Witch hat cables

Yes ...they are great value for money

But so are original naim ones ...

Used N2 in a Olive system very good excellent value for the money.

I think they’re fabulous value. Can’t tell any sonic difference between naca5 (a good thing) and easier to  route as they’re flexible. Really well terminated also.

Bob, SW, please respect forum rules, thank you.

Has anyone heard the phantom cables .

I have upgraded to Phantoms from N2 and naca5 before that. A nice lift in sq every time. The second I win the lottery, I'll switch to SL.

I have used them for almost five months now and I previously used Naca5 cables.

In my opinion the Phantoms gives a clearer more detailed sound which I prefer.

Great speaker cables!

Do they make speaker jump leads .

 Richard Dane posted:

Bob, SW, please respect forum rules, thank you.

Sorry, but please clarify which part of the rules I infringed.  As I made clear,  The cables to which I was referring do not carry DC power. 

I moved over to N2 after giving up on the NAC5 - that stuff so inflexible I doubt whoever designed it gave any thought to any practical consideration - and haven't thought about it since, which is always a good sign. The wire covering is a nice woven fabric if you're into tactile considerations.

Aceone posted:

Do they make speaker jump leads .

Ask them,It's not on the homepage.

WitchHat was , I think, started by an ex Naim employee familiar with the design requirements who had their own ideas of correctness.

They make some unsanctioned leads not to be discussed here. Similarly, any servicing work they do is unauthorised and invalidates any Naim warranty so beware. But their DIN to XLR interconnect was an improvement on the stock lead and very good cost performance.

I was only looking at the Phantom cables yesterday, they do sound interesting for the money they are charging!?

I can vouch of Witchhat N2 speaker cable. A decent upgrade over NACA4, but no experience of the interconnects (yet).

Currently have a 5m run of N2 with the my UQ2 system and am very happy. During a small office refurb it meant my 4m NACA4 would no longer reach. The thought of contorting on the floor trying to thread and bend NACA5 around the many room obstacles did not appeal.

N2 came in at a reasonable price, is very flexible, nicely finished and improved on the sound a little with this modest system, but wonder if this is due more to freshly soldered cable banana plugs compared to the rather tarnished plugs on the ancient run of NACA4.

The N2 stays for now, but when I start box swapping again (more than likely next year) I’ll investigate the Phantom cable and alternatives to compare. 

Sounds like they will be a big difference over my present cables witch are chord clearway .

Suzy Wong posted:

 Richard Dane posted:

Bob, SW, please respect forum rules, thank you.

Sorry, but please clarify which part of the rules I infringed.  As I made clear,  The cables to which I was referring do not carry DC power. 

Apologies, SW if I made a mistake.  It was late and I can't go back to double check - it did precipitate comment on those other cables..

It's an old chestut, but has anyone done a comparison of good quality speaker cables and noticed a signifcant difference in SQ?

Yes,have both the phantom and A5 cables and their is a big  difference in sound presentation not saying one is right or wrong,both very good, i would say listen to both if you can  and you may be suprised, only thing i would say if you have a bass shy system the Naim A5 would be a better choice.

Aceone posted:

Do they make speaker jump leads .

Yep I asked them the same question a few days ago, phantom jump leads are £80.

JimDog posted:

It's an old chestut, but has anyone done a comparison of good quality speaker cables and noticed a signifcant difference in SQ?

You're kidding, right?

I realize that low end cables sound worse than high end cables. And that all cables will have different effects on the signals passing through them. But I wonder whether many people outside the factory have compared high end cables in a true blind test. That would involve the person being tested not knowing which cable is in to start with and also not witnessing the switchover process or speaking to the person switching the cables over before doing the test. Otherwise there is enormous pressure of 1. social conformity 2. expectation bias 3. cognitive dissonance 4. experimenter effect.

So I have a theoretical interest in this question as above. But also a practical interest. I have a fairly low end system: 272/serviced 150x, 14 year-old Arivas. Will it make a significant difference if I replace my 14 year-old 8m Chord Rumour 2 with, say, 3.5m NACA5 or Phantom?

JimDog posted:

So I have a theoretical interest in this question as above. But also a practical interest. I have a fairly low end system: 272/serviced 150x, 14 year-old Arivas. Will it make a significant difference if I replace my 14 year-old 8m Chord Rumour 2 with, say, 3.5m NACA5 or Phantom?

Depends on how much oxidisation creep has attacked the two ends of the cable. After 14 years, even a well sealed cable might have 20cm creep at the ends.

Not uncommon to replace copper speaker cables every 10 years at all.

Thanks for your replys I think iam going to give them a try 

JimDog posted:

I realize that low end cables sound worse than high end cables. And that all cables will have different effects on the signals passing through them. But I wonder whether many people outside the factory have compared high end cables in a true blind test. That would involve the person being tested not knowing which cable is in to start with and also not witnessing the switchover process or speaking to the person switching the cables over before doing the test. Otherwise there is enormous pressure of 1. social conformity 2. expectation bias 3. cognitive dissonance 4. experimenter effect.

This isn't always the case,

I tested a group of Ethernet cables to see which would sound best and introduce the least destructive interference into my streamer.  I tested two 'Audiophile' cables and two generic 'Ethernet patch leads', two of the four were screened, two were UTP, all were Cat6 or above.

I didn't know which of the audiophile cables would be best, but I expected the SFTP patch lead to considerably outperform the generic UTP lead - that was obvious.

Except it wasn't...  The really cheap UTP patch lead won the test quite clearly, beating the SFTP lead and both the expensive 'audiophile cables'.