S.Lumina Interconect VS. Hi. Line

Allante93 posted:

 

Perhaps the only Reptile that can adapt to the Naim's ecosystem, is the King Snaic.

That being said, the Reptiles that belong to the SL Family, can only perform at it's best in a familiar environment.

That being the Full Loom!

Loom River, drifting from Statement Hills!

Allante93!

 

Phase 1. CD 555 > SL 5pin/5pin > 552 

Phase 2. 552 > 2 x SL 4pin/XLR > 500 

Phase 3. 500 > SL Speaker Cable

1st ~Run in time

2nd ~ isolate IC 

3rd ~ THE FULL IMPACT!

What the heck, it's only Cash!

Allante93!

This is what Nordost (one of the leading manufacturers of hi-end cables) have to say about their own cables running in. Hang in there, it will get better !

"Considerable changes occur in the cable during the break in process. Any gases that were trapped between the insulation and the conductors during manufacturing are dissipated. Additionally, the insulation material charges up. The diode effects of the conductor will be more pronounced after 168 hours of break in.  During this time the cable takes on a direction."

RSCH,

Your initial sceptasism matched mine. I tried super lumina on at least three separate occasions, retuning it to my dealer saying that I even preferred Lavender over SL for the fun factor it imparted and that it was a big forum conspiracy just to make you buy £2k bits of wire as a joke.

Then on the last occasion I borrowed the shops brand new sample I had one of those mystical musical evenings where the venue just swallowed you up and surrounded you with musicicians at the top of their game.

The shop never got their sample back, just my old hiline.

Have faith.

analogmusic posted:

This is what Nordost (one of the leading manufacturers of hi-end cables) have to say about their own cables running in. Hang in there, it will get better !

"Considerable changes occur in the cable during the break in process. Any gases that were trapped between the insulation and the conductors during manufacturing are dissipated. Additionally, the insulation material charges up. The diode effects of the conductor will be more pronounced after 168 hours of break in.  During this time the cable takes on a direction."

Agree it will get better, but I've a lot of sympathy with those who think it really shouldn't be so difficult to get an expensive interconnect to work properly. Why do Naim build it so that it won't work properly if it touches anything yet insist on making it about twice a long as it needs to be in order to make a connection between source and preamp? Slightly muddled thinking in my book.

ref Nordost advice - amusing.

168 hours?  Not 167 or 169 then. And 168 hours of doing what with it to break it in exactly? 

Darke Bear posted:

rsch posted:

Mario posted:

I mean that the hi.line sounds tonally correct where the SL sounded detailed but thin. Yes, absolutely more involvement with hi.line. SL was more like HIFI and Hi.line was more about music and prat.

Thank you, it reflects pretty much my first impression

And that was also my first impression. But now I use it as vastly preferable to the HiLine, so what happened?

Well two things:

1. - it needs to run-in a few days to get over a bright-glare mine initially had and begin to fill-out the lower-frequencies.

2. - it definitely must not touch the floor. It it does it will sound hard and 'detailed' in a wrong analytic way and lose all fun.

Now I did not know this for a while and the cable I had received many curses until I discovered what was wrong and that Naim did not release a dud expensive cable that sounded worse that their less-expensive one in my all-Naim system.

One trick I used to get the cable off the floor - and foam and bubble-wrap don't work - is to put a very light loop in the cable, but threading it through itself in an open knot - do not have it tight - so that it hangs free. All the fun and get-up and go then appears and you see what it is all about.

Also over a longer run-in of weeks and months the cable fills-out the lower frequencies and loses any thinness effect, although this is really only a problem when it touches the floor.

I switched back to the HiLine initially a few times while discovering all this and eventually the SL cable blew it away in terms of open dynamics, naturalness, detail and life - like a live event compared to the (by comparison only) more closed-in but still nice HiLine.

You may decide different, but try it off the floor.

DB.

Exactly the forum member where I got my idea for the light loop....thanks DB!

Haven't looked back since.

DB,

My first impression has been not of overbright, too analytic or thin sound. On the contrary i found it too smooth, refined, more "Into the box" kind of presentation.

Unfortunately it' s full payed, otherwise i'd be seriously tempted to return it to the dealer.

Also i don't see the point of longer a lenght which is complicating its dressing. It seems that it has been engineered primarly for NAC S1 which is way higher than 500/classic boxes.

Regards

Roberto

Another lesson on the importance of a home demo of any expensive purchase. Hearing a fully broken in cable or component in your system allows for a well informed decision and, should it be decided to purchase the item, help with the mind games often experienced when breaking in a brand new item.

alanbass1 posted:

Another lesson on the importance of a home demo of any expensive purchase. Hearing a fully broken in cable or component in your system allows for a well informed decision and, should it be decided to purchase the item, help with the mind games often experienced when breaking in a brand new item.

+223!

You lucky devils, one would be hard pressed, to exercise that option on this side of the pond.

Allante93!

PS. I would still imagine, the Full Loom, would enable the intended results, to the nth degree.

kevin J Carden posted:

168 hours?  Not 167 or 169 then. And 168 hours of doing what with it to break it in exactly? 

The 168 hours comes from MIL-STD-883 "Test Methods and Procedures for Microelectronics - Burn-in Screen". However it's usually done at 125 deg C!

Pretty much standard for hi-rel avionics/spaceflight components, with the intention of weeding out components that might otherwise fail early, i.e. "infant mortality".

Not sure what it would do for cables though.

I suppose saying a week instead of 168 hours wouldn't sound as precise.

Calendar week or working week? 

The OP sounds familiar. Brand new SL as an interconnect in my system did not convince at all. My dealer persuaded me to keep it for a month and it ended up not going back. All it took was time. Ditto SL speaker cables versus NACA5. Even less convincing. But only for the first 3 weeks. Ish.

It wasn't a question of getting used to the new presentation. I had no desire whatsoever to keep something that flat, cold and harsh. But it changed. Having the existing cable on hand for comparisons proved useful and ultimately revealing, fascinating and conclusive.

It's a win either way. If you don't like it you've avoided a lot of expenditure. 

Have you got it the right way round? In the photo it looks like you might have the lighter collar end at the pre-amp. Could be the photo lighting though, have no frame of reference without being able to see the 555 end. 

Whenever I have heard the SL IC vs Hiline the difference has been immediately noticeable, significantly lower noise floor on it. 

I had excatly same sensations with each piece of SL cabling 

Speaker, interconnect din/xlr and then din/din for cd2x.. so there must be a also effect of full loom

DB has described them very good.

They are very expensive but make an impact not that i have tried many better value alternatives to make an assesment on vfm

This is what Chord has to say about cable running in on their cable doctor Q&A on their website

" if you put the Shawline you have just got onto your CD player you could leave a CD on repeat with the volume turned down on the amplifier so that you can burn in the cable overnight or while you are out, it will speed the process and after a couple of hundred hours the cable will perform a lot better."

Suzy Wong posted:

Calendar week or working week? 

Oh definitely 24*7, or 168 hours in old money.

Beyond humour, forum folklore, and patent absurdities like people continuously stating that preventing the cable from touching the floor (which type of floor? There are many) is the only way to have proper performance, what I really fail to understand is that the OP is complaining since Post#1 that his SL sounds dull and shut up and all the posters reply: have faith, it will lose the glare and the brightness.

Is it a case of using two different English languages or, as I suspect, people here is only able to give advice according to prejudices, unable to consider solutions to problems they have never faced? Wouldn't it be better to simply say: 'I have no idea, sorry'? Or 'take it back and have your money refunded'?

Crompton Divided posted:

Beyond humour, forum folklore, and patent absurdities like people continuously stating that preventing the cable from touching the floor (which type of floor? There are many) is the only way to have proper performance, what I really fail to understand is that the OP is complaining since Post#1 that his SL sounds dull and shut up and all the posters reply: have faith, it will lose the glare and the brightness.

Is it a case of using two different English languages or, as I suspect, people here is only able to give advice according to prejudices, unable to consider solutions to problems they have never faced? Wouldn't it be better to simply say: 'I have no idea, sorry'? Or 'take it back and have your money refunded'?

 

In first instance i hadn't the opportunity to home trial it before, since i purchased  from a British dealer (RP is much lower over here than Italy) Having said that i based my decision upon forum users feedbacks.

For the moment my general impression is that Hi Line and S.Lumina probably differs in a sort of 282 vs 252 or CDS3 vsCDX2 fashion.

About S: Lumina i can appreciate the smoothness and refinement  on voices but, the flipside is a more laid back, more "into the box"  presentation which for the moment i'm not prepared to digest.

Probably with help of a friend, we' ll try to came to a conclusion, sometimes four hears are better than two.

Regards

Roberto

Crompton Divided posted:

Beyond humour, forum folklore, and patent absurdities like people continuously stating that preventing the cable from touching the floor (which type of floor?  

Dunno why but it really does make a difference. Should it be that way, probably not but it is in the case of SL. From MY EXPERIENCE the sound was a little 'flat ' and came more 'alive' when the cable was free of any connection other than the I/O.  

probably the design of the air-plug. the hi-line should also be hanging loose not touching anything.

 

i based my decision upon forum users feedbacks.

 

Whilst I remain confident that after a month you will probably like it, I would never do what you have done. 

If I can't audition something at home I won't buy it. Your ears might be golden. But they're of no use to me. How can I possibly listen through them?

I hope it ends happily for you. It should take nothing more than a bit of time. See what you think in the first week of July.

Hi Harry,

I hope will be so, however my concering is that with my experience, when you get a new component fresh out of the box,

usually it's pretty bright and alive before a possible rollecoster or low down period, this time is pretty much the contrary

Regards

Roberto

My din to XLR wire took ages to sound right - about three months or more. When I first got it the sound was very shut in and kind of weird. It opened out eventually. I didn't try it before buying as my dealer doesn't stock them, but the deal was that if I eventually didn't like it, I could have my money back. 

It's interesting that you mention an 'into the box' presentation, which is completely opposite to what I have, where the speakers just disappear. It took a long time to get there though. 

alanbass1 posted:

Crompton Divided posted:

Beyond humour, forum folklore, and patent absurdities like people continuously stating that preventing the cable from touching the floor (which type of floor?  

Dunno why but it really does make a difference. Should it be that way, probably not but it is in the case of SL. From MY EXPERIENCE the sound was a little 'flat ' and came more 'alive' when the cable was free of any connection other than the I/O.  

Ok, fair enough. And does YOUR EXPERIENCE also include a scientific (meaning repeatable, under controlled conditions [= not alone], and giving consistent results under consistent conditions) study of the objective facts that could bring to such a result?

Thanks,

CD

Super Lumina does take a very long time to really come on song. I have added it bit by bit to my system, and started as the OP did by replacing my Hi-Line. I thought it was better than the Hi-Line, but certainly not overwhelmingly so. Then I added the speaker cables etc... and just waited. How my opinion then changed! Over time the sound became so completely 'right'. Much more of everything. Beautifully detailed and involving, and exceptionally musical.

Trouble is, the long waiting game is so frustrating. I have no idea why it takes so long for bits of wire to do this, or how it works, but I recently swapped back to NACA5 and the Hi-Line etc, just to do a quick comparison, and there was absolutely no contest.