That’s very interesting Richard because I am (purely by necessity) running 7.5m lengths of NAC A5…
Perhaps a contributory factor to me thinking the NAC82/NAP250 with ATC SCM40’s sounds so incredibly good, even compared to megabucks systems I have heard.
As a combo it certainly punches way, way above its price point. I had Alester Kells over putting in the SME 35 yesterday and even he (who frankly is spoilt by hearing some seriously exotic gear) was very impressed…
JonathanG
9m here 
I have been using two 14 foot (4.2672 Meters) of NAC A5 speaker cableand the music has sounded sublime. Going with 7 meters would mean having 22.9659 feet of cable for each speaker which just would not work in my room. I don’t believe the lady of the house would be enthusiastic about the visual effect either.
I bought a 9m pair of A5 in the early 90s purely for future flexibility, which meant that I’ve always had to deal with folding and dressing surplus cable. It’s good to know the length is a positive sonic attribute - back then it seemed most people’s cables were in the 5 to 6m range. Maybe it’s a factor in my never having any desire to explore anything else?
7-10m per channel sounds appreciably better on Naim amps than shorter lengths.
Can anyone briefly describe on the differences (improvement) with longer lengths of NAC A5? The 3.5m pair which I owned surely didn’t sound too good. I couldn’t imagine owning longer lengths of these stiff cables when short lengths were already rather frustrating to manage (and store).
I don’t have Any speaker cables!!
ATC SCM 40 actives! I use 3.5m of Cardas Clear XLR’s. Sounds awesome!
Steve sells has described it something like "short lengths make the amp more nervous/stressed/hard sounding. Too long and it becomes the opposite. Too relaxed, soft and slow. Not sure which amps this relates to but it seems like everything prior to NC is more sensitive to this. However I’ve seen Naim still recommend longer lengths since it sounds better and not that short lengths are critical anymore. I think Steve said they have tested down to 1m without problems on NC.
Going higher inductance (i.e. longer lengths) has even been beneficial for my tube amps that have no such stated restrictions and sounded decent on Kimber 12TC. The 3.5m WH Phantoms were a huge sound upgrade on the tubes, too. Despite costing a mere fraction of the Kimbers.
I wonder if Julian/Steve/et al @ Naim were really on to something???
Amusingly, I’ve just boxed up a pair of 7m NACA5 into storage 
@cb01 - Look for a 7m set of phantoms in the usual sites in the US…
You guys are tempting me to swap my naca5 out for the boxed phantoms, just as my system is nicely settling in…
I don’t think this is specific to A5. I went from 4 to 8m of Atlas Hyper 3.5.
Difference? Slightly smoother with less of a rough grain on the top end.
That said, even with a known preference for a longer run, I don’t think I would recommend someone to use a needlessly long run with masses of bunches cable to hide. I’d be more inclined to just recommend they find the best sounding cable for the length they will ultimately use.
I found a 10m pair of WH Phantom cables for a very fair price.
I heard all of you say that my SN3 would be happier with longer cables. But now I have HEARD the improvement over my 3.5m pair and I’m dumbfounded at the amount of improvement. WOW. You all were RIGHT!
Also, I’m in a rental so the walls are going to remain fairly bare.
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