Powerline punt?

I bought 2 used fir my system. I’d do it again too. Does that mean I can gear a significant difference with them? No but I don’t have to worry about what if now. Enjoy!

Hi Popeye,

unless you have a certain black box in your mind right now, Powerlines look like a good addition to your system. Their benefits should be noticeable with your system and they can stay with you if you should eventually decide to upgrade the black boxes.

 I wouldn’t want to go back to anything lesser with my DAC and SN2.

Another option might be the Quadraspire feet or Naim glass to go between your electronics and the wall shelves. No own experience, but if you can get a demo....

Popeye,

spurier is correct. You’ll actually hear very little difference but you’ll persuade yourself that you can and will then rest assured that you’ve got the best mains cables for your Naim boxes so it must be worth the £1k outlay. ???? 

With a nice well rounded system like yours...the power lines look to be the obvious next step ...and may actually make a significant difference with your dedicated supply

Go for it 

Have you discerned any benefit from the dedicated mains line? Looking into it myself.

On your question I'd say get a hydra. What I mean is a thing with two three four or more heads to go into your Nain units and one male to go into the wall. As I get it, this is by it's form "star earthed" which is good thing. Good in a real way, that electronic engineers can agree on and show with maths. It aint quackery.

Powerline shmowerline!

gramophone posted:

Have you discerned any benefit from the dedicated mains line? Looking into it myself.

On your question I'd say get a hydra. What I mean is a thing with two three four or more heads to go into your Nain units and one male to go into the wall. As I get it, this is by it's form "star earthed" which is good thing. Good in a real way, that electronic engineers can agree on and show with maths. It aint quackery.

Powerline shmowerline!

The nice thing about taking the Hydra route is it means you can sell your existing power cables on eBay to recoup some of the outlay back. I bought my Hydra from Custom Hi-Fi cables, Graham's in London also do them, slightly different design though. Then, if you've enough money you can look at the glass shelves for isolation. You will need 3 Naim stainless cups and balls per shelf (2 at the front, 1 at the back at about £48 per set), plus a 10mm piece of glass made up to the measurements for your shelves. That will get your kit nicely isolated. I've just popped one under my CD player and  bugger me if it wasn't just a like a major component upgrade - and that was on a pukka rack!

Jonners posted:

The nice thing about taking the Hydra route is it means you can sell your existing power cables on eBay to recoup some of the outlay back.

yes, still gotta sell the pl lites ive got but they seem to go pretty well for a good price on ebay. I got the grahams version. They do seem to be very competent.

What's this glass thing? do you have a webpage address?

I’m mains spurred, I found with my olive gear powerlines seemed to upset the prat. I wasn’t the only one in the room at the time that found this to be the case. I’m running the original cables and prefer them. I would suggest classic black box and DR would be the go. Which is where you at. But do try before buy. Mains spur is a very good thing indeed. Got to be careful what you wish for sometimes.....????????????????

I have had PowerLines for many years now as we heard an immediate, albeit subtle, improvement on audition. The nice thing is once purchased they remain constant while what they are feeding can always change. I'd say go for it. 

Seems you can copy and paste an image within the forum, this is the setup copied from system pics.

The powerline is all about reducing vibration getting into the system via the cables, it works well with a system on Fraim, even Lite, but mounted like this all bets are off so a trial is the only way to find out if they’ll make any difference. 

Is that just a piece of plywood behind the speaker to hide the cables or have you damped it? You seem happy with your speakers in any case but it does look rather like a soundboard in there and is it transmitting more vibration to the shelf above?

gramophone posted:

What's this glass thing? do you have a webpage address?

Hi gramophone - this refers to a DIY version of the glass shelves Naim sells for their Fraims. Naim sell the stainless steel cups and balls seaparately - I got mine from my dealer, Cymbiosis  (listed on their website) who will post them and ordered the glass from a local glass shop, 10mm thick. Buy 3 cups and balls per glass shelf (2 at the front, 1 at the rear) to ensure the level is spot on which doesn't always happen if there is 1 at each corner. Have the glass made to the size of shelf or support the component is currently sitting on. The idea of this arrangement is to ensure isolation and damping. Works very well but a tad fiddly! 

yeti42 posted:

Seems you can copy and paste an image within the forum, this is the setup copied from system pics.

The powerline is all about reducing vibration getting into the system via the cables, it works well with a system on Fraim, even Lite, but mounted like this all bets are off so a trial is the only way to find out if they’ll make any difference. 

Is that just a piece of plywood behind the speaker to hide the cables or have you damped it? You seem happy with your speakers in any case but it does look rather like a soundboard in there and is it transmitting more vibration to the shelf above?

Hi yeti

correct, it is MDF. Obviously this is concealing a lot of cables including sockets. 

There is an image somewhere with it all exposed, I’ll dig it out. 

The cables are nicely dressed behind and nothing touches however. 

I certainly don’t notice or can hear any form of vibration, that’s not to say it isn’t doing it. But I don’t see what else I can do.

Things have changed a bit in there now, with the addition of another double socket for the HiCap and one now spare. 

Insulation is used to separate cables from touching where required. 

Do you hear any difference with the board removed?

Does it touch the shelf above or is there a small gap?

You’re still going to have to listen to the powerlines yourself, if you start with just one put it on the NDX and experiment with which socket sounds best for it, if new be aware of the cable burning in when you try this and reconfirm if you think you’ve found one that sounds better. The difference might not show up through a supernait, I played this game with a 282/hi/250 but with a CD5x/FC2x in front where I was surprised to find the PL best on the CD5x digital circuits in preferance to the Flatcap powering its analog stage. This gave the best coherence, on the hicap/282 it improved resolution which exposed the CD5x more and on the 250 it brought out the bass but with control. If you buy three at once it will save you having to choose but still experiment with plug position while you have only 3.

yeti42 posted:

Do you hear any difference with the board removed?

Does it touch the shelf above or is there a small gap?

You’re still going to have to listen to the powerlines yourself, if you start with just one put it on the NDX and experiment with which socket sounds best for it, if new be aware of the cable burning in when you try this and reconfirm if you think you’ve found one that sounds better. The difference might not show up through a supernait, I played this game with a 282/hi/250 but with a CD5x/FC2x in front where I was surprised to find the PL best on the CD5x digital circuits in preferance to the Flatcap powering its analog stage. This gave the best coherence, on the hicap/282 it improved resolution which exposed the CD5x more and on the 250 it brought out the bass but with control. If you buy three at once it will save you having to choose but still experiment with plug position while you have only 3.

No difference that I can make out, no. There is a gap above but does touch in a few places. 

Well I could hear a suttle difference with the one Powerline Lite that I have and it’s most noticeable on the HiCap DR actually. 

Jonners posted:

gramophone posted:

What's this glass thing? do you have a webpage address?

a DIY version of the glass shelves Naim sells for their Fraims.s! 

cool. Nothing like actually engaging with the the thing. You're taking on the physics. Find out the rules for yourself!. Did similar myself. Making bass traps (16 of the bastards). spent 3-4 hundred on materials , made one and been pretty useless since. Not saying you are anything the same. Now, I keep reading more detailed acoustic stuff that expands the "problem" Betcha you change course in your project at some point.

Thing about hifi "tuning" that I like is engaging with actual science. Didn't do science much myself at school but never thought it was anything except a v interesting subject. - Actually in my, perhaps, your day, it was Phys Chem Bio. My nephew studies science, education today -FFS!! (etc).

My thoughts are that your project is accessible  quite straight forward physics but unforgiving. Be v. interested to hear if you find a difference between SQ in different iterations.

Actually you should stick two fingers to physics and just use shitloads of glue!

Just an update, dealer advised to go with one powerline initially for my NDX and see how I got on...

I am impressed. There is a lovely air to the music with a layer of clarity that feels quite remarkable and the bass is noticeably tighter. 

Now I am confused as to get the other 2 for my other boxes or use that money for some form of shelf isolation products as per my other thread. ????

Eventually you will try them throughout and most likely end up sticking with them [@mention:28598595209586295]. I did and have with my very similar system to yours. You can always trial them though to see if you like what the last 2 will do for you.

Which order you do things is down to personal preference, however we all want to get the best out of our system configurations which means eventually all the tweaks will get done. Enjoy the ride!

Take that money and buy 3 isloation platforms,  three sets of Naim cups and balls plus three sheets of Naim spec glass will come in at less than £200 the Mana are also reasonable £225 will buy you a pair for the NDX/SN and a smaller one for the HC will cost less than £100 either option will cost less than one power line and if you don't already own one a used Hiline will make more difference than the three PLs put together.

It must be the old wiring in my house or my cloth ears but the Powerline made no difference in my system but on the upside I made £50 selling them on. I love Naim 

I suspect if you did a blindfold test with the power cables you won’t tell the difference, why not try it and save some cash to put towards something else

Mercky posted:

I suspect if you did a blindfold test with the power cables you won’t tell the difference, why not try it and save some cash to put towards something else

Unfortunately it’s not a slight difference otherwise I would be moving it on and not contemplating getting two more. 

I can honestly say I wasn’t expecting a significant difference!

Popeye posted:

Mercky posted:

I suspect if you did a blindfold test with the power cables you won’t tell the difference, why not try it and save some cash to put towards something else

Unfortunately it’s not a slight difference otherwise I would be moving it on and not contemplating getting two more. 

I can honestly say I wasn’t expecting a significant difference!

Expectation bias can be a powerful thing 

Mercky posted:

Popeye posted:

Mercky posted:

I suspect if you did a blindfold test with the power cables you won’t tell the difference, why not try it and save some cash to put towards something else

Unfortunately it’s not a slight difference otherwise I would be moving it on and not contemplating getting two more. 

I can honestly say I wasn’t expecting a significant difference!

Expectation bias can be a powerful thing 

All I can say is if you see any for sale at a good price that you could just move on with no loss, take the punt and have a listen for yourself. 

I may try and do a A,B recording via my phone as I reckon the difference would be audible on that. 

FWIW I got a very, very marginal improvement moving from the stock Naim power cords to a Graham’s Hydra, but a much bigger step up in dynamism, cohesion and timing from the Powrigel. The various mains conditioners I tried from Isotek and others all brought about some kind of deterioration. I have never tried the Powerline, though.