Speaker upgrade naim 5i

Hi,

As speakers & cables are quite a personal and a subjective matter... I'm going to recommend you to try out some Neat acoustic Motive SX speakers with properly terminated NAC A5 speaker cables.

I am absolutely confident you will not be disappointed   

Thanks Steven 

Just had a quick google search and Unfortunaly I am not able to find a Danish retailer.

 Would have loves to try em though

I can add that with my elac I missing more bass and loudness in generel

Ok, in that case maybe worth checking out some Dynaudio speakers at the retailer. I know there are plenty of hardened Dyn & Naim fans on this forum, maybe they will come along and recommend a certain model. 

Good luck with your search

indeed for a Naim 5i I would recommend the X34 (8ohm) with NACA5...

Thanks I will give them a try.

There was a test stating that it was pretty demanding on the amp and it was not as loud. You have any experience regarding that?

no problem the new X34 is an 8 ohm load, I had 3 years of birthday parties (my teenage daughter's) with Dyna and Naim - no problems with loud music. No damage to the speakers or the amp either.

However you must also use Naim Naca 5 or Superlumina speaker cable too to avoid problems

analogmusic posted:

 

However you must also use Naim Naca 5 or Superlumina speaker cable too to avoid Problems

That is of course a very subjective opinion. Re Superlumina with a Naim 5i — well, this does not require much commenting, does it...

Mind you it would be interesting to see what it does even if it sounds daft in terms of cost!

Glenny posted:

Thanks I will give them a try.

There was a test stating that it was pretty demanding on the amp and it was not as loud. You have any experience regarding that?

It is my understanding that the older models were difficult to drive, but the recent range should be fine. I heard the 5si with X14, and liked it. Though I am not sure whether I would mate the amp with big floorstanders. But the proof of the pudding is in the eating...

analogmusic posted:

 

However you must also use Naim Naca 5 or Superlumina speaker cable too to avoid problems

Above is quite mis-leading and somehow a diehard wool comment so here is some real fact

There are many other cables which will not generate problems

Such as Linn K 20 or Exposure original . Both identical to earlier Naim A4 and some Cable Talk variant

Many Chord cables are known and accepted, as for your own I would contact Naim if in doubt

Tellurium Q..many users here, seem to create no problems

Superlumina cables on a 5i is plain silly to suggest, they will cost much more than the amp.

Another fact, Naim amplifiers from the Olive or CB era demand at least 3.5 mtr speakerwire, you can read about it in faq

The 5i amp will easy run shorter however it might sound better on longer runs

As for Neat speakers represented or not, no dealer network then plenty of other choices if you are not looking for s/h, just go visit some stores and listen, speakers are a personal thing, what works for others might not work for you and vice-versa

As for my own taste I have heard and liked some s/h Linn Keilidhs, Rega RS or RX, Naim SBL, Neat Motive and many others fair priced, fwiw I didn't really like some Elac's, as they were tilted in tonality so take my recommendations with a grain salt, but my point, expensive new speakers may not perform better than older s/h, only way to find out, go and listen.

Glenny, have you considered Audiovector? The SR3 range is excellent, particularly when you reach the Avantgarde level. There are retailers in Copenhagen who are able to demo them on Naim. I run S3's (two generations back from the current model) Avantgarde on NAP200/NAC202 and it's a great combination.

AV is great advice and usually available in Denmark S/h in large numbers

The Avantgarde has that special tonal balance similar to Elac, nothing for me but maybe for OP

I much prefer the dome tweeter verIon of S3 nice balanced tonally but they all have terrible crap triwire terminals which should be avoided, why on earth don't they make them singlewire !

I'd recommend considering only the limited speakers locally available to demo in your room. Otherwise you're dealing with paper results and those have little bearing on how well a given speaker will preform once you get them home. Provided you've got sufficient power to drive your speakers, the other black boxes become secondary when matching speakers to a room.

Ravenswood10 posted:

Mind you it would be interesting to see what it does even if it sounds daft in terms of cost!

SL speaker cable sounds fine even with UQ2

Perol posted:

analogmusic posted:

 

However you must also use Naim Naca 5 or Superlumina speaker cable too to avoid problems

Above is quite mis-leading and somehow a diehard wool comment so here is some real fact

 

There are many other cables which will not generate problems

Such as Linn K 20 or Exposure original . Both identical to earlier Naim A4 and some Cable Talk variant

Many Chord cables are known and accepted, as for your own I would contact Naim if in doubt

Tellurium Q..many users here, seem to create no problems

Superlumina cables on a 5i is plain silly to suggest, they will cost much more than the amp.

Another fact, Naim amplifiers from the Olive or CB era demand at least 3.5 mtr speakerwire, you can read about it in faq

The 5i amp will easy run shorter however it might sound better on longer runs

 

As for Neat speakers represented or not, no dealer network then plenty of other choices if you are not looking for s/h, just go visit some stores and listen, speakers are a personal thing, what works for others might not work for you and vice-versa

As for my own taste I have heard and liked some s/h Linn Keilidhs, Rega RS or RX, Naim SBL, Neat Motive and many others fair priced, fwiw I didn't really like some Elac's, as they were tilted in tonality so take my recommendations with a grain salt, but my point, expensive new speakers may not perform better than older s/h, only way to find out, go and listen.

Real fact? What real facts ?

The NACA4, Linn K20 are not as good as NACA5. Why bother suggesting these unrealistic options just for the sake of it.

As for Tellurium Q - not impressed at all (my opinion)

Linn K20,  TQ & the other cables suggested are perfectly realistic alternatives,  as is the rest of Perol's very helpful & sensible post.    

analogmusic posted:

Superlumina speaker cable too. 

Oh go on, someone give it a go. I for one would love to know the results via a Nait 5i, might even beat most of the rest with a clean pair of heels.

Joking aside... 

Glenny, the thing to do is to visit your local retailer and have a listen to the many options they can present to you and then go from there...

analogmusic posted:

<snip>

However you must also use Naim Naca 5 or Superlumina speaker cable too to avoid problems

AM, that restriction only applies to the separates power amps.  The integrated amps and Unitis are much more tolerant of both cable type and length.

With an XS 2 I used to use Audioquest 14/4 and the amp was perfectly happy with that (I did however change it when I got the 300DR).

I'm using TQB with my XS and it is excellent

Have tried it on my old 5i and it never sounded better

The K20/A4/etc type cable are in fact a very realistic and cheap solution to consider, recommended by JV decades back, plenty of secondhand available if OP wish to try them

Why bother to mention ?

Thats what forums are for !

If we only referred to marketing pages everything could become quite boring or old grumpy hat. I guess AM just had a bad day.

Mike-B posted:

Linn K20,  TQ & the other cables suggested are perfectly realistic alternatives,  as is the rest of Perol's very helpful & sensible post.    

Thank you Mike !

Nice to get some recognition.