There and back again – NACA5 to SuperLumina and back to NACA5

Phil Harris posted:

Adam Zielinski posted:

Somehow, and I'm really confused as to why, she claims we don't need to have a Naim in every room. I always respond to that we don't have Naims in out bathrooms. But for some bizzare reason that argument never goes down too well....

I am disappointed by this statement Adam - I feel that you are simply not trying hard enough ...  

In the bathroom in my last flat I ran a Qute and NAP100 into a small pair of "bookshelf" speakers on 1m tall Atacama stands and an M&K VX-7 sub.

Phil

Try this: I'm sure a Super Lumina shower cable will provide more details, but less fun. Room corrections could be done by replacing the shower curtain.

sorry, i just cant take those floor sausages seriously.

Women seem to be very strange creatures, unable to understand the simple necessity of ubiquitous Naim equipment.  The need is self-evident, I would have thought, but they just don't see it. 

A friend of mine was told by his wife that it's either her or the Naim kit.  He was sorry to see her go.

Women, eh?  Can't live with them, can't live with them.

Steve

Say no more...................somebody's 'aving a larf.

jon honeyball posted:

sorry, i just cant take those floor sausages seriously.

Is that a euphemism for something?

They are quite something aren't they!

Phil

well they look like something from a large animals lower bowel movement, but i was trying to be delicate about it...

Beachcomber posted:

Women seem to be very strange creatures, unable to understand the simple necessity of ubiquitous Naim equipment.  The need is self-evident, I would have thought, but they just don't see it. 

A friend of mine was told by his wife that it's either her or the Naim kit.  He was sorry to see her go.

Women, eh?  Can't live with them, can't live with them.

Steve

As I've mentioned a few times on here, some years ago - after a lot of begging and cajoling - I managed to obtain a pair of DBLs ...

The GF at the time came over to mine and on seeing them set up in my flat outright declared "Those are never coming into anywhere that we have together" ... the current possible-future-ex-to-be knows better than to make such rash statements.

Phil

jon honeyball posted:

well they look like something from a large animals lower bowel movement, but i was trying to be delicate about it...

It's the interconnects that get me more than the speaker leads...

Phil

I can only marvel at the self control of the person who is able to take the money for such things. 

Heck, I have problems with speaker cables costing more than NACA5, but it has been explained to me why SL costs what it does. And I believe the numbers, so I am happy in my head that no-one is having a huge laugh at the expense of the customers, despite the cost. 

But items like this brown thing do beggar belief. 

jon honeyball posted:

Heck, I have problems with speaker cables costing more than NACA5, but it has been explained to me why SL costs what it does. And I believe the numbers, so I am happy in my head that no-one is having a huge laugh at the expense of the customers, despite the cost. 

But items like this brown thing do beggar belief. 

Hi Jon, Can you tell me what you learned about the SL cables re cost and numbers? I am keen to understand myself. Cheers

jon honeyball posted:

Heck, I have problems with speaker cables costing more than NACA5, but it has been explained to me why SL costs what it does. And I believe the numbers, so I am happy in my head that no-one is having a huge laugh at the expense of the customers, despite the cost. 

But items like this brown thing do beggar belief. 

Jon - Unless it's betraying some IP / Commercial confidentiality to explain, what justifies the ~£300 per metre cost ?

James

These thingies (the sausages, not SL) really leave me speechless. Even several hours after seeing the picture, I am still unsure if they are amusing, appalling or something else altogether (or any combination of these attributes) .

Phil Harris posted:

Adam Zielinski posted:

Somehow, and I'm really confused as to why, she claims we don't need to have a Naim in every room. I always respond to that we don't have Naims in out bathrooms. But for some bizzare reason that argument never goes down too well....

I am disappointed by this statement Adam - I feel that you are simply not trying hard enough ...  

In the bathroom in my last flat I ran a Qute and NAP100 into a small pair of "bookshelf" speakers on 1m tall Atacama stands and an M&K VX-7 sub.

Phil

Apologies Phil - I will try harder.

However I felt I should pick my battles. So the one with NDS and 555PS  I felt was mine
I even managed to swing the Ovators into one of the rooms - she said: 'those ugly things will NOT go into a living room'.
Which was perfect because I needed the S-400s in my music room

Once I tried adding a small sub in the kitchen / dining room to go with the SuperUniti, but a threat of eating takeaways was enough to convince me not to pursue this one further...

ken c posted:

TOBYJUG posted:

Third movement of Tchaikovsky Symphony no 4.. has a Piccolo solo of 21 notes under less than 3 seconds....must be one of the best tests of timing !

i believe i have this recording -- so i will look out for the fast solo :-)

enjoy

ken

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" (variously credited) just about sums up the difficult of describing one's own experiences with music and hifi, and I hesitate to join in any discussion about PRAT and timing; but here goes.  With the greatest respect I think TOBYJUG's comments about the rapid passage of notes misunderstands the PRAT conundrum as I understand it.  It was best demonstrated to me by the late lamented Roger Macer at Southwark Sound Org.  He used a Thelonious Monk track that did was of moderate tempo but very heavily syncopated and complex.  On the demo of the lesser kit (I can't remember exactly what was being demoed - possibly a power source) the track was incomprehensible and sounded broken. On the superior equipment the track snapped in to focus and made complete sense. No explanation given as to why, but that was the demonstrable effect.  Not sure that helps anybody, but there you are.

Adam Zielinski posted:

Apologies Phil - I will try harder. 

Adam Zielinski posted:

However I felt I should pick my battles. So the one with NDS and 555PS  I felt was mine
I even managed to swing the Ovators into one of the rooms - she said: 'those ugly things will NOT go into a living room'.
Which was perfect because I needed the S-400s in my music room  

Result!

Adam Zielinski posted:

Once I tried adding a small sub in the kitchen / dining room to go with the SuperUniti, but a threat of eating takeaways was enough to convince me not to pursue this one further...

TBH given some of my ex's this could also have been a win-win situation but YMMV.

Phil

It is exactly as you would expect: Its very labour intensive and the parts costs are high. And the investment of time, let alone ordering cable runs by the huge length which might not turn out to be any good, during R&D is punishing. Nothing surprising at all if you consider how people are talking of months to run in a set of cables -- that fair screws your R&D planning. There were rumours going around for years about new cables, but its clear how difficult it is to actually do this work, given the run-in times.

Am i happy they have done SL speaker cable? For sure -- many people love it, which is great. But it doesnt work for me, whereas the SL interconnects have consistently made me smile. Well, except for the thought of 6 x din/XLR cables etc :-)

jon honeyball posted:

It is exactly as you would expect: Its very labour intensive and the parts costs are high. And the investment of time, let alone ordering cable runs by the huge length which might not turn out to be any good, during R&D is punishing. Nothing surprising at all if you consider how people are talking of months to run in a set of cables -- that fair screws your R&D planning. There were rumours going around for years about new cables, but its clear how difficult it is to actually do this work, given the run-in times.

Am i happy they have done SL speaker cable? For sure -- many people love it, which is great. But it doesnt work for me, whereas the SL interconnects have consistently made me smile. Well, except for the thought of 6 x din/XLR cables etc :-)

During a factory tour earlier this year I saw a very skilled lady in the production department assembling SL cables. I can tell you the construction of SL cables is complex and termination of these cables is an intricate process requiring much skill and hence training. For sure much of the cost we pay is to recoup the investment in R&D and testing that went into the final design of these cables as Jon mentions, together with the high cost of the materials used. But be assured there is considerable cost in just putting the things together.

bluedog posted:

"Writing about music is like dancing about architecture" (variously credited) just about sums up the difficult of describing one's own experiences with music and hifi, and I hesitate to join in any discussion about PRAT and timing; but here goes.  With the greatest respect I think TOBYJUG's comments about the rapid passage of notes misunderstands the PRAT conundrum as I understand it.  It was best demonstrated to me by the late lamented Roger Macer at Southwark Sound Org.  He used a Thelonious Monk track that did was of moderate tempo but very heavily syncopated and complex.  On the demo of the lesser kit (I can't remember exactly what was being demoed - possibly a power source) the track was incomprehensible and sounded broken. On the superior equipment the track snapped in to focus and made complete sense. No explanation given as to why, but that was the demonstrable effect.  Not sure that helps anybody, but there you are.

Good to hear that you were also a customer at the old Sound Org at London Bridge. I bought my first system there LP12/Ittok/Asak/32/snaps/250/Kans. You could say "the rest  is history".  although this could be "good old days" syndrome -- i can honestly say i haven't experienced a better Naim dealership since then! i guess it helps that we considered each other as friends.  and i bought i a lot of vinly that i came across there.

your story with the heavily syncopated Thelonious Monk is a very good one in my view. In other words - i believe what you are referring to is neither fast nor slow, but simply "confused" -- another word that is often used is "congested". But it would be very difficult to imagine that Naim Audio would release a product that sounded confused/congested!!!

in my view, any issues to do with timing are related to transient response -- i.e. performance in the time domain. i can only guess that the timing problem that is being attributed to SL speaker wire is to do with its effect o transient response. I would further guess that this could only be a feeling of slowing down? (i cant imagine it being speeding up somehow). As an aside, its been discussed here quite a few times that upgraded/better systems tend to sound 'slower' -- apparently -- because of more information coming through that the brain has to deal with. i don't fully understand this but hey - this is not the only phenomenon i don't understand...

as i thought experiment - i would expect that the effect of SL speaker wires on timing issues (i.e. on transient respond) would be measurable? Simplistically, pass a suitable signal (square wave) and measure rise times? see if they are consistent and not excessive?

i better stop before i dig myself into an even deeper hole...

enjoy

ken

Just a quick impression. My dealer is demoing CDX2.2-XPSDR-SuperLumina IC-282-SuperCapDR-NAP300DR-SuperLumina speaker cables-Harbeth M40.1s. (For once the system is assembled properly, because I did it.)

So the head units are on the upper shelf of a good rack, side by side, while the PSUs are on the lower one. Burndies and all cables do not touch each other and hang as loose as possible. PSUs and head units are cross-placed at opposite extremes of the respective shelf. All that could be cared for given the rack, was cared for.

I have heard this system with NAC A5 and with the much more costly Absolue Creation speaker cables; then yesterday, with SL. My first impression is that the out-of-the-box SL are fantastic cables: fast, incisive, coherent, ultra detailed and with seismic bass; are less smoothed-off than the French ones and infinitely more authoritative than the NAC A5. It is my opinion only, but much as I can understand the subjective feeling of 'not hearing enough improvement' given the SLs' cost, the idea of returning to NAC A5 having owned SL seems madness to me.

Best

M 

Here's one for Phil, is there any way of connecting SL speaker cable to input of a NBL crossover the NBLs themselves being only 5.5cm from the wall behind without the cable touching the wall or speaker? I can only just manage this with A5. The Ovators had a spade adaptor that might have done the job but the materials are likely wrong for NBLs and posdibly the spacing too.

Massimo Bertola posted:

Just a quick impression. My dealer is demoing CDX2.2-XPSDR-SuperLumina IC-282-SuperCapDR-NAP300DR-SuperLumina speaker cables-Harbeth M40.1s. (For once the system is assembled properly, because I did it.)

So the head units are on the upper shelf of a good rack, side by side, while the PSUs are on the lower one. Burndies and all cables do not touch each other and hang as loose as possible. PSUs and head units are cross-placed at opposite extremes of the respective shelf. All that could be cared for given the rack, was cared for.

I have heard this system with NAC A5 and with the much more costly Absolue Creation speaker cables; then yesterday, with SL. My first impression is that the out-of-the-box SL are fantastic cables: fast, incisive, coherent, ultra detailed and with seismic bass; are less smoothed-off than the French ones and infinitely more authoritative than the NAC A5. It is my opinion only, but much as I can understand the subjective feeling of 'not hearing enough improvement' given the SLs' cost, the idea of returning to NAC A5 having owned SL seems madness to me.

Best

M 

The comments on the SL greater bass-extension is what I found can cause problems in some systems. Care and attention to system set-up is far more important with SL speaker leads than with NAC A5 - so the comments on Burndies are spot-on. If not properly implemented the SL cable has poor timing as there is more LF getting through - a lot more! Anyone going from small to large speakers knows that the more bass you have the more care needed in the installation.

I'm in no way going against the comments of preferring the NAC A5 over SL as I can understand how it can happen, as it did in my initial install - until I found I had fouled a Burndy with the SL (it is more floppy and sagged onto it) - once sorted the bass became clean deep and fast with no timing negatives to my hearing.

Also I do find interactions between different cable manufacturers offerings and have not found mixing often works. To be clear it never worked for me, but my Dealer has had more success in finding combinations that he says go together and also confirmed some just go flat combined.

DB.

I've just been given a set of SL speaker cables  to try via my dealer, these are new out of the box and on first listen have been somewhat underwhelming ...

The bass is very muddy, highs are very bright, very clinical in places, somewhat of an uncomfortable listen.

Maybe after reading all the threads on these cables my expectations are to high or possibly everything will settle down and start to come on song with time..?

I was expecting a very positive listen and then to be more impressed as time goes by, as others have experienced..... 

By way of comparison my TQ Ultra blacks, we're very impressive from the off ( new out of the box) and kept improving.... 

Maybe its that silver coating on the SL's that's causing the problem or is it just a case of burn in process syndrome? 

Having recently had a dedicated supply installed, the SL's I would of thought,  be able to perform a little better from the off....

SL's take a while to come on song. I think around 1 week is a good guide. When they are new, they do sound rather strange and a little bit uninspiring.

I've actually tested (out of sheer curiosity) TQ Ultra Blacks and found them to be of a similar sound signature to.... NACA5 In other words very enjoyable.

When I then put my SLs on the system I was testing TQ Ultra Blacks, the improvement was there, but it was minor and subtle. But then my SLs are nearly 10 months young by now.