….and with that comes at times a very slight brightness, but hey we settle for the least set of compromises for how we like to hear our music. As always ‘we can’t have everything’……sadly! ATB Peter
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Indeed, Peter! But…a little brightness is small price to pay for that lovely airiness 
Listening more, I am very taken with SL’s XLRs after several weeks without…
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Ah, but in this instance you can. Chord Music does the lot. Having compared it to SL on 552/300, 300DR, 500 and 500DR systems, it provides a level of realism that is completely missing with SL.
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It’s also very cheap
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I tried a set of Morgana leads for my CDS/NDX/XPSDR/Superline/52/Supercap/250. More openness and separation with no minuses - they stayed. Trying them one-by-one suggested that the XLR had the second biggest impact, well ahead of the signal-only leads.
Then I went shopping for the 135s I had always expected to get ‘one day’. A dealer who knows me well suggested that I try a 300DR instead - heard it & he was right. I bought it.
That left me with a stereo Morgana XLR when I needed monos so the Naim standard cables went in. The 300DR was a material improvement versus my 250 (see other threads) using those Naim cables. However, past experience encouraged me to use the Halloween WH sale to get Morgana Mono XLRs.
Changing them and nothing else did exactly what the stereo XLR had done - nothing dramatic to my ear, but more open and separated and so easier to follow & no minuses. However, the cable upgrade was significantly smaller than the effect of swapping 250 for 300DR - unsurprisingly.
I have also found that cable-dressing is unusually important with the (unshielded) standard cables. It is not irrelevant with (shielded) Morganas (as a recent episode showed), but sensitivity to imperfect cable-dressing does seem lower.
Having said all that, the fact that I left it for so many years before changing cables looks right with hindsight - other changes have mattered a good deal more.
To me, the standard cables are clearly very good (good enough for example to show just how good a 300DR is), but their biggest plus is that one gets a very suitable lead in the box for free. WH can’t compete on VFM with that. On the other hand, I was very ready to send them back if they didn’t sound better. Instead, I kept them,
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@Elfer exact same experience here. I felt the Witchat brought a notecable upgrade over the standard mono-xlr. Tried the Witchat against SuperLumina xlr later on and stayed with the Witchat.
I experieced the contrary for the interconnect pre-streamer and for the speakercables. Here the superlumina’s gave the better experiece then the Witchhat so choose them
Iver
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Not a lot more than SL but if you want something “less expensive” (pretty much everything at this level is expensive), go for Sarum T. It’s a lot better than SL - Music is miles better.
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For you yes, as individuality/room response goes 
Enjoy Peter
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For my ears, Morgana din/xlr gave more of a modern sound to the 135’s, more detail less distortion, at the end of the day they just did not do music like the OEM cables. It was like the emperors new clothes.
What is that bit before before “Mother” off pink Floyd “the wall” album a relaxed sigh of relief, that’s what happen once the Naim oem din to xlr were put back in place. Magic mate.
£75 aside No contest.
Next time we have crappy weather here on a weekend, I will do my semi-annual Fraim rebuild. When I do that I might just put the original cables back on my 300DR and listen for a while. That’s assuming it isn’t too close to taking delivery of my new cartridge and doing a planned subwoofer upgrade. I’ve had the Morgana going since about two months after I got my 300DR.
Some of the posts on this thread take me back to the Saturday night after the Acoustica event in Chester a few weeks ago.
It was around midnight, drinks had been flowing so the conversation became less and less restrained. I was sat with two reps from Chord Cables, two Kudos employees and one of the Naim UK reps. All was good humoured until the cable subject was broached between the Chord and Naim reps.
The Kudus guys just remained quiet until one of them quietly said to me “I prefer Chord Music to SL. For me it’s more open and organic sounding but SL is very good and some folk will prefer the very fast transient speed and accept the trade off of a grainier sound”. I couldn’t agree with him more. I liken it to Ekos v ARO on a LP12 with SL being the former. I preferred the ARO but the Ekos and even the Ittok could sound brilliant.
Ultimately surely preference through listening should decide on what we buy? The forum highlights how folk forcefully promote what they’ve purchased above any alternatives ( whether heard or not) and I still haven’t heard a dealer recommend anything that they don’t sell 
.
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I do enjoy a good cables thread 
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So true, its all one’s own preference and thats it, not much more to be said really.
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Yes of course, but what I would really like to understand is technically why there is a problem of usage.
At the extreme I would think that using other interconnects and speaker cable constitutes a modification of Naim equipment
I don’t think that there is any problem with usage of suitable cables.
However, the combination of what Naim defines as a modification and the site’s rules mean that usage may not be a problem but discussion certainly is. Too much on this simply wastes Richard’s time as he is required to remove any comments that touch on the subject.
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Although if we think about it Naim HQ did deem the cables that you refer to as relevant enough to try out. I do understand though why we can’t discuss certain third party cables. It’s not like non Naim SIGNAL cables can’t be discussed so fair play.
There is, as far I know, no objection to taking about cables carrying power -see the thread on M6 power blocks. There is also no restriction on cables carrying signal, as you say.
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Discussion about cables carrying mains into the component like the Powerline are acceptable but those that carry current between components not because the component guarantee would be invalidated if the route cause was deemed to stem from the third party cable. Fair enough I say. My dealer gave me a strong relevant verbal assurance so I based my purchase decisions on how each cable effected the sound. Also I feel that buying from a company like Chord is not like buying from Mickey Mouse Cables Inc etc…….
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It’s quite nuanced Nick, as Richard says in the Forum Rules FAQ quoted below discussion of cables passing DC between Naim boxes is not permitted, nor modded Naim PSUs and 3rd party PSUs for Naim kit.
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It’s a question not only of performance, but of liability and warranty when things go wrong (as they have sometimes done in the past). If your 3rd party PSU, “SNAIC” or off-piste Burndy causes damage to your Naim equipment (as is very possible if not quite right) then usually whoever made the “SNAIC”, PSu or Burndy likely won’t want to take any responsibility and it will be deemed to be down to Naim as maker of the affected electronics to underwrite the damage. Naim are happy to put up their hand and say “mea culpa” when they know they are to blame, but when it’s not their fault because you’ve ignored their advice and requirements…
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