Why Does The Grey Naim 5 Pin Din Cable Sound So Good ?

whow hot signal cables

Coming from valve sets as we both have Nina, every last cable and capacitor is vested with deep significance. Naim have considered all this stuff on our behalf, including the lavender wire. That way we don't have to.

Richard Dane posted:

allhifi posted:

You'll put yourself to the test should you  decide to evaluate any of the Kimber SELECT 6000-series of speaker cable..

Word of caution: Do not listen unless you're prepared/able to purchase, particularly the silver/copper or all-silver models. I'll bet however that even the KS-6063 (all-copper) will leave you astonished.

 pj 

Another word of warning; allhifi, do you know the inductance and capacitance of these cables? I couldn't find a spec on the web to check this.

Note that Naim amps are designed to work best with low capacitance and moderate inductance cables, otherwise you can have poor sound, or in a worst case scenario overheating and possible damage.

I strongly endorse Richard's words of caution:  There is a 'red flag' on the RA website describing it a "Multi-Layered Matrix"

In combination with the lack of factual information, this description rings alarm bells about excessive capacitance.  This is common feature of many Kimber cables which reduces both the margin of stability and the service life of amplifiers (and not just Naim amplifiers).

I (along with many others) believe that much of the quality in audio cables comes from the non-idealities fundamentally inherent in the nature of the materials in use and the way the cable construction balances those properties.  N.B. most of there are reasonably easily measurable.

Desirable features include (but not limited to):-

Conductors:
High conductivity.  Low accumulation of semiconducting impurities at crystal boundaries.  Reduced number of crystal boundaries.  Low surface contamination.

Insulators:
Low dielectric constant.  Low dielectric loss factor.  Low dielectric storage factor.  Low flexibility.  High damping (outer jacket only).

Construction:
Low capacitance.  Good dimensional stability.  High screen coverage.  High flexibility.

Quite a few of these desirable feature are in direct contradiction to each other, hence the variability of 'good' cable solutions.

N.B.  This list is applicable to audio cables not to digital or RF cables, where different criteria apply (although some items on this list still apply in these domains).

100% with words of caution,  my Nait-2 got hot under the collar & sounded pretty upset when I hooked up 5m of RA's 8PR.   I measured it at 1480pF,  thats 296pF/m  (NACA5 is 16pF/m)        I know its not Kimber Select,  but it gives an indication what the woven/plaited cables can do with capacitance.

Well i’d love to try NACA5 but Ive spent up now! Nothing left in the kitty! Its all hooked up with cheap speaker cable...sounds good but id love to know  what difference it would make!

Mike-B posted:

100% with words of caution,  my Nait-2 got hot under the collar & sounded pretty upset when I hooked up 5m of RA's 8PR.   I measured it at 1480pF,  thats 296pF/m  (NACA5 is 16pF/m)        I know its not Kimber Select,  but it gives an indication what the woven/plaited cables can do with capacitance.

Just a question. Maybe a stupid one! When you put 2 identical capacitors in series, their capacitance halves. Or if you parallel them up, their capacitance doubles. So taking this as your starting point, does a multiple-metres long cable have LESS capacitance than a single metre?

vintageaxeman posted:

Mike-B posted:

100% with words of caution,  my Nait-2 got hot under the collar & sounded pretty upset when I hooked up 5m of RA's 8PR.   I measured it at 1480pF,  thats 296pF/m  (NACA5 is 16pF/m)        I know its not Kimber Select,  but it gives an indication what the woven/plaited cables can do with capacitance.

Just a question. Maybe a stupid one! When you put 2 identical capacitors in series, their capacitance halves. Or if you parallel them up, their capacitance doubles. So taking this as your starting point, does a multiple-metres long cable have LESS capacitance than a single metre?

Increased length puts the capacitances in parallel.

Cable capacitance is pF/m; the more metres, the more capacitance (however the cable inductance is in series with length and progressively this starts to have an effect opposing that of the capacitance).

Many thanks for confirming my initial thoughts. Cheers, David

joerand posted:

Hungryhalibut posted:

You’ll find the interconnect sounds better if you leave the collars unlocked. When I had this cable I removed them altogether. 

Seems a long-standing if not old-school notion of the Naim forum. Frankly, I've never been able to hear a difference either way - collars locked or unlocked. That may well have to do with the resolution of my ears or my level of gear, but I'd not be inclined to cut the collars from Naim ICs simply for matter of their resale value. Besides, as Naim zealots might say - the locking ring is included by Naim for a reason - best SQ after scrupulous testing.

On a factory tour last week I saw the shaking machine that is used to get the stress out of these cables with 170 shakes exactly. So the collars are needed to stop the cable being tossed across the room with health and safety issues!

If you or your dealer/seller ever loop your cable tightly and wrap the ends even tighter you have compromised it and need to learn the rhythmic shake that creates a standing wave in the cable. You should also be warned that long use of this technique may make you susceptible to RSI/carpal tunnel syndrome.

Phil

........   all wot Huge sez.        And not forgetting whilst avoiding very high capacitance speaker cables used with Naim,  the all important parameter is inductance.    Naim recommend to use 3.5m of NACA5 ( which has 1uH per meter) ,  what this is actually saying is the amp needs a 3.5uH load to be part of the zobel shunt circuit stabilize the amp output stage.     Most amp designs have an internal inductor as that part of the Zobel shunt circuit,  the problem with this is it still needs a speaker cable with its inductance to be added & the end result can be too much inductance & result in HF roll off.   Naim (& a few others) choose to use only the speaker cable to provide the correct inductance & avoid that possibility. 

one option  balanced cables pre amp //p0wer   and short speaker cable    electronics is nearly always  compremises

I'm sorry I actually don't understand what it is that you're trying to say there.

audio1946 posted:

one option  balanced cables pre amp //p0wer   and short speaker cable    

Statement aside, that's not much of an option with Naim kit. 

Traditionally Naim have preferred and recommended short single ended interconnections, and long speaker cables.

not sure why, but Superlumina cables from the Statement preamp to the statement power amp are balanced.

If the Statement power-amps are bridge designs, then that configuration makes complete electrical sense.

vintageaxeman posted:

Mike-B posted:

100% with words of caution,  my Nait-2 got hot under the collar & sounded pretty upset when I hooked up 5m of RA's 8PR.   I measured it at 1480pF,  thats 296pF/m  (NACA5 is 16pF/m)        I know its not Kimber Select,  but it gives an indication what the woven/plaited cables can do with capacitance.

Just a question. Maybe a stupid one! When you put 2 identical capacitors in series, their capacitance halves. Or if you parallel them up, their capacitance doubles. So taking this as your starting point, does a multiple-metres long cable have LESS capacitance than a single metre?

On the side line digesting information.

The only stupid question is the unasked question, or something like that!

But thanks, the Forum at its best.

Informative mode!

Allante93!

PS. Also thanks goes out to Huge & Mike B.

Solid Dialogue, and answering questions.

I love it! 

Huge posted:

If the Statement power-amps are bridge designs, then that configuration makes complete electrical sense.

it is a bridged design

but so is NAP 500

analogmusic posted:

Huge posted:

If the Statement power-amps are bridge designs, then that configuration makes complete electrical sense.

it is a bridged design

but so is NAP 500

Ok, but the NAP500 was designed well before the Statement and unbalanced was the only available output from a Naim preamp. 

true. NAP500 has a different gain than all the others, must be because of this.