Speaker cable length

I also was wondering the same thing.

Naim will happily sell you a 3m pair of SL speaker cable.

Must be science and certainly things I have absolutely no understanding of.

I was also wondering how short I could go to with Sarum T speaker cable - but not sufficiently seriously to actually ask a dealer  

intothevoid posted:

 

Anyone have any insight or comment on this? Is it something specific to the properties of NACA5 or has time just moved on?

3.5m of NACA5 gives the required minimum inductance load for the amps.    NACA5 is 1uH per meter.    Cables constructed differently to NAC5 will have a different inductance,  Question is do the cable brands publish that data,  not many that I can find.

I guess times are moving on,  the new Naim amps don't seem to be so fussy,  or at least Naim are no longer being so specific.  Nova e.g. "Naim Audio speaker cable will provide the best results, but a range of speaker cable types may be used without risk of damage to the amplifier."  & no mention of length other than that they should be equal for each channel.  

I have been running 2x 4mtr lengths of NACA5 for 20 years I guess I have been missing out on the optimal sound due to length of cable.....

intothevoid posted:

Just wondering...

The length of NACA5 seems to be a critical factor in stabilising Naim amps, although less so in the current classic series

As far as I’m aware, the advice still applies to the Classic power amps. Maybe less so with Unitis and integrateds? As for SL, if 3m will do, forking out for 10m is going to hurt your wallet!

The SL speaker cable have a captive resistor relative to its length.

Chris Dolan posted:

I was also wondering how short I could go to with Sarum T speaker cable - but not sufficiently seriously to actually ask a dealer  

 

That was me after hearing Sarum - the old one - and managed to get it down to 3.6m. Wonderful cable!

TOBYJUG posted:

The SL speaker cable have a captive resistor relative to its length.

I don't know what that actually means, but I think I get the concept. Does this explain why SL doesn't have to be any minimum length, i.e. because there's a variable thingy that compensates?

Does the (tailored?) captive resistor in the SL speaker leads modify the inductance load according to the specific cable length then? If so, this would imply the SL speaker cable length  has no effect on amp performance and SQ unless there is another electrical quality of the cable that is unaffected by the resistor but is affected by the cable length.

These considerations are important as superfluous cable length is particularly costly when it comes to SL speaker cables!

intothevoid posted:

Just wondering...

The length of NACA5 seems to be a critical factor in stabilising Naim amps, although less so in the current classic series. We all know that the minimum length is 3.5m; Richard recently posted that improvements can be heard if the cable is 5m or more, and 7m to 10m being optimal (I may be paraphrasing here).

What got me wondering was that you don’t hear the same advice for SL cables, or any others for that matter.

When I ran NAC A5 cable I have at times run 3, 4, 5, 6 and 8m lengths over many years. When I went Active there was an obvious incentive to limit the lengths to reduce cost. But I found that superior performance in terms of better bass and smother easy detailing came with the longer lengths. I went from 6m runs which was a bit tight to 8m runs of NAC A5 and the system sounded much happier and gave improved performance. Shorter runs give a perceived 'faster' and slightly aggressive sound with less low bass and longer runs sound less 'fast' but not actually slow, but more correct, as if everything musically present had the chance to express itself.

I'm aware of the technical requirements for speaker cable lengths as I used to design and build amps in my hobby days many years ago, so the above is the subjective performance you hear if you actually listen to what happens - but of course the Amps will work with the shorter lengths fine, but you may not be getting the best performance is my experience.

As to SL speaker leads - I have tried 7.5m (don't ask how) and I presently use the 7m runs and the 7.5 did sound a bit better, so I guess longer runs of SL do sound better. But I need six runs Active and the 7m was enough with a little spare to meet the performance I wanted - and cost of going to the next standard length of 9m made me decide no to know what that sounded like. It was difficult to have the opportunity to audition three sets of SL speaker leads for my Active system, so when I was kindly offered an opportunity to hear the six 7.5m custom SL leads it was decisive in my determination that the SL speaker cables were silly-better at music to fit the silly-more expensive price.

So same advice - but cost matters!

DB.

42m of SL cable ????

ouch!

Coincidentally with this thread, our new 6m long pair of NAC A5 cables arrived yesterday. They replace the previous 3.5m long pair. In the words of Mrs. NewNaim16, "it's a very worthwhile improvement."  The usual caveats of our room (acoustically bright), ATC speakers and preferences apply of course. A 6m length is right in the middle of the 5-7m sweet spot suggested to me by Naim and is about as long as we can accommodate, even cracker-jack style.

Remember 'new' NAC A5 cables take an age to burn in but even so, if you already have an improvement right off the bat, there will much more to come. I too use 6 meters per channel and like you found this to be a good improvement over my twenty year old 4 meter ones. 

I'm looking for a pair of 'pre-loved' NACA5, 7-10m, to see how it compares with my 6m TQB mk1, as I realised I haven't tried A5 with my 272/555DR/300DR set up. Should be interesting.

A few days ago, for the same question about NAC A5 and my Uniti Star, Naim answered me: “we do still recommend a minimum of 3-3.5 metres for our speaker cables in order to achieve optimum sound quality”