Sacrilege I know, but you may want to try a Witch Hat Din. I found their standard 4 pin much better than the Naim ‘lavender’ (well, mine was black - aren’t they all now?). No idea about their new higher quality line.
Think you may be confusing the lavender with a Snaic Charles. The lavender is a 5 pin to 5 pin signal cable and has always been grey or slightly lavender coloured.
Just did blind a-b testing using my wife as judge.
In context of all Olive cds2/52/135s into kudos titan T88s
She preferered the lavender over the hiline!
I’m not sure - more confused!
Says a lot about how good the lavender is (or maybe how not so good the hiline is).
Will keep lavender in for couple days … then switch back since rapid a-b switching not always a good way to judge
Interesting thread. I’ve been thinking off a high line on my NDX2/XPS DR to SN2. Thinking of staying with the lavender now. Might look at power lines though.
Have been listening with the lavender lead connecting cds2 to 52
I think the lavender lead is less detailed than the hiline and has a bit less of the inky black background but…
The lavender seems to boogie more and maybe makes music hold together more- I find myself listening to the song , rather than the hifi aspects of the music. Still not certain but that’s my conclusion after a few days. Will soon put the hiline back and compare. I want to like the hiline more since it’s more expensive and should be better right ?
Anyone else have lavender vs hiline thoughts?
David
I really don’t know but I rather send him something personal, perhaps a real swim suit since he declared that at the post office as the content of his package.
I think it’s fair to say the Lavender cable and Hi-line cable are different and it will depend upon the listener to which and what differences one prefers.
My preference was very slightly in favour of the Hi-line between CDS & 552, however this was a bit too slight as to being not really worth spending the cash on such a little upgrade of such tiny proportion.
However, when i tried a Chord Sarum T Analogue DIN-DIN it was an absolutely huge upgrade!
One suddenly learns [with some astonishment] how much the Lavender [and Hi-Line] are holding back.
May as well keep the Lavender and save money until such an expense can be afforded.
In fairness the Super Lumina interconnect does the same sort of huge ear candy upgrade too, but they are different cables and one should always demo both before purchasing the better Sarum cable
Hi Dave, I’ll be trying this out in the next few weeks. A buddy of mine has a lavender in his box of naughty’s and will bring it over for an afternoon session. So yes between cds2/52/135 phased mana sl2..
I have tried the powerlines out but felt the old Naim supplied power cords did it for me, keeping in mind that I have a very nice mains spur to help them.
Deb’s stop it! i just looked up that cord you mentioned, looked to be £2000 do you know how many cows and sheep I’ll have to sell over here in Kiwi land to get one🥺
A bit offtopic, but since it gets quite a few mentions in this thread and a couple more on the forum, I have been looking for the RCA-DIN version of DFI ic and it is nowhere to be found, moreover, there is only 1! internet site that sells those, but RCA-RCA only. Any suggestions? I am pretty happy with my lavender 4-5 DIN, but as always there is the need of something new every now and then.
I never heard of the D-FI before Max notified me that he is sending me his. If you are interested I could ask him for information. Max resides in Italy. Please let me know.
When I had a Xerxes/Tabriz zi/AT0C9/Superline/HiCap DR into 252/300 I preferred the HiLine.
Now I’ve changed to Xerxes 20+/Artemiz 2/XX2/Superline/HiCap DR into 252/300 DR I’ve gone back to the lavender. I’ve also gone back to lavender on my NAT05.
I find the HiLine slightly warmer tonally which I think benefits digital sources.
A little off topic but is the DIN to 3.5mm cable you refer to Richard a stock Naim cable?
I’ve been looking for a good cable to connect my portable Sony HR player to my Nait 5i. I mainly play 96khz vinyl rips through it. I’m using a Rothwell River at the moment which is by far the best option I’ve tried so far, connected using the Audioquest adapter. Previously tried cables from Audioquest, QED and Chord with little satisfaction.
The Rothwell River is really lean and rhythmical but I’m not keen on adapters …
Steve, it certainly was, although it may no longer be a regular stock item - i.e. it might need to be specially ordered and made up. It used to be referred to as an iPod interconnect.
I have the same set-up as GraemeH (although I have an NDX) and I, too, couldn’t get on with a HiLine and went back to the Lavender and for exactly the same reasons.
After several years, I changed the Lavender for a Tellurium Q black which I really like; everything seem more in balance and cohesive.
GP