Burndies
Posted by: Gavin L on 02 March 2018
OK, so I finally got around to putting some soft foam under the two burndies that have been on the floor in my active DBL setup. Where did that extra depth in sound come from?!!
The lower amp is a 500 that serves the bass, and given space, there is no configuration that would stop them trailing on the floor.
Perhaps I am imagining it - but whatever - 5 mins reoworking the cables seems to have done wonders to the sound.
Some will say you are imagining it - but you're not!
Burndies off the floor is a must - if you can get it done.
Foam is better than resting on a hard floor and if you eventually get them free-hanging you get even more performance.
Enjoy!
DB.
Slightly off topic
through experience, I now arrange the amps treble at the bottom and bass at the top
this is on the basis that the bass will always cause the amp to work harder and therefore heat up quicker which will at some point enable the fans
my point is, there is going to be more dust etc closer to the carpet than 3ft or so above the carpet, this will help to prevent excess dust entering the amp
lyndon
Hi, yes I find burndies frustratingly finicky .... the other area to care care of is to avoid the twisting of the wires near the connectors... get it wrong and for whatever reason the sound hardens on the higher end stuff.
So when inserting Burndy cables, try holding and aligning the cable rather than the connector... it is easier said than done... and can be quite a faff for components in a rack.. but get it right and you should be rewarded.
Additionally the Burndy flex workout.. especially when new and then every 12 months or so .. seems to make the resultant audio more relaxed and flowing...
One could perhaps argue this is a design flaw... I just look at it as a Naim idiosynchracy
On the NAP500, the Burndy sockets are either side of the unit, but on the power supply they are both located on the same side. This means that if the two boxes are on different racks (brain and brawn), one Burndy cable has more slack to be accommodated than the other. With the amp itself on the bottom of the brain stack the slack Burndy has a tendency to touch the floor. Whilst I have always used a piece of pipe lagging round the cable, I have recently inserted a single section of large bubble wrap underneath. Can't say I've noticed any improvement in SQ though.
I suspend the Burndys on the NAP300 (left and right near ground level) with a piece of ribbon weighted on one of the upper levels to support things. Seems to tighten the sound up.
The newer, more flexible burndies are definitely a bit easier to work with and you feel that there is less stress on the cables inside. I do do try to relax them, whenever I have the system apart, which is usually only during an upgrade. Although lately, that has been every 12 to 18 months!!
I didn’t think the sound hardened. There just seemed to be more of it, in the very lowest frequencies. I already have plenty of bass (DBL with 500 on this driver), but it seemed to add more “atmospherics”.
I had thought about suspending the cables - but wouldn’t they then hang against the Fraim?
Although I cannot see a way of organising the 3 naps so that the burndies hang free, I am thinking of reversing the stacking order (to bass / mid / treble) so that the speaker lengths work better for reaching the DBLs (treble / mid / bass). Is this obsessive behaviour?