SuperLine Loading Thread.

hmm watch this space... 453 ohms now sounding like the winner so far on the TK Rua *AND* I got a HiLine in the end... (he says wondering why it can have been sooooo different on 3 separate goes!)

quote:

Originally posted by glevethan:
Naim really have to be congratulated for such a revelatory product I stopped by my dealer yesterday to tell them that I thought this might just be the biggest upgrade I have yet to undertake.

Enjoy gregg.

You have a beautiful system to let the Superline shine as intended!

quote:

Originally posted by Fozz:
*AND* I got a HiLine in the end...

that might be taking things a bit far.

quote:

Originally posted by Cymbiosis:

Also I'm convinced the plugs sound better if withdrawn a tad from the socket.

Peter

As I said the other day - insertion matters.

Both for Hi-Line and load plugs. This, coupled with the Hi-Line routing may well account for your observations Gary.

Remember, the Hi-Line is best when hanging loose and free.

Kind regards,

Peter

Looking through the various pictures of the loading plugs and threads regarding removing unused pins, pulling them out slightly, leaving locking rings off etc, if these plugs are in the signal path then would there not be an even greater benifit to use the Hi-line type plugs rather than the original metal ones.

Trevor

yes Adam, agreed it might...get a HiLine, chop the wire out and use it as a pair of loading plugs. Do you know what I put 10p on it that someone will try... and that it will make a significant difference.

In my opinion, bundling the bag of plugs with the superline was a badly thought out idea which has started to backfire on Naim unfortunately.

The reasons are simple -- whatever cartridge you have, you will only need a tiny subset of the supplied plugs. Maybe one or two at most. Each one has a construction and test cost which cannot be peanuts.

And now we are in the situation whereby what is supplied in the bag is not the best for specific cartridge/arm combinations -- this was entirely to be expected. So now *none* of the plugs are any use if you are, for example, an XV1S owner.

However, there is the inevitable "we got here from there and without the plugs in the bag, noone would have expeerimented and found what worked"

At the moment, dealers are doing free swapouts on plugs to match specific cartridges.

At some point it will make sense for Naim to stop bundling the bag of bolts, to say that you get whatever plug or plugs are necessary to support your cartridge from your dealer, and thats that -- maybe even knock 50 quid off the price too. It makes no sense at all having hundreds of plugs floating around which are not used.

At that point, naim could offer a pack of known best solutions using the hiline plug -- a single plug for the XV1S, for example, at 450ohms using the highest quality resistors. I'd pay 100 quid for that...

I agree whole heartedly - and have to admit that I am rather ticked off that NANA had the gumption to charge me $100 for a 560K plug for my Akiva. The 560 loading does nothing else but match exactly my former K Stageline. One would have thought that at the least some of the standard loading pins supplied would have exactly matched up to the current lineup of Stagelines and Prefixes. I did not complain - and quite honestly this is the first that I am mentioning it - it should have been sporting of them to just send it on in without the charge.

Gregg

quote:

And now we are in the situation whereby what is supplied in the bag is not the best for specific cartridge/arm combinations -- this was entirely to be expected. So now *none* of the plugs are any use if you are, for example, an XV1S owner.

I think the plugs supplied can be used as a starting point.

They give a good proximity as well as they might come in handy if you were to change or swap a cartridge.

quote:

However, there is the inevitable "we got here from there and without the plugs in the bag, noone would have expeerimented and found what worked"

I suspect that most customers/dealers will end up doing that.
XV1s owners are lucky to have the designer involved with the very cartridge as well as having a motivated dealer as Peter to try out through all the permutations.

Realistically, I don't see too many dealers willing to cycle through non-standard loading options.

The exercise can be fun for someone who is handy with a soldering gun, however.

quote:

and have to admit that I am rather ticked off that NANA had the gumption to charge me $100 for a 560K plug for my Akiva. The 560 loading does nothing else but match exactly my former K Stageline.

This is actually incorrect–the supplied 500Ω loading plug actually drops the aggregate loading to 476Ω, whereas the 560Ω loading plug drops the loading to 530Ω–in fact, a 620Ω loading plug would be closest to orthodox "K" values at 583Ω (if there is such a thing).

Every phono circuit is different, and it is somewhat naïve to expect that, given wide differences in system components (arm cables, cartridges, turntable power supplies, etc.), that the supplied values represent the last word in compatibility–but given the range of available cartridges, the combinations (including dual-plug resistive-only loads) represent a fair compromise.

Because of the high gain of the SuperLine, we match resistor values to less than ±1/2% tolerance (in some cases down to the resolution of the measurement device), which allows us (in-house) to match nearly ANY request of value for a custom resistance (if you can hear the difference between 558Ω and 561Ω, we can make 'em). And you must start with a batch of resistors, not just two, in order to match nominal 5% components to that degree....

Finally–I, too, think an Air-PLUG loading blank would be quite useful, though it wouldn't have the flexiblity of HiLine flying leads.

I think it is unfair to criticise Naim for providing a bag of loading plugs that they have. It is true that we are now in a situation where those motivated can have a more or less infinite number of possible values to play with but we have gone from just TWO options to having a lot more flexibility here.

I suspect the sweet spot on loading will be individual system dependent never mind a universal 453 ohms for "X" cartridge. I for example run a olive 52 into new 250s and Peter himself remarked that the 453 may only be ok for the new range pre-amps. As it happens I think it is better than 470. But hey it may be 463 or 462 may be better still...

well I would have been happy forever at 470 to be honest. I think people have to realise it is not going to ruin things with the fabulous Superline if they are an odd ohm or 10 out.

Try 600ohms. definitely stood out in the 500-650 range.

Chris

that was matching pairs to 0.1 of an ohm.

600Ω loading plug gives you a net 563Ω–very close to the old "K".

quote:

Originally posted by Fozz:
I think it is unfair to criticise Naim for providing a bag of loading plugs that they have.

The original poster, Jon, was not criticizing he was just offering some constructive opinions on whether it was necessary to offer all of those plugs since many would not have a need for all of them save one. It might have been a good idea to have previously established a recommended list of plugs for each cartridge and then have the local Naim distributor provide said plug in the box instead of a wide assortment of plugs which will just sit remaining unused. Another option would be for the dealer to have the complete set of plugs, determine which single plug works for the customer (after all they ARE supposed to deliver and install each component - are they not?) and then provide said individual plug. This would also save Naim the time and fabrication costs of so many plugs which will ultimately go unused.

My individual complaint was $100 for an empty DIN plug and two resistors (after all what is the real cost of said three items?) - after I had already shelled out $3300 for a SuperLine.

Gregg

Further constructive opinion:

Peter 'C' has amply demonstrated the sensitivity of the the Superline to loading subtleties. Not just small changes in resistor values but for example the effect of not pushing the plug fully home is to slightly smooth the music.

David Dever earlier commented on the possibility that plugging a single resistor plug into the Capacitor socket looked potentially different to putting it in the resistor socket due to internal wiring. This again does has an effect. To me doing this deadens everything so probably not one to log as a success.

IME swapping between relatively close resistor values ( for example 470, 453 and 430 on an XV-1s) produces changes that may actually be desirable. Certainly it is so easy to change the plug in value since no power down is needed (just muting for speaker quietness) that I can forsee a situation where 'tuning to taste' takes place. A harsh edgy recording could be tamed by using a different resistor value. A slightly dull presentation could be enlivened by use of another value.

Lets not think in terms of ONE perfect value for each cartridge / listener in a given setup. It could be done by a process such as the Superline beinging sold with say 3 to 5 'plugs' for which the values are to be defined by the user AFTER the dealer has helped him test. IOW the dealers carry a library of plug values ( as suggested by Gregg), and the Superline comes with an 'IOU' for say 5 plugs to be finalised after listening trials.

As the library of knowledge grows this process would become easier and easier.

regards
Geoff.

quote:

Originally posted by glevethan:
Geoff

Did you receive my email from last Friday?

Gregg

...No I didn't Gregg...but I just got your forwarded second try. Will reply

Regards
geoff

So are all those auditions done with plug right in, not valid now?

quote:

Originally posted by BigH47:
So are all those auditions done with plug right in, not valid now?

...what do you think BigH?

Geoff,

Although what you suggest is very nice, it's commercially unfeasible. The idea of every Superline being supplied with different loading plugs is just not workable.

The whole point here is the "library of knowledge" is being built as we write this and in any case is never going to be universal for reasons of the massive range of system combinations and personal taste. To clarify I am not having a pop at Jon more climbing to Naim's defence in that it was reasonable to do this with a totally new product.

quote:

Originally posted by Frank Abela:
Geoff,

Although what you suggest is very nice, it's commercially unfeasible. The idea of every Superline being supplied with different loading plugs is just not workable.

...Frank I was not suggesting the Superline be supplied with unique loading plugs per customer. I suggested it came with an "IOU" for say 5 plugs and the dealer recommended the right ones and supplied them based on customer cartridge etc.

Naim would not have to deal with the logistics for every customer, just supply batches of plugs to dealers as they needed them. With the listing of values that work for the most popular cartridges firming up it would not be a major challenge.

regards
Geoff

Not a bad idea Geoff. comes standard with S and K loading set ups and one extra free from the dealer as you wish. later on if you change cartridge - a nominal fee. maybe not $100 (shock) to get them made up.

quote:

My individual complaint was $100 for an empty DIN plug and two resistors (after all what is the real cost of said three items?) - after I had already shelled out $3300 for a SuperLine.

Buy a batch of 30 high-tolerance, temperature-compensated resistors @ $2-4 and bin them on your own–you've already gone over the price of the loading plug.

There's no reason an individual dealer could not make these up custom, suited to taste for an individual system configuration–but when one requests that this be done by the local distributor, it's perfectly reasonable once you consider labor costs, the total parts requirement, etc., and that gets passed on to the end-user.

Keeping in mind that most high-tolerance capacitor values require more expensive parts than your average high-tolerance resistor values, we average this out and charge the same for either type of loading plug.

If I had my way, we wouldn't have to worry about these, each individual end-user or dealer having the capability and basic soldering skills to make these up on their own–but the product, as complete, ships with a sensible, pre-defined set of plugs that each and every SuperLine should be sold with.

quote:

Naim would not have to deal with the logistics for every customer, just supply batches of plugs to dealers as they needed them. With the listing of values that work for the most popular cartridges firming up it would not be a major challenge.

What's the difference?

Question.
Are these loading plugs pre- burned in by Naim/dealers?
If not how long does a customer have to wait for the plugs to burn in and sound as they should?
If one is comparing several plugs, this could take some time?
Thanks for any advice regarding this,

Chris