Proac D18 + NACA5 = This week's catastrophe. Am I doing something wrong.....
Posted by: SongStream on 01 May 2017
....or is the combination really this bad? Bit of back story, I've had the Proac D18s for about a year, driven by SN2 and DAC-V1. The speakers represent my only auction site punt, so I'd not auditioned them, but they showed much promise, and were performing well overall. However, I have always found them tad bright, and a little edgy on vocals in particular. Note there I said a tad too bright. I added 4m runs of NACA5 this weekend to replace my 20 year old QED biwire, hoping it would beef-up the mid / lower mid, and perhaps a little HF roll off, but oh dear. I mean, no no no. It's so bright now, and all but the very woolliest recordings sound anorexic. The top end frequencies are well behaved, as are the very low frequencies, but there's just barely anything in between, all top and tail with no guts. Man, it's lean, actually that's understating, it has become a zero fat, no sugar, two veg and no meat of a system.
Has anyone else found similar with the same speakers in a Naim system? Is there some school boy error I could have made with the cables? I am now using the Naim plugs for the first time at the amp end, and there are gold plated Chord plugs at the speaker end; these were made up by my dealer. For the moment I've used the bars supplied by Proac to bridge the terminals. I can't think what could be a miss with that, at least not that will make a huge difference to the overall performance, but open to ideas.
I think the Proacs will have to go, which is a PITA, unless anyone has some bright ideas. Taking the D18s as a starting point and declaring them too bright and gutless, I would be keen to hear some recommendations of speakers that are much richer sounding with Naim gear.
Cheers
Sounds like a polarity issue. Happens to the best of us (ahmm....
)
NACA5 will sound OK from a day one, but will take some time to fully come on-song.
I presume NACA5 is terminated properly with NAIM plugs at the amp end???
Since getting into a few details around running ProAc speakers, do you listen to your D28s with the tweeters inside or outside? 
Chag -
Thank you all, so very much, for all your ideas, advice, and perseverance. I've switched the cables over and wired everything up end-to-end backwards to the termination markings, so the ridge side is now positive throughout. And.....we have midrange!!! And voices sound quite a lot like voices. Yay!
My apologies to Proac, the D18s are not so bad as it turns out. Time will tell whether I ultimately find them too bright. Right now, I don't care, they sound like music again, and absolutely fine.
I will take up the matter with the dealer. As they are clearly making cables up the wrong way round in accordance with their own instructions. Makes you wonder how many people have been sold bodged cables. There are positive reviews of them on their website. That makes me chuckle a little. At least I knew they were rubbish.
On with the music.
Excellent - glad that music is flowing again
Now - one final thing to check - I do realise this sounds a bit rude - do check that L and R channels are connected correctly 
Adam Zielinski posted:Excellent - glad that music is flowing again
Now - one final thing to check - I do realise this sounds a bit rude - do check that L and R channels are connected correctly
Trust me, they are. Although backwards.
SongStream posted:Thank you all, so very much, for all your ideas, advice, and perseverance. I've switched the cables over and wired everything up end-to-end backwards to the termination markings, so the ridge side is now positive throughout. And.....we have midrange!!! And voices sound quite a lot like voices. Yay!
My apologies to Proac, the D18s are not so bad as it turns out. Time will tell whether I ultimately find them too bright. Right now, I don't care, they sound like music again, and absolutely fine.
I will take up the matter with the dealer. As they are clearly making cables up the wrong way round in accordance with their own instructions. Makes you wonder how many people have been sold bodged cables. There are positive reviews of them on their website. That makes me chuckle a little. At least I knew they were rubbish.
On with the music.
IMO, Stewart Tyler is one of the very best loudspeaker maker. Loudspeakers should not rely on mathematics only because they are music instruments and I think Mr. Tyler is a master when it comes to fine tuning his creations.
Chag... posted:Since getting into a few details around running ProAc speakers, do you listen to your D28s with the tweeters inside or outside?
Chag -
Inside:
