I have returned to the fold
Posted by: u77033103172058601 on 07 March 2016
Many many years ago, indeed just after we 'went active' with our SBLs, I started experimenting with non-Naim cables for both power and speaker cable; the latter was driven primarily by trying to manoeuvre 4 x 8m lengths of NAC5 cable that just did not want to bend.
Eventually we settled on standard power cables, a dedicated spur of Kimber 8TC, with Nordost Blue Heaven i/cs and speaker cable. Shortly after moving to Suffolk the BH was replaced with Red Dawn. The spur was the thickest mains cable our electrician was prepared to wire into a dedicated unstitched double socket and I transformed the 8TC into dedicated 2m mains leads for the Naim boxes.
One week, with my wife away in the US on business, I took the opportunity to try out a set of Nordost power cables and settled on Valhalla feeding a block and then Vishnu feeding the major boxes. If I had thought NACA5 was a bit of a so-and-so to keep in check, Vishnu mains leads set the bar even higher. Fortunately all the fettling was undertaken by A&A of Signals. The improvement in sound was obvious and on my wife's return one of her first comments was to query what I had done to improve the system so much. The changes to the system were not what A&A had expected, based on their trials with Nordost and Naim. Without any rational explanation the possibility that my non-Naim sources were part of the reason.
Forward in time and my system had changed only slightly, SuperLine added to replace an Artaxerxes and the 135s replaced by a 300. Both these changes had brought considerable improvements to the system and both my wife and I enjoyed listening to music.
The recent DR upgrade brought a huge improvement to the system and had me (not my wife, though) yearning for more. A home demonstration of a 552 proved to be a big letdown. There was no 'Wow' moment and I, as well as A&A, were confused.
I had been in correspondence with a fellow forumite and it was he (J.N.; many thanks, John) who suggested that perhaps my choice of a Nordost cable loom could be the culprit. A boring car journey back along the A14 was somewhat alleviated by a long telephone call to A&A and a proposal that they would come to investigate a different cable loom on the system.
It was all approached in a systematic fashion.
1 Take all the Nordost power cables out and replace with standard ‘kettle’ leads. This got rid of some of the glare that was affecting the music we had chosen to be our reference point; we deliberately chose difficult music. We lost a LOT of the weight and authority that had been there. NOT at all pleasant.
2 Put PowerLines on all the Naim boxes, fed from a single Music Works box. This put weight and authority back into the mix and removed some of the glare, it was now possible to listen further into the music.
3 Replaced the Nordost speaker cable with NACA5. This was NEVER going to be a solution because the stuff is so UGLY (we had both forgotten how ugly); we do worry slightly about the aesthetics. However, this did bring further resolution into the music and rhythmic tracks did bounce along. We could have lived with this sound, but not the aesthetics.
4 NACA5 replaced by SL cables. This worked; glare gone, weight and authority in abundance, rhythm, bounce and sheer musicality in abundance. This was way way better than the Nordost starting point 2 hours ago.
The Nordost cabling was never going back into the system long term and we took the decision to buy the PLs and SL speaker cables
At this stage we replaced the 552 with my old 52 and for the next 2 days my wife and I deluded ourselves that we could live without the 552.
The Nordost cabling, which had been so effective on an old very olive system 10 years ago, was shown to be exactly the wrong answer for the later Naim boxes. I am now left wondering at what stage the system started to rebel against Nordost. At least the conundrum from 10 years ago has been laid to rest.