Nac A5 outside

I've routed my Nac A5 outside, through trunking, for years with absolutely no problem at all

This has been discussed before & the general agreement was its OK for moderate winters & probably more liable to be a problem in direct sun & more so in hot climates.

My NACA5 runs bare through the crawlspace under my listening room. The Seattle area climate is moderate and the crawlspace is an ambient environment relative to outdoors, still during temperature extremes I haven't found any issues.

BTW - I inspected the cable about a month ago and all looked good. I was afraid it might stiffen up over time, but it seemed as soft and supple as the day I installed it nearly four years ago.

I would say there is more issue in having excessively long runs of speaker cable, you really are inviting amplifier/speaker coupling issues. Amplifier/speaker coupling is surprisingly sensitive, no doubt to the highly reactive load and the audio frequencies used. If SQ is not an issue then clearly this matters not very much.

At what length do runs of NACA5 become excessively long?

Mine are 8-m long and SQ is "kinda" an issue for me .

Joerand, there was a post somewhere from Richard that outlined the minimum and suggested max length of NACA5 with Naim amps before degradation would become noticeable. From memory 8m was still in the sweet spot.

Simon,

Found it:

https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...-for-naim-amplifiers

I'm in the optimal range. Seems now I remember reading this affirmation before buying my cables.

NACA 5 has never been soft and supple so clearly you are doing something wrong. Or right! 

Thank you

 Cable inductance can cause attenuation if its high enough (i.e. very long cables)  Another consideration that I never heard mention is very high inductance will attenuate in the audio band & a 4 ohm speaker load will get to that point at half the fs of an 8 ohm,  & considering there are few 8 ohms around these days I would be concerned enough to do the math with a speaker run over 10m

10m x NACA5 @ 1uH/m = 10uH

8 ohm will be -1dB @ 65kHz

4 ohm will be -1dB @ 32kHz

So I would challenge the assumption that 20m max is OK,  it is not so with a 4 ohm load

And of course so called speaker loads are nominal or average.. They are not really 4 ohms or 8 ohms as a real constant measurement. This is an impedance with resistance and reactance and so will vary with frequency in  the audioband, and as you sweep the frequency the impedance will rise and fall, and the more complex the speaker crossover the more rise and falls you will have. (One of the reasons regulated amplifiers are preferable to non regulated ones, and why often active speakers can be  preferable to passive crossover designs). Therefore very long speaker cables are going to have greater interaction with this varying speaker impedance. 

Simon

I had in mind my own speakers that run almost flat 6 ohms above 10kHz. 

But concidering the marketplace speakers,  ribbon tweeters typically run lower than a dome many at or below 4 ohms,    & more so electrostatic's who are notorious for a constantly falling impedance towards HF going down to 2 ohms @ 20kHz