Super lumina versus NACA5

jon honeyball posted:

SL speaker cable doesnt time as well as NACA5. It does other things (air, detail) very well, and considerably better than NACA5.

But I find it boring.

+1 

Not boring part, but different

I tried Julian's set of interconnects with CDX2/555ps/282/SC/NBLs and found it lost the boogie factor conpared to Hiline, though there was much to like elsewhere. I didn't add the speaker cables because of the plugs (no room betwen crossovers and wall). A home trial is vital I'd say but if you're going to change speakers and run a dedicated mains feed, do that first.

gosh! alleged lack of timing of SL speaker cables can end up saving me a lot of dosh. but i should know better -- these things are very system and 'ear' dependent, which probably explains why some folk are very happy with them.

enjoy

ken

It does occur to me that a 500 system might work with the SL cables better than a 282/SC/250 did but I'm now on the DR waiting list for the 500 and I still won't be able to use the speaker cables with the speakers in the optimal position unless there's a spade adaptor that will fit the NBLs (there is/was for the Ovators).  I might just leave this one for the time being.

jon honeyball posted:

SL speaker cable doesnt time as well as NACA5. It does other things (air, detail) very well, and considerably better than NACA5.

But I find it boring.

You might be right, I haven't noticed it when I compared as I was so overwhelmed by the difference in sound quality. As you mention air, detail, tonality.... Which also might give the assumption that thing becomes less obvious due to the other aspects getting into the foreground.

Bert Schurink posted:

jon honeyball posted:

SL speaker cable doesnt time as well as NACA5. It does other things (air, detail) very well, and considerably better than NACA5.

But I find it boring.

You might be right, I haven't noticed it when I compared as I was so overwhelmed by the difference in sound quality. As you mention air, detail, tonality.... Which also might give the assumption that thing becomes less obvious due to the other aspects getting into the foreground.

Maybe. But these are hugely run-in SL speaker cables. And they simply dont time as well as NACA5, either with Statement pre/power, 300DR or 500DR. 

As I said, everything else is better. But the timing is worse. And that musical grip is, for me, critical. 

Your mileage my vary. But its been consistent across a number of setups for me. 

We were told that the set we borrowed was run in. It had the same problem as the new set. We ran in the new set for 2 solid weeks, still no joy. Assumed that was it, until a chance discussion and we set it on repeat for 3 months. After that, completely different in the timing dept. And I mean totally different, works a treat now. Why? HOW?!?!

Frank.

Frank Abela posted:

We were told that the set we borrowed was run in. It had the same problem as the new set. We ran in the new set for 2 solid weeks, still no joy. Assumed that was it, until a chance discussion and we set it on repeat for 3 months. After that, completely different in the timing dept. And I mean totally different, works a treat now. Why? HOW?!?!

Frank.

You became accustomed to the sound? You're not selling it to me Frank. At my age I could be dead in three months!

I had the same experience as Jon re. timing issues, this with an SL interconnect. Lots of detail, airy, open, but uninteresting because it lacked the crucial timing I need to enjoy the music. It might not matter so much to others. Cable very run in.

tonym posted:

Frank Abela posted:

We were told.....

You became accustomed to the sound? You're not selling it to me Frank. At my age I could be dead in three months!

I had the same experience as Jon re. timing issues, this with an SL interconnect. Lots of detail, airy, open, but uninteresting because it lacked the crucial timing I need to enjoy the music.

It might not matter so much to others.

Cable very run in.

Very interesting, Mr tonym, and Frank Abela!

Well, I'm an easy sell to both of you Heavy Weights. When the 500 Club is active, I'm all ears, especially when the hand full of Active gents go at it!

And tonym, I know you hear my Dog whistle, when interjecting links, debuting Naim's Reference CDP, with Active DBLs, fronted with an 282.

And Frank, thanks to you, I'm enjoying the heck out of my meager Cdx2 MK I.

Sooo, could the timing be System dependant, as it relates to the SL Speaker Cable?

On the front end, S1,552,252, no problem.

However, introduce older Olive technology, perhaps the timing could be affected.

JON HONEYBALL'S, dilemma.

On the tail end, is it possible, reaction time could differ, between the iconic DBLS, and more modern Speaker designs, say the Ovator 800s.

Hence, if one is running an S1, with Active Ovators, the SL Speaker Cable is in balance, as opposed to DBLs.

 Gentleman, what's your take, on my Theory?

Allante93!

Sorry Mr Allante, that doesn't quite work, does it? Although system differences may be part of the explanation, other forum members with various setups have reported the same timing issue (lack of PRaT, call it what you will)  with SL.

Except for Halibut who has SL2s but a 272 (is this a clue) those of us who are unconvinced have back to the wall speakers and complete Naim systems, until Frank turns up with his recent assessment and blows my theory, Did you try them at home Frank?

yeti42 posted:

Except for Halibut who has SL2s but a 272 (is this a clue) those of us who are unconvinced have back to the wall speakers and complete Naim systems, until Frank turns up with his recent assessment and blows my theory, Did you try them at home Frank?

Interesting, my Theory just got rejected by an Individual, who also happens to have old school Speakers.

Read the dialogue, between you and others, could you briefly restate your theory?

Allante93!

Very interesting a few months back SL was the big thing the full system should be Sl for a substantial sum of money, now suddenly the cable does not time, in Naimland this is a very serious problem. Of course I suppose people in the do not time camp are not the same full SL people.

Claus

No, it wasn't getting used to the cable. We took a Unitilite into the back room, connected some speakers we never use out of phase and facing each other using the SL cable, hit repeat on the thing and left it there for pretty much 3 months. I think we only changed the connection once or twice in that period when we wanted to run in some speakers. We tested the cable in the big system once at 6 weeks and it still wasn't working. After 3 whole months we brought it out and it worked in the big system. So we then took it home over a couple of weeks and confirmed that it was timing fine in our own systems, which are quite different.

Now I'll be the first to hold up my hands and say I have no idea why it takes so long, nor how it works, but in our experience it did, and it took that long. Of course we then had the "but we can't tell customers to wait 3 months before their cable will work" argument so we're still a bit nonplussed by the results, but I figured that for those with timing issues here, you'd want to know that our experience came good in the end. The difference was chalk and cheese.

Edit: the above is specific to speaker cable. Interconnects are a different thing, and by and large I don't recall timing issues there.

Frank.

Claus-Thoegersen posted:

Very interesting a few months back SL was the big thing the full system should be Sl for a substantial sum of money, now suddenly the cable does not time, in Naimland this is a very serious problem. Of course I suppose people in the do not time camp are not the same full SL people.

Claus

It times just fine. In my room and system. Other people's results will vary depending on room and system. And other factors as discussed.

The "got accustomed to the sound" hypothesis doesn't really work for SL. It's so raw and screechy whilst managing   to  sound shut  in that you can't get used  to  it. And if you somehow managed got accustomed to the unnatural presentation you wouldn't pay to have your system thrown out of tune to that  extent.

As ever, use your ears and trust what YOU hear.  Those unfortunate enough not to be able to audition might consider themselves to be in a more tricky situation, but they're not really. At that price just don't go there blind. It's not like NACA5 (or the alternatives) sound awful.

Harry posted:

Claus-Thoegersen posted:

Very interesting a few months back SL was the big thing the full system should be Sl for a substantial sum of money, now suddenly the cable does not time, in Naimland this is a very serious problem. Of course I suppose people in the do not time camp are not the same full SL people.

Claus

It times just fine. In my room and system. Other people's results will vary depending on room and system. And other factors as discussed.

The "got accustomed to the sound" hypothesis doesn't really work for SL. It's so raw and screechy whilst managing   to  sound shut  in that you can't get used  to  it. And if you somehow managed got accustomed to the unnatural presentation you wouldn't pay to have your system thrown out of tune to that  extent.

As ever, use your ears and trust what YOU hear.  Those unfortunate enough not to be able to audition might consider themselves to be in a more tricky situation, but they're not really. At that price just don't go there blind. It's not like NACA5 (or the alternatives) sound awful.

Quite right Harry, it's down to room, system, and your own preferences. It's this running-in business I've an issue with. Can't speak for Jon but certainly the SL interconnect I tried was not shut in or screechy. It had been extensively run in before I tried it. It just didn't time, sounding boring, and I really struggle to imagine how, after three months, it will suddenly gain this characteristic. I'm prepared to try again at some stage, with a more mature cable, but my Super Sarum sounds so much better that I don't feel a great need to repeat the exercise.

I think everyone's susceptible to getting used to a particular sound. For myself, I've bought a particular cable that, initially, I wasn't entirely happy with, but after a while I felt it had "run in" and sounded much better. So I bought an exact duplicate. Which sounded, out of the box,  the same as the so-called run-in one. Perhaps it's just me.

Our friend Dusty put brand new cables in and was delighted from the start. For me the SL was unambiguously bad out of the box and improved by the day.  Or at least the speaker cable and IC did. The DIN-XLR slipped in and sounded good from the off. As is the way of  the world, none of my experiences are guaranteed to be predictable or reproducible elsewhere. Oh the fun of it

I do recognise the issue of the SL speaker cable not sounding sensational straight out of the box.

Fortunately, my dealer let me have a home trial of a well run in pair, and though the arrival of my subsequently purchased pair was greeted less enthusiastically on first hearing, they gradually improved, especially with the arrival of the SL din/din interconnect.

The last step was the addition of the din/XLR pair, and in the three months or so since the complete loom has been in place, the system is now fully on song. Can't say whether that's the result of the speaker cables resolving themselves, or the addition of the remaining parts of the equation, or a combination of all three factors.

I managed to avoid the dissapointment others have mentioned when installing the full SL loom in one go, but this was due to financial constraints on my part!

Mind you, halfway through this process, Chord Music made it's entrance, (see thread elsewhere), but I think I'll pass on that one, (see "financial constraints" , as above.) 

As you say, the fun never stops.

Harry posted:

Our friend Dusty put brand new cables in and was delighted from the start. For me the SL was unambiguously bad out of the box and improved by the day.  Or at least the speaker cable and IC did. The DIN-XLR slipped in and sounded good from the off. As is the way of  the world, none of my experiences are guaranteed to be predictable or reproducible elsewhere. Oh the fun of it

My experience is aligned with Dusty's.  I found the speaker cable and interconnect needed little run-in and sounded good from the off.  Later when I got a single SL XLR to my 250.2 my experience was the same. Later still when my 250.2 was upgraded to a 300DR, which necessitated trading in my fairly new SL XLR for a pair, once again I found the run-in period short and shallow.  It's curious how our experiences seem so divergent with the SL cables.

What's all this "Fun" stuff? don't you realise how incredibly serious this is? 

tonym posted:

What's all this "Fun" stuff? don't you realise how incredibly serious this is? 

As a postscript to my post above, which mentions both my "ever obliging dealer", and "financial constraints", I've just had a call from him, letting me know that he can offer me a demo Nap 500 DR at a decent figure, which will involve trading in my 300 DR.

Mustn't read this forum then. 

Claus-Thoegersen posted:

Very interesting a few months back SL was the big thing the full system should be Sl for a substantial sum of money, now suddenly the cable does not time, in Naimland this is a very serious problem. Of course I suppose people in the do not time camp are not the same full SL people.

Claus

Thanks Claus, Simple, the Full Loom implemented.

No timing issues in 2012, when Naim shared the first leg of their trickled down technologies, DR power supplies.

2015, the Statement Debut, Naturally, the Full Loom.

The rush is on, how to implement the Full Loom?

Those fortunate few, could implement it according to Naim's playbook.

 1st, Dred front, and rear end

 Burn in amp, no timing issues

2nd, Consenus of SL ordering

1.  Source IC, DR amps not saturated yet.

2.  Snaxo IC, DR amps not saturated yet.

3. Speaker Cable

 DR amps finally saturated!

4. XLR IC, Full Loom implemented!

Frank posted:

"Edit: the above is specific to speaker cable. Interconnects are a different thing, and by and large I don't recall timing issues there."

So, if one is contemplating the Full Loom NOW, it's really only two options.

The listening Chain, over an 3 month period, or all at once.

Assuming  Dred front, and rear end:

1. Source 

2. Snaxo

3. XLR, and Speaker Cable

If, I was fortunate enough, and desired the Full Loom, I would implement # 3 simultaneously.

Idle time, just some Thoughts of how Naim might have suggested, if one choose to partake in their SL technologies!

Enjoy your Music, the Why!

Allante93!

can someone younger than me explain what poor timing is, ...please. would it be possible to explain it in terms of a how poor timing would manifest on a reasonably well known recording? depending on definition, is it possible that the cable would work in all other respects except timing? is timing the opposite of "congestion"?

just so you know, i have SL IC for NDS and SL snaxo and my system sounds absolutely fantastic -- in fact it seems to continue to get better each time i play it. 

enjoy...

ken

ken c posted:

can someone younger than me explain what poor timing is, ...please. would it be possible to explain it in terms of a how poor timing would manifest on a reasonably well known recording? depending on definition, is it possible that the cable would work in all other respects except timing? is timing the opposite of "congestion"?

just so you know, i have SL IC for NDS and SL snaxo and my system sounds absolutely fantastic -- in fact it seems to continue to get better each time i play it. 

enjoy...

ken

Where the pace and rhythm are out of sync. Instrumental clarity and separation that fails to gel into a musical whole...Is my best effort.

I heard it very noticeably with S600's a few years back where some well known albums sounded like they had been dismantled and reassembled wrongly.

G