HiLine; a heretic awaits his pyre

Adam Meredith posted:

dayjay posted:

However, I would perhaps argue that the knowledge required to determine if a cable provides an improvement in sound would be that of a musician, or perhaps of a sound engineer or hifi retailer or reviewer.

Odd bod that I am - I tend to leave to the people who might be spending the money on it.

I know they're all untrained idiots - but they're you.

I'll have you know Adam that I am a fully trained idiot!  Couldn't agree more that if you are interested in buying, or want to reach your own conclusion, listen yourself and make your own mind up - which is pretty much what I said earlier.  In this context I thought we were talking about the knowledge/training required to determine if cables can make a difference and my view was that someone trained to listen to instruments and how they sound may have knowledge that is as useful as some one trained to engineer cables.  Or something like that anyway, I'm that tired that I have lost track   

Adam Meredith posted:

Stand back gentlemen - I'm a philosophy graduate (possibly why I had to work in Hi-Fi).

My philosophy is this, never believe the technical blurb spouted by sales/marketing people, they’re all lying bars stewards.

 Why is this so? I spent 30 years designing product, in the majority of cases the marketing people would simply lie about performance, lie about R&D/testing carried out and falsify results of testing.

 I’m sure some cables sound better than others, but, I usually don’t believe the reasons put forward, for no other reason than the above.

fatcat posted:

Adam Meredith posted:

Stand back gentlemen - I'm a philosophy graduate (possibly why I had to work in Hi-Fi).

My philosophy is this, never believe the technical blurb spouted by sales/marketing people, they’re all lying bars stewards.

 Why is this so? I spent 30 years designing product, in the majority of cases the marketing people would simply lie about performance, lie about R&D/testing carried out and falsify results of testing.

 I’m sure some cables sound better than others, but, I usually don’t believe the reasons put forward, for no other reason than the above.

 

Ho ho. We could spend months putting together a tender, with many boxes of documentation, and a marketing exec would promise on the spot to make the system invisible & weightless to close the deal. [Exaggeration added for effect]

I'm a doctor, albeit not a PhD ( I leave that one to my sister) but when I put a HiLine in, the difference was very obvious (not only to me but also SWMBO) and improved again by a Super Lumina (it transformed the CDS3). I may not understand the physics but I do believe my ears.

Paul

PaulC posted:

I'm a doctor

You forgot the "trust me ..."

Well I've got a C.S.E. in woodwork and I without a doubt heard a difference when I changed my Naca4 to 5 and again  when I changed my CA interconnects for Chord Chrysalis. I am at the moment comparing an AR Sound Lunar 5 pin din- against a Lavender Snaic 5 between my ND5 XS and my 202 and again heard a BIG difference when I swapped the Flashback cable for the AR Sound Lunar but have not tried the Lavender as yet. To my hears different cables make the same system sound different wether that is better or worse is down to the individual but they do sound different.                                                                                                                                        

NACA5 sounded better than mission speaker cable, and the K400 that preceded it. 

Well, I'm not an Engineer Either, but do have an Mathematical Background, so sometimes I'm forced to use logical reasoning! 

I Remember not to long ago, we were all drinking the Naim Flavored Kool Aid!  

Nac A5, who needs that Expensive Cable, Julian had it all figured out: Just to refresh your minds check out  Chris West : 

 CHRIS WEST TRADE MEMBER

12/14/12 9:40 AM

Originally Posted by Mike-B:

Originally Posted by Ron Toolsie:

People spend thousands on wires with the aim of making them have no impact on the sound. As if to make them sonically vanish. Julian used his noodle and made it happen from day one of Naim amp design by integrating a well defined and inexpensive wire into the amps circuit! Neatly removing speaker wires as an sonically indeterminate after thought ...  

 Using different spec wires or using shorter lengths on a Naim amp, is like opening a non-naim amp and experimenting with changing or removing circuit components. Not recommended!

 Chris

AV Options"

Now I don't know if Chris is an Engineer, but he is Certified as an Authorized Naim Repair Facility, and right this moment doing some DR Upgrades Kits, furnish by Naim!   And by looking at those diagrams on this post, I would bet he is an Engineer! 

Point Being, Now  we got Gentleman on the Forum Spending Thousands on Speaker Cable, that Julian supposedly had taken out of the equation. 

That's right a couple of years ago, it  was common Active 500 Series, coupled with LINN K-20, oops  Nac A 4, I mean Nac A 5.

Now we have post on SL IC's  couple with SN 2's

Funny How things change! 

Just some thoughts!

Allante93! 

Will Dias posted:

You forgot the "trust me ..."

Ho! Ho! - the old ones are the best!

������

PaulC posted:

Will Dias posted:

You forgot the "trust me ..."

������

Sorry, my poor humour, "trust me, I'm a doctor" 

kevin J Carden posted:

To believe otherwise suggests that other physical characteristics are influential. Scientists of a strict mindset generally dismiss such groundless theorising as hocus-pocus until it can be proven in a lab.

 

To the contrary, the scientific mind would neither accept NOR dismiss - it would do the experiment.  The OP did the experiment and heard a 'slight' difference that he did not enjoy.  Others have done the experiment and heard a difference that they enjoyed.

What's left to be proven???

Ian Brown posted:

Hungryhalibut posted:

I'm really not sure what all this 'I'm an engineer' rubbish has got to do with anything. 

In fairness, I think technical knowledge counts for something.  How much is an open question.  Ours is a hobby awash in snake-oil.  I don't have more than a basic understanding of electricity and know even less about musical theory so why not hear from the engineers?    

Iconoclast posted:

I firmly believe different cables produce different sound, I just don't see why they need to cost a fortune to sound good. 

I think this is an excellent point.

Cheers!

Agree. I'm also an engineer. It think claiming so is to put oneself in a camp that prefers measurement, calculation and testing to "feel". We engineers would perhaps claim that we tend towards more skepticism, evidence-based thinking and logic than would, say aroma-therapists and feng-shuai practitioners.

I'm sure there are a great many aromatherapists out there who have better ears than me, but at the end of the day, we're all subject to prejudices and biases. Scientists and engineers seek to take that issue out of the analysis and decision making.

Maybe the OP just needs his secondhand HiLine tested by an engineer. Preferably at the Naim factory.

I remember back 20 years ago, I set up a demo system for a customer that worked as a sound engineer for the BBC. He was so adamant that cables could make no difference that said he would leave the shop if we tried to sell him one. So he left with 3K of gear (which was a lot of gear in 1996) and the patch cables in the box. When someone has decided they know something it can be fruitless to convince them otherwise and just pisses them off as well as you. I'm also an engineer but it doesn't mean much. There are many fields of engineering and even within my own field there are many different levels of understanding.

I find it interestng that for every person that says they know cables don't matter bceause they are an engineer, there are nearly an equal number of people that use the "I'm an engineer" argument to reason otherwise.

Hi-Fi is not the only industry where fancy cables exist. Medical equipment uses some fairly exotic but optional cables to maximum signal fedilty and reduce RFI. The Burndys that Naim use are often also seen in J&J MRI scanners. Aerospace also has some interesting requirements on cable properties (in fact most of the under carpet flat cables people use started life in aircraft). HiFi stands out because it is consumer facing and it is easier to make marketing nonsense up than go into the real physics and isn't helped by the fact that actually a lot of cable manufacturers are just selling snake oil which gets applied to the industry as a whole sadly.

As for the HiLine, with any cable it is about matching. I've never found a cable to be absolutely better or worse. It greatly depends on the context. For example, Arcam components respond instantly to very expensive Audioquest interconnects. Naim and Linn, not so much. When I bought my HiLine the dealer was fairly upfront about the fact that he thought it was incredible but needed to be paired with the right level of Naim source and amp otherwise it just didn't seem to make a difference. He was pretty dubious about its value with an NDX/202 but reckoned the difference was suddenly obvious on a NDX/XPS/282.

I have both HiLines and Powerlines.  Naim cables might be unique in the world.  Most cable changes are dramatic in the interconnect and subtle in the power cord in my experience.   Naim cables are the opposite: subtle in the HiLine and dramatic in the Powerline.   But the effect is cumulative and important.

Interesting thread. There is no relevance to science or engineering involved in Will's conclusion. He tried one cable versus another and chose the one he preferred. The was no measurement or experimental design involved. It was a wholly subjective trial. His result would be no more or less credible if conducted by Hawking or Einstein. Peter Pan or Tinkerbell for that matter.

While most agree they alter the sound, the effect of Hilines are quite system, room, and listener dependent. Throw into that the cost and each person makes a VFM choice for themselves. I like a Hiline on my CDP but am not convinced it's cost is justified for my vinyl side. For vinyl it brought a nice control and definition to bass lines and kick drum, dulled the shine of the cymbals, and overall took away some of the grit and engagement of the musicality. Add to that the fact that a PSU is also required to use a Hiline for a Naim phono stage.

Not wishing to join the cable wars but only to report my own experience. Ahem, I'm an engineer too but this is what my ears told me. I bought a Hi-Line blind as I was living in Yemen at the time and had no options for demo. It connected my then CDX2(XPS) to the 282 (on to 300). The uplift was substantial and I was very content. Detail, resolution and imaging all came to the fore.

The subsequent move to SL was also a major step. As was upgrading all the boxes noted above. I enjoyed both HiLine and SL cables and am glad I bought them both. I also tend to think, that the improvement, certainly for the HL, is greater for better sources and electronics. Just speculation on my part.

Dave

David Hendon posted:

As an engineer, I can't bring myself to even a little bit believe in all these fancy interconnects and I'm not going to buying any of them.  But I don't mind Naim complicating things and offering them to their loyal customers if it helps to keep the company in profit, so they can also make real products that I do believe in like the 272 and 250DR, for example.

best

David

I hesitate to add to the above which was intended to be a light-hearted albeit provocative post, in case I incur HH's wrath even further. Obviously many people do find Naim's premium interconnects make a difference or they wouldn't buy them and lots of postings in this thread have set out what differences people are hearing.

All I was saying was that I'm not going there myself, but unlike an earlier poster who objected to Naim "complicating" things, it doesn't bother me that they do that at all. Good luck to them. For myself I will spend the money left after buying Naim black boxes on more music, fine wine and my grandchildren (oh and our Maine Coon cats who have a vet's bill habit of SL proportions.)

best

David

Is there anybody on this forum (other than HH) who is not an Engineer?  Me too (an Engineer that is),

One thing I find interesting in all this (and I have no answers) is why some people hear differences and others don't.  Of course those that do are certain it is because there is a difference and attribute this to the 'thing' they feel has brought about the change.  They often declare that those that don't hear a difference or, god forbid, try to bring scientific measurement into the argument are closed minded. I often wonder just how much our perception is altered by external factors.  Sure we are certain we hear differences, but are they 'real' measurable differences or is it just our perception that is altered?  This doesn't change the value judgement (people can make their own choices, based on their own personal experiences) but it might explain why some people hear huge differences whilst the measured physical properties don't really change.

Matt (sadly the Barns part is no longer with us)

People also have fundamentally different hearing. Either in the ear or brain, but different nontheless. Even from birth, some people are more sensitive to auditory differences.

This on top of psychology (hearing what reinforces belief or desire), and then piled on with actual interactions with other eqipment make the variable of what sounds different so 'variable' that it really comes down to "buy what you like" as opposed to buy what's best.

And in the end, that's all that matters.

Mattnbarns posted:

Is there anybody on this forum (other than HH) who is not an Engineer?  Me too (an Engineer that is),

One thing I find interesting in all this (and I have no answers) is why some people hear differences and others don't.  Of course those that do are certain it is because there is a difference and attribute this to the 'thing' they feel has brought about the change.  They often declare that those that don't hear a difference or, god forbid, try to bring scientific measurement into the argument are closed minded. I often wonder just how much our perception is altered by external factors.  Sure we are certain we hear differences, but are they 'real' measurable differences or is it just our perception that is altered?  This doesn't change the value judgement (people can make their own choices, based on their own personal experiences) but it might explain why some people hear huge differences whilst the measured physical properties don't really change.

Matt (sadly the Barns part is no longer with us)

I have a degree in Economics And I like some cables....

Poor Barns - looks like a beautiful K9

I have a degree in the Great University of Life. Based on my superior knowledge of all things that crawl, ooze and cause current to flow, I advise the following steps :-

1. Borrow a cable/CD Player/Amp/Speakers/other bit of hi-fi kit.

2. Place in your own system, play much music.

3. If you like it, buy it.

4. If you don't like it, send it back.

5. Ignore other people's opinions on forums.

"Is there anybody on this forum (other than HH) who is not an Engineer? Me too (an Engineer that is)"  Not me, all my post grad qualifications are in management so clearly, as Adam points out, an idiot, but at least a well qualified one!

I'm just a regular sales guy. That makes me extremely cynical and naïve at the same time. 

Normaly I buy things unheard, put it in the system and don't look back. So far it's been an expensive way of doing this hobby.

From time to time I have done it the other way around. Hate to admit (goes against my cynical and naïve tendencies) it's a much smarter way of doing it. Especially if I can live with the upgrade a couple of weeks until I have made up my mind if it's an upgrade or not. A-B tests doesn't do much for me. 

//Jonas

Mattnbarns posted:

Is there anybody on this forum (other than HH) who is not an Engineer?  Me too (an Engineer that is),

One thing I find interesting in all this (and I have no answers) is why some people hear differences and others don't.  Of course those that do are certain it is because there is a difference and attribute this to the 'thing' they feel has brought about the change.  They often declare that those that don't hear a difference or, god forbid, try to bring scientific measurement into the argument are closed minded.

Matt (sadly the Barns part is no longer with us)

Hi Matt. 

To be fair to HH, I think he was replying to someone who refused to try on engineering grounds. 

Regards, Will