Fernar,

I have always found the Naim manuals extraordinarily accurate and generous of data a) with respect to what is really useful or necessary to know, in order to get the performance they have planned for you, and b) in comparison to the pretentiousness and vacuity of most other 'manuals'.

If they sound somehow vague about speaker cables, it is, in my opinion, because they are aware that some amps 'need' the NAC A5, some don't, they nevertheless wish that everyone would use the NAC A5 anyway because they believe that it is an excellent, relatively cheap speaker cable (shall we take, for example, a look at the Nordost vaudeville...?) but are also aware that experimenting with speaker cables is, apparently, an inherent vital necessity of even a Naim owner (as is testified by the number of discussions about it), and they do not want to completely spoil their customers' lust for some personal toying.

fernar posted:

- if it is possible to use 'any' practical speaker cable length - then in fact the manuals are fully correct and clear.... 

This is the problem,   as I've said previously,  its not the length as such,  its prrimarily the inductance value.   3.5uH is the required minimum & if you have NACA5 @ its published 1uH/m its easy.  But what LC&R is cable brand X ?  

I can usually calculate 'R', but 'L' and 'C'...        Oh 'L', well let's just 'C'!

I am going to get myself a set of  NAC A5 speaker cables of 3.5m - dont know what I will do with the extra length of cable - maybe hide it behind the speaker (of course, not rolled up in a spool)... then at least I have the assurance that all is well without any potential issues....

Only question is do I get the black version or the white version.. :-)

And don't forget a hairdryer to bend it!

I dont know much about this, so forgive me this question - why can the cable not be rolled in circles for the excess cable? Thx Lars

On a very vague and approximated technical ground, to avoid high frequencies being attenuated; but if we speak of a pair of turns around an air diameter of, say, 12', the audibility of the effect is 'not far' (please correct me Frank..) from that of the suspension of the NAC A from the floor or rising the pitch of a violin of 2 cents while playing Strauss in a row of 20. 

LarsDK posted:

I dont know much about this, so forgive me this question - why can the cable not be rolled in circles for the excess cable? Thx Lars

A coil will add inductance;  how much depends on diameter & numbers of turns.  What effect that will have will depend on the original inductance of the cable & the nominal impedance of the speaker & if the coil is on one channel only it will unbalance the speakers acting as a stereo pair.

The correct way to deal with excess cable is to fold it   - see FAQ

If it were me, and I was using the system in the kitchen and it was really important to hide the cable, I'd be getting 3m lengths of Tellurium, which is thin and bendy and so much easier to deal with. The last thing you want is great big hanks of A5 to hide away. 

Come to think of it, I wouldn't bother with a UnitiLite at all - I'd get a mu-so or Qb. 

fernar posted:

Only question is do I get the black version or the white version.. :-)

The white NACA5 is reported to be the better sounding one  

Many thanks for the replies! Br Lars

Hungryhalibut - I did consider MU-so/QB - but we do like CDs - and even though they are all ripped (well nearly all of them!!) on a NAS - we still do put on a CD - especially classical music CDs.... (which are not ripped - due to when playing the music on the NAS in random mode for parties, background, etc the mix of classical, rock, soul just does not work - for us anyway..!!)

So the Unitilite is the perfect combination of function for our kitchen system

Hi Fernar,

A suggestion to kill two birds with one box...  Get a second NAS drive:

Put your classical stuff on the second drive and it will have a different UPnP server, so you'll only use the first one for the random stuff.
Set each NAS to backup to the other and that'll increase the safety of your data in case of NAS or disk failure.

Funny you should say that.... I was just wondering if I should bring back into service a D-LINK NAS drive thats been gathering dust... I dont need to worry about my primary NAS drive which stores all my FLAC and DSD music + films + family photos - this is already set up for backup/restore.... I could suse some space on this to back up the D-LINK once I have ripped all the Classic CDs we have... only need to find the time to rip all the CDs..... that is never fun...

Klout10 posted:

fernar posted:

Only question is do I get the black version or the white version.. :-)

The white NACA5 is reported to be the better sounding one  

Bit racist, I think!