Atom on its way!

I’ve got a horrible feeling that they won’t fit. Atom comes with its own speaker plugs.

Wrong! The Atom connectors are spaced differently.
Might be worth checking if the pins will just pop out of the old plugs then you can put them into the new ones.

Unfortunately that won’t work as the Atom doesn’t come with right angled plugs. It might be possible to use the existing plugs with the plastic box removed. You would need to cut away a bit more of the web to get the pins closer together. Then a bit of shrinkwrap round the head of the pins would be a good idea.
Otherwise just cut off the old plugs and solder on the supplied ones.

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Thanks for the info, slightly annoying that I can’t just plug and play!

Will see if I can modify terminations as you suggest, if not, will see if my dealer can swap my plugs over, I have no soldering kit.

Thanks all for the info!

Mark

If the shelf has space behind it where the cable can hang straight down, probably best to keep the regular plugs you’ve got. The Atom plugs are a PITA to solder, and even some Naim dealers aren’t very good at it. Always worth making a bit of effort to get it done properly.

The cable I have is very stiff and will not hang naturally “down”. By “plugs”, are you referring to the actual conductive pins? I may be able to get one of the electrical engineers at work to re-solder my existing pins onto the cable ends in the correct orientation (with a bit of additional flex by removing some of the web) and some heat shrink.

Yes, I mean the 4mm banana plugs. The Atom has sockets that are closer together, and orientated vertically rather than horizontally as on your Nait, like this:

Once you’ve removed the black boxes and cut away the web, you may be able to bend the cable so that the old plugs fit. Once bent, the cable will stay in that position.
If that isn’t going to work, probably better to use the Atom plugs as long as you can find someone with a powerful soldering iron who can do a proper job on them.

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I had to solder my Atoms plug onto NACA5 not an easy task as they are not designed well at all for fitting as the cable has to go in straight no at a right angle so does not slot in easy. It took me a good few attempts and several different vices and helping hands to keep it all steady. I would take the cover off the old ones and get some heat shrink and apply that to the existing plugs and use those.

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Thanks for your input everyone. I think I will see what my local dealers appetite might be like for taking on the task!

Seems a very odd design choice from Naim…

Mark

When isn’t it for Naim :slight_smile:

I’d just get some Deltron banana plugs soldered on in place of the Naim plugs. 10 minute task for a Naim dealer.

That’ll be fine. I use banana plugs on mine and have zero issues.

Regular nickel plated Deltrons are a good alternative to Naim plugs, and they’re cheap. I would still use the Naim plugs where possible, but they are harder to solder well.

Thanks all,

One of the electrical engineers at work (who is also a hifi enthusiast) has put a fresh set of bananas on all terminations. So should be sorted.

I have a speaker demo booked with my local dealer, will look at speaker cable alternatives as the NACA5 stuff is so stiff, bulky and difficult to hide behind shelving!

I should be all set for getting the Atom up and running on Friday :+1:t2:

Mark

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Maybe a bit late, but when I had my Atom, I’d loved the combination with Neat Motive SX2 speakers.

Thanks for suggestion. I would love to demo as wide a range of speakers as possible, trouble is that I live in a pretty remote rural area with only 1 good hifi dealership nearby, so demo options are not as easy to sort as it would be if I lived in a city!

Good to hear another vote for the Neats though…

It’s arrived! How do I remove the plastic tab covers off the optical inputs?

Mark

dont they just pull off? - they are a dummy toslink connector in a way

They just fold out of the way (hinged)… my mistake! Just being too delicate with it!

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Well, I am a happy chap, fresh out of the box and such a huge improvement on my previous setup, (Naim Nait 2, being fed with a poor analogue signal from my TV, the TV DAC not being much cop).

Updated firmware no problem and just learning the intricacies of the Naim app.

Having been a lurker on these forums for a while, I recall folks saying that the slider volume control is sometimes unresponsive, or very very laggy. I have noticed this, and switched to the button style controls and this seems much better and works as one would expect.

The other minor annoyance is the (apparent) inability to re-order the input icons on the home screen of the app. Am I missing something here, or are they indeed “fixed” in their order?

Thanks folks… a very happy customer here, (minor issues notwithstanding)! Can’t wait for it to fully bed in, although that will only expose the weaknesses of my current speakers more, I suspect.

Mark