Cable Dressing

Get yourself some pipe insulation from your local friendly hardware shop. Cut a cm or two off the end, stick it round the wire and you are sorted. 

Keep the signal cable from touching the floor or wall. Air space is best, but not always possible, so the smallest bit of foam that will do the job may solve the problem, but it is a compromise - one that is a lot better than directly touching the wall. Others may suggest bubble-wrap. but I find that always smears things. Another thing to try that I found can work well is a small bit of corregated cardboard to lift from the wall.

DB.

While on the subject,would it be ok to put a slack loop in the burndy cable.It is the only way I can achieve keeping it off the floor and from touching other cables.It doesn't touch it self due to pipe insulation pieces holding the loop apart.

cheers scott

A soft loop with some cable, like the interconnects, can work well, but it is better if it is not looped - you can hear the effect; for me it can lose some bass quality. But compared to on the floor it is miles better! I have not tried with a Burndy, as that is a lot thicker and I would not think it may do the job - but if you try it and it works - it works!

DB.

I have found that tying a cable (burndy or interconnect) to some part of the rack with dental floss works well.  For me this sounds better than bubblewrap, or pipe insulation.  You want to minimize contact to the cable - small and soft for me works better than large and or stiff. 

You will surely appreciate the improvement in sound resulting from your efforts.  Do report back, what worked best for you, and how the sound changed.

Charlie

musicnuttyboy posted:

cable dressing

that's the most exasperating thing i ever dealt with in my life...

It really is a pain and can seem like an impossible task, but when you have successfully made sure nothing is touching anything else then the sonic benefits are amazing.  The extra air and separation was instantly noticable, the music just seemed to flow better with much more harmony. 

There have been a couple of occasions when the music sounded a bit flat and lifeless, and when ive checked behind the rack ive noticed the hiline has touched a burndy that it hangs close to. As soon as its moved to free air the sound comes to life again, so I guess thats what they call blind testing.

Good luck setting yours up

Thanks for all the advice.

The dental floss idea makes sense so I'm going to give that a go 1st although it will be a tad fiddly. This is a task for Sunday afternoon as the weather is not looking good but subject to having survived the current bout of Man Flu. I’ll report back.

I love cables and messing about with them, and don't mind throwing money at them, but yes some considerable time taken over them over the exact relation to "reality" in all dimensions is a steep curve.

best to learn how to trust your own ears.

Just curious, first thought that comes to mind when I hear the phrase Cable Dressing, is shielding. One would think @ over 3K a pop for  an 1.5 meter Interconnect, dressing wouldn't be a problem. But, as DB says if it works, it works. I must admit, I do fiddle around with cable dressing, what the heck, can't hurt. Mind you, I only have Naim standard Cables!

TOBYJUG posted:

I love cables and messing about with them,

You don't live anywhere near Chester by any chance, Tobyjug?

I have abunch of cables that need 'messing about with'... in fact you might call it a jungle behind my three Fraimlite stacks

Must have been commented on before but cable dressing, especially in a Fraim stack, would be so much easier if the interconnects were much shorter. Is there a reason that they are the length they are and that there isn't a short version? In the meantime I  struggle to keep everything neat and separated and generally fail! It's just so fiddley.......

After I've finished untying the Gordian Knot, I'll have a go at this lot!

...Really ! Wrapping cables in bubble wrap and pipe insulation...kidding right?

The Dude,

Not wrapping,strategically placing them between the cable surface and the offending surface you are trying to stop the cable touching.

scott

...sorry Scott but life is way to short to be frigging about concerning myself with anxieties in respect of anti social pieces of wire...as if it makes any difference...

Ok,

No one is forcing you.

scott

Sten posted:

Must have been commented on before but cable dressing, especially in a Fraim stack, would be so much easier if the interconnects were much shorter. Is there a reason that they are the length they are and that there isn't a short version? In the meantime I  struggle to keep everything neat and separated and generally fail! It's just so fiddley.......

+1. Does anyone have the answer?

Orginally Posted by Richard Dane:

''RICHARD DANEADMINISTRATOR

10/17/114:29 AM
N500,

in the past, when a request has been made for a longer DIN-XLR lead, Naim R&D's opinion has been that a longer length will adversely impact on performance. Indeed, any run over 3m long may cause instability because the pre-outs on the PS are designed only to drive short runs and have been designed around the existing standard cabling.

It may be possible to "slug" the leads to prevent instability, but then performance will still be adversely affected compared to the standard length.

Naim's philosophy is that interconnects are best kept short (the standard 1.25m is short enough without being unusable) and the speaker leads long. This makes a lot of sense because small signals are far more prone to losses than high level signals.

I would suggest you you try to find a way to bring the NAP500 closer to the NAC552PS so you can use the standard leads, or at least stay within a couple of meters if you have absolutely no choice but to go the custom length route.
Like Reply (0 Likes)''

I will take a guess that the context of this post is in Regards to Longer Interconnects, but what about Cable Dressing with shorter Interconnects??

 ""BAS VMEMBER

12/5/005:14 PM
Hi!
I have read an article once from a guy who was making some cables himself, using all kind of different materials. After a while he found "the perfect wire" (for him) and he wrote that the sound of the cable could be tuned. He stated that about 90 cm was the optimal length; shorter made the cable more detailed, longer made the cable more warm sounding. Now to get to my point, isn't it true that Naim have chosen the length of their cables for sound quality reasons? If that's true, it would not be so wise to take shorter lenghts...
Regards, Bas""

As In Chords New Super Tuned Array Technology!!!! 

Interesting, Any Further Comments would be appreciated.

Thanks In Advance