Hiline,Powerline Problem

Posted by: musica on 19 June 2016

I recently had the opportunity of acquiring a couple of Powerlines and a Hiline from a colleague at a very good price. He was moving to pastures abroad. My system is NDX/SN2 running ripped music from a Qnap NAS. Speakers are Proac D30R. I fitted the Powerlines to the NDX and the SN2 and tried it out using the standard interconnect cable. The result was more detail and slight increase in weight of music. This wet my enthusiasm to try the Hiline which I did. Result very disappointing to say the least,it could be described as disastrous. The sound was extremely hi end hot. It just took over the music. Fantastic amount of hi end detail,things I had never heard before. I discovered a couple of tracks that had tape hiss which I had never heard. The hi end dominated the sound and could be quite shrill. This applied to speaker sound and the headphones I had connected to the line output on the SN2. As I had already listened without the Hiline my next choice was to remove the Powerline from the NDX. This made a big difference and considerably reduced the hi end energy. The sound was still well detailed and on some music I liked sound but some particularly female voices were still a bit bright for my taste. The best result I achieved was using just the two Powerlines and the standard interconnect although this option did lose some of the nice hi end detail that I got when removing the Powerline from the NDX and using the Hiline. Has anyone had a similar experience or know why there should be this very high release of hi end energy presumably from the NDX when using all three components. After all the cables are passive items and cannot produce sound, they only convey what comes from the electronics. I have done all the usual connection checks and found nothing wrong. Any ideas would be most gratefully receive.

Thanks Philip

Posted on: 19 June 2016 by ken c

hard one! it could be that you simply don't like powerlines or hilines? or that the one or both of the cables are somehow faulty. i assume you know about cable dressing? -- becomes quite important with Hiline...

of course one can always speculate that the cables are revealing something else wrong elsewhere -- certainly if it were my system -- this is what i would suspect -- but these things are never that straight forward.

last time i experienced something similar to what you describe -- it was a mains issue -- but i am not suggesting that this is the case here.

good luck...

enjoy

ken

Posted on: 19 June 2016 by badlands

Why does something have to be wrong? Maybe what he is hearing is exactly what's going on.

How about this, the Hiline sonic signature doesn't suit this listeners preference, just because it's a Naim cable doesn't necessarily mean everybody who hears it will like it!

Here's an idea, why not leave the Powerlines in place and try an alternative interconnect, there is more out there than just the standard Naim supplied Lavender- Grey or the Hiline!

Chord, Atlas, Tellurium, Nordost, to name a few, all just might better the Naim cable and do exactly what you are looking for.

Posted on: 19 June 2016 by ken c

badlands posted:
Why does something have to be wrong? Maybe what he is hearing is exactly what's going on.
How about this, the Hiline sonic signature doesn't suit this listeners preference, just because it's a Naim cable doesn't necessarily mean everybody who hears it will like it!
Here's an idea, why not leave the Powerlines in place and try an alternative interconnect, there is more out there than just the standard Naim supplied Lavender- Grey or the Hiline!
Chord, Atlas, Tellurium, Nordost, to name a few, all just might better the Naim cable and do exactly what you are looking for.

maybe...?

enjoy

ken

Posted on: 20 June 2016 by Adam Zielinski

Well... that's HiLine for you all right...

PowerLines generally bring stability to the system, improvement in the lower-end definition and this elusive 'inky black'.

HiLine on the other hand tends to amplify certain aspects of a sonic spectrum which are not to everyone's taste. NDX is a good source. I tried HiLine on it twice at different intervals and did not like what it did to my music.

Try removing the HiLine and just run it with a regular interconnect and the PowerLines in place. Balance should be restored.

Posted on: 20 June 2016 by The Strat (Fender)

I'm a huge enthusiast for PLs - increased soundstage, weight etc - have them on my HCs, XPS and 250 - never disappointed. Less so of the hiline - initially I thought it was great but I'm now trying something else and the results are very good indeed.

Regards,

Lindsay

Posted on: 20 June 2016 by ken c

i must admit when i used the HiLine IC between 552 and NDS, i didnt suffer any negative effects. i felt it was better than the lavender before it, if a little fiddly and demanding more delicate handling. Now i am using an SL IC -- emphatically better ... better resolved and rather easier to handle.

but of course we all hear things differently -- in different systems -- in different rooms -- so not surprising.

this is not to suggest that only Naim cables are 'best' -- this is somewhat meaningless if one accepts the above sentence.

meantime, saving up for more SL wires for my active system -- its going to take a while.

enjoy...

ken

Posted on: 20 June 2016 by ayisgroovy

Perhaps check the directionality of how you connected the HL? I used HL and was a clear positive over Lavender.

Posted on: 22 June 2016 by geepee

The dangers of reading the Naim Forum!

I recently acquired an NDX and it's connected to my 282 via a HiLine. Having read the above, I dug out the regular interconnect and started to use that, just out of curiosity. After a period of listening, I reckon the sound isn't quite so "silky" but more cohesive (PRAT?).

I think I'll leave it connected this way for a week or so and then decide what to do next. (Sell the HiLine and buy another Powerline?)

Posted on: 22 June 2016 by Adam Zielinski

Buy another PowerLine

Posted on: 23 June 2016 by Geko

When I first tried a hiline in my system I couldn't understand what the fuss was all about. I thought it was pretty mediocre and ended up using my lavender lead. However, from time to time I would go back to it just to check if I'd been a bit dillusional.

Then one day during this process I managed to damage one of the links, so it whet back to Naim. When it came back it was a completely different animal and quite a long way ahead of the lavender lead.

Just a cautionary tale!