improvement in SQ?  Maybe. If you find one please let me know because I am sure my SL speaker cables will hold their value. Anyway, they will certainly continue to deliver SQ enhancements as I upgrade in the future.

Phew Catalinmetal, there's a bit for me as the OP to chew on there 

I started my journey with Chord Epic which I stuck with for quite some time.

I then trialled Chord Reference and TQ Black and also NAC A5.

NAC A5 for me was the clear winner, so I switched.

And I stayed with it, again for quite a while.

There was nowhere else to go with Chord apart from Sarum TA apart from what I had already tried, and the speaker cable and IC would have been more expensive than SL, so I didn't bother with that.

In the end I trialled a few, and by the time I got to SL I didn't see the need to go elsewhere.

Plenty of extended home demos allowed by my friendly dealer throughout all this = plenty of effort to get it right.

So that's that.

I think I explained in my original post why I wasn't going to change my speakers unless I can get something similar height and footprint.

So that's that also.

Im already fully Powerlined, and have a dedicated circuit for the hi-fi.

So that is that too.

Lazy, I probably wouldn't say I am, satisfied, yes.

people are not the same, and that really is the best bit, as you said

There is so much choice for hi fi equipment, cables included, I really enjoy seeing and reading about the different choices people make and why they make them particularly on this forum.

It was my intention to show that there can also be a reason why someone with my system / room configuration could also go this route and be happy with it, despite the monkfish like aspect of it!

Gonna get my lazy self back into my listening chair for the evening. 

Enjoy the music.

The price of the SL cables is all relative. I have a pretty good system with 552DR/500/B&W802s/Cymbiosis Reference LP12/Superline/SupercapDR/Radikal. One would think, in the grand scheme of things that the SL cables would be worth the price as a percentage of the system's cost, and it is. I do have the SL speaker cables and Chord Super Aray Din/XLR cables. I also have a SL RCA-Din IC but this is for use with a Chord Hugo which costs substantially less than the SL IC and the digital replay in my system sounds superb as a result. The way I look at it is that the SL IC is justified in the system as a whole and the Hugo is an absolute bargain.

All cables were subject to at least a week home demonstration before purchase, except the SL IC which was on sale or return.

.........and it certainly was a bit of a woobly one to get there!  ATB Peter

some of you feel there is a direct nomination by my part, while there clearly was not. not to the OP in particular either... i was just attracted by HungryHalibut's post observing this disbalance of budget between cable and speakers...

and i stated that in general, spending money on expensive cables is a measure of laziness. i cannot know if a cetain user tested x number of cables, i only spoke from my experience, i've seen few guys who preffered the expensive cable solution just beause they felt it sounds better than what they already have and that's it! ok, no problem with that, only that i think that this behaviour is lazy...not wrong, just lazy.

on the other hand there are a few users here who report periodically they upgraded this or that x item with item y, just because they read it on the forum or dealer told them so... in some cases where reaching the audio equipment is hard or almost impossible, it's understandable, but in most other cases it's also down to laziness, and it's rather a mental than a physical one... i mean, thinking like "what can possibly other cheaper cable than this one bring to my setup..?"

Why, oh why, does discussion about cables cause such angst! These wretched bits of wire seem to divide opinion like no other component (and I mean to use the word component in relation to cables due to their influence on a system's SQ).

I think it must be the perceived lack of material value in cables and in some cases the (apparently) high prices charged for such a puny bit of kit. If so then that is entirely missing the point.

I am tempted to avoid ALL discussion about bits of wire in future but I realise they are too significant a part of the Hifi chain so will persevere (for now)!

I tried SL and NACA 5, and NACA5 is no slouch. nobody should feel they MUST buy SL (and that includes Catalinmetal), and the amps work fine at NAP 200 level with both cables.

Nothing to get worked up over and feel upset at the prices of SL because NACA 5 is still ok even upto 500 series amps.

Although I posted extensively at the time, I'll summarise my experience of trying SL cables in my classic system.  The uplift in performance was the equivalent of a black-box upgrade. I would equate it to putting a 555PS on my nDAC in place of my previous XP5XS.  Yes, the SL cables are expensive but for me the cost should be judged by the performance uplift achieved. On that score I continue to feel that my purchase of the SL cables represent good value for money.   For me the question/assertion: 'isn't that a ridiculous amount of money for a bit of wire?' is irrelevant.  What matters is whether the cost is justified by the performance improvement. For me it was.

Mike 

Couldn't agree more.

I used NACA5 happily for donkeys years and it delivered stirling service. It just that....well....err....SL is simply better and worth the outlay to ME.

There also seems to be a natural synergy between the SL cables and the new DR power amps. They make wonderful music together...

Dave

As do my 250DR and boring old NACA5!

What happened to the TQ Black?

NACA5 is the new Black.

A close encounter with SL2s - and theTQ Black was toast.

Wouldn't anyone who had bought SL take the view that the cost was justified - it's a self-fullfiling concept. Even if you buy blind or on reputation you take a view that the cost is justified

I'd love though for someone to say that they bought SL even though they didn't think the cost was justified before they took the plunge.

Sorry Chris, the higher the cost or the lower the 'perceived' VFM of an item, the more stringent the home demo test is. So there is little chance of this Naimee saying 'not sure it's worth it but I'll buy it anyway'.

I'll 'cough' to that one Chris. It's the same with Fraim. Silly prices, but how else you gonna get the best sound from your Naim boxes? It looks pretty classy too.

Plus; someone else has done all the work. That has to be paid for.

A friend of mine likes to quote the old Fortnum and Mason advertising slogan - 'The quality will continue to be enjoyed, long after the price is forgotten'.

John.

 I had the SL cables on loan so I could give them a thorough trial before deciding whether to buy, not least because I started from the view that they were aimed at the top end of the range and the cost and performance lift wouldn't be justified in a classic system.  There have been occasions when I've decided some black boxes didn't do enough and they went back but the keeping of the SL cables was an easy decision.

Mike 

Good one John. And in my view, this applies to all naim components, not just the SL cables.

enjoy

ken