Speaker wire for Naim NAP 300 DR and NAC N 272 /555 PS DR/ CORE

To add to Phil's post above, many years back I did decide to try some expensive woven speaker cable with my NAP250.2 - name withheld to protect the (relatively) innocent, but a high capacitance, low inductance type. The cable had been doing excellent service with a big powerful  valve amp but on the NAP250 I soon realised there were problems.  Firstly, it gave a sort skewed response, like it was initially really detailed, but I soon realised it was actually missing important information. Not so much "harsh" as just "wrong" for what I knew the amp should sound like. Secondly, the NAP ran warm.  No, scratch that, it ran hot.  So hot, it worried me.  I quickly reverted back to NACA5 and, sigh of relief, it not only sounded much better, but also no longer ran hot.  The service dept. recommended I bring in the amp to be checked just in case.

On the traditional Naim power amps getting the connectors, speaker cabling (low capacitance, moderate inductance), and length of cable (at least 3.5m per channel, ideally more than 5m - I use 10m) right is essential.  Deviate from that and you'll not only be missing what your amp can really do, but your amp may be making a visit to the Naim doctor rather sooner than you planned.

Richard/Phil, would this apply to the new uniti Atom,  Nova etc needing 3.5 metres of naca5 to be at their best or are they more tolerant?

Gazza posted:

Richard/Phil, would this apply to the new uniti Atom,  Nova etc needing 3.5 metres of naca5 to be at their best or are they more tolerant?

 

All of our amps are designed with a minimum of 3.5m of NAC-A5 in mind as the minimum ideal speaker cable load however they are more tolerant of load than - say - a Classic power amp.

Best

Phil

Thanks Mike-B, Phil and Richard for the comprehensive replies. It shows once more what a great place this forum is! 

[@mention:1566878603907884]  Yes I know what screening/shielding is. I responded to the part about an unconnected shield because as far as I know with mains & power cords, shielding is always attached to earth at either end. If a speaker cable is shielded but the shield is not connected, where does RFI and other nasties go when it hits the shield? Maybe screening on a speaker cable is something different than shielding on a mains cable? (English is not my native language so I might miss some detail or nuance here & there, sorry in advance). 

I did took notice of the specs of the Cardas GC vs. Naims' guidelines but I figured, I'll try it with caution before I buy (I had an extremely good deal on it). That was more than 10 years ago. It was fine on my previous 180 and on my current 200 as well for some 8 years now. It sounds magnificent and the amp shows no signs of having a hard time. Not in sound and not in temperature. It never gets more than Luke warm. Not when playing radio in the background all day and not playing pretty/very/really loud for hours. So I figure I'm good here?

During the 10 odd years that I have the GC I have auditioned 5 or 6 other speaker cables. Out of curiosity and to benchmark if things have moved on a lot or not. The outcome was consistent, I have to spend a lot of money to get any improvement worth while over the GC. Like the AQ Aspen mentioned in this topic. But cables in that price range are far beyond the scope of my kit imo. Makes no sense. I'd rather audition a 250 DR first instead.

Richard. 

Hi KTMax, zijn al interessante kijken naar uw verkiezing gisteren, Frankrijk next, plus het UK trok de brexit trekker snel .......,

Speaker cable shielding its not required to be grounded as done with power cables.  Connecting it to the speaker driver chassis as recommended by Tannoy ???  I'm a bit sceptical about that one but if it sounds better connected than not connected,  OK I'll go with that.  The need for speaker cable shielding is not proven,  although some say it does sound better, others say it makes no difference & others say it sounds worse - lets say it not proven & its a matter of personal preference.    My theory is because speaker cables are driven by a low impedance amplifier into a low impedance load, any effects of induced EM & RF will be insignificant.  I concede it might be a problem in areas with high RF background noise such as homes close to a radio transmitter & in those cases I agree that there is benefit in experimenting.   In my book the only thing shielding adds to a speaker cable is capacitance.  But if it works for you,  what do I know.  

I didn't realise that my Super Lumina cables were shielded until you said so above. Goodness knows whether it makes a difference - maybe it just helps to justify the price - but they certainly helped the sound. 

Hungryhalibut posted:

............................  - but they certainly helped the sound. 

......  thats all that matters HH  ......

...... hmmm  ???  (enter dreaded Bluebottle impersonation)  'thinks;  I wonder what SL sounds like without the shield Eccles'  

Mike-B posted:

Hi KTMax, zijn al interessante kijken naar uw verkiezing gisteren, Frankrijk next, plus het UK trok de brexit trekker snel .......,

Speaker cable shielding its not required to be grounded as done with power cables.  Connecting it to the speaker driver chassis as recommended by Tannoy ???  I'm a bit sceptical about that one but if it sounds better connected than not connected,  OK I'll go with that.  The need for speaker cable shielding is not proven,  although some say it does sound better, others say it makes no difference & others say it sounds worse - lets say it not proven & its a matter of personal preference.    My theory is because speaker cables are driven by a low impedance amplifier into a low impedance load, any effects of induced EM & RF will be insignificant.  I concede it might be a problem in areas with high RF background noise such as homes close to a radio transmitter & in those cases I agree that there is benefit in experimenting.   In my book the only thing shielding adds to a speaker cable is capacitance.  But if it works for you,  what do I know.  

De verkiezingen waren erg spannend en gelukkig is het populisme niet 'doorgebroken'. 

I'm not sure about shielding speaker cables either.

Although the drawing of the Cardas GC seems to show it has kind of a shield I'm not 100% sure. Some reviews mention it, others don't. Cardas themselves don't either. Mine is factory terminated and there is nothing visible on either end that could indicate the connection of a shield.

Below is a pic of a shielded speaker cable in a way that does make sense to me. The shield is unconnected at the speaker side and needs to be connected to the amp with a separate wire. A shield around a cable without a drain somehow only causes problems imo. 

KTMax posted:   A shield around a cable without a drain somehow only causes problems imo.  

............   someone must tell Naim & Chord what they are doing wrong   ..........  ......... 

Naca 5 is very hard to beat from a musical perspective. It can be done but at a very high cost, imo. I have found that changing source component IC's can be an easier upgrade path with higher VFM.I'm happy to run long lengths of Naca 5 and indulge in some uber IC's .

Good luck,

Mark

Mike-B posted:

KTMax posted:   A shield around a cable without a drain somehow only causes problems imo.  

............   someone must tell Naim & Chord what they are doing wrong   ..........  ......... 

That is... IF they really are using unconnected/undrained shielding. Obviously I'm not saying Naim & Cord are doing anything wrong. But although my technical schooldays are a long time ago, I really wonder how that works! 

I am not quite sure why people think a shield needs a drain.. it absolutely doesn't . You can directly couple  or capacitively couple a shield.

Yep, just depends on the frequencies you need to stop.

Interesting guys. My logic tells me that a shield only works if drained to earth one way or the other but that's not the case? 

If a shield floats unconnected at both ends, where does the shielded/captured interference go? I don't understand how that works?

Richard Dane posted:

To add to Phil's post above, many years back I did decide to try some expensive woven speaker cable with my NAP250.2 - name withheld to protect the (relatively) innocent, but a high capacitance, low inductance type. The cable had been doing excellent service with a big powerful  valve amp but on the NAP250 I soon realised there were problems.  Firstly, it gave a sort skewed response, like it was initially really detailed, but I soon realised it was actually missing important information. Not so much "harsh" as just "wrong" for what I knew the amp should sound like. Secondly, the NAP ran warm.  No, scratch that, it ran hot.  So hot, it worried me.  I quickly reverted back to NACA5 and, sigh of relief, it not only sounded much better, but also no longer ran hot.  The service dept. recommended I bring in the amp to be checked just in case.

On the traditional Naim power amps getting the connectors, speaker cabling (low capacitance, moderate inductance), and length of cable (at least 3.5m per channel, ideally more than 5m - I use 10m) right is essential.  Deviate from that and you'll not only be missing what your amp can really do, but your amp may be making a visit to the Naim doctor rather sooner than you planned.

would you say I would benefit going from my 3m Superlumina to a 5m length?

and do you have an opinion on the cable good or bad?

Hi Richard, why do you use 10m, is this for SQ reasons, or because of the location of amp?

any issues with 3.5m compared 10m for Sound quality reasons?

I also note that SL is 3.0m not 3.5m?

KTMax posted:

Interesting guys. My logic tells me that a shield only works if drained to earth one way or the other but that's not the case? 

If a shield floats unconnected at both ends, where does the shielded/captured interference go? I don't understand how that works?

The shield itself may be unterminated but it is "linked" to the terminated conductors both inductively and capacitavely ...

Phil

Been into hifi for over 40 years and recently returned to Naim. My previous Naim system was olive stuff.  

Now 250DR/XPS2 - soon to be DR'd - 272.  I had Kimber Monocle X at the time of change.  I was told by Steve Hopkin that Kimber wasn't a recommended make and would have damaged old Naim amps but no problems with the new equipment.  Tried various speaker cables i.e. Linn, NACA5, Tellurium Q, Chord Odyssey.  None seemed to gel to my ears.  I then came across a vintage cable from Western Electric made from 'annealed copper'.  Found on ebay for £120 terminated.  Absolutely magical.  4 audio friends with non-Naim systems have bought some (one already used them) and are equally thrilled.  

Phil Harris posted:

KTMax posted:

Interesting guys. My logic tells me that a shield only works if drained to earth one way or the other but that's not the case? 

If a shield floats unconnected at both ends, where does the shielded/captured interference go? I don't understand how that works?

The shield itself may be unterminated but it is "linked" to the terminated conductors both inductively and capacitavely ...

Phil

For the non-technical (that's me) what does this mean? Is it like the wire wearing a jacket to keep bad things at bay? Does it just keep these things out, or does linking inductively (whatever that means) actually do something with those things so that they are no longer bad?

HH, it acts like the myelin sheath on a nerve.

So it's helping the effective transmission of the signal by electrically insulating the cable.  Thanks. 

It ensures consistent transmission (and transmission velocity) within the cable by providing a consistent electrical environment within the shield.

It reduces the effect of interference by making any interference present outside the cable affect both the conductors in the same way, at the same time, and along the length of the cable.

So although the mechanism's slightly different (it's a combination of conductor and insulator) the effect is directly analogous to the myelin sheath.

On further thoughts, given that the interstitial fluid is a conductor and the myelin sheath is an insulator, the analogy is rather better than I first thought!

I like it - the more zoology on the Forum the better. 

Yesterday I got nordost Heimdell 2 ,3 mtr speaker wire with nordost Heimdell power chord and the effect is awesome, more than Audioquest Aspen wire. Whether the wire will be ok for NAP300DR