Cable burn in

Right, but this reactions/ effects won´t change over time or due to higher volume levels, other musical genres or cables not burned in or burned in.

Do you buy those in cable ‘boutiques’ :wink:

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Yes, but most other amps have additional circuits to do it less

How should such a circuit look like?

No, not in my opinion or my experience. The so called burn in simply has the cables connected and in situ, rather than needing to be be powered up… although notionally perhaps minute currents could help the pressure contact junction establish, but I have no evidence of that… although I have been known to leave current flowing.

I read something more detailed somewhere in the past but can’t remember details. Something with a zener diode? It is not anything new. Essentially

Naim power amplifiers do not have extra inductance networks in the output. Naim prefer the more elegant solution of allowing the speaker cable to provide the correct inductance and capacitance.

(from speaker cable FAQ)

That is more likely of a psychological effect.

Contact problems only arise with technically inadequate connections. For example, eyelets are technically inadequate; bananas are much better.

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Kind of, traditionally Naim apps did not / do not include the capacitive feed back isolation that many amps use… instead they use the lumped speaker / crossover / cable inductance… which to be honest in formal circles is considered bad practice and if done properly is audibly transparent … but Naim have pinned their colours to that mast so no point arguing that on this forum.

However typically is of no issue for normal cable types such as NACA5 or inductive speaker types, but certain esoteric cables and ribbon tweeter speakers have low inductance and higher capacitance, and can cause the Naim amplifier to become unstable or ring.

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Yes, exactly. So jlewis was not wrong to write “…and , of course, Naim amplifiers react to the electrical properties of 'speaker cables.”

My point is ALL amplifiers react to the electrical properties of speaker cables (and predominately the lumped speaker )… that is Naim, Arcam, Linn, Chord and everyone else… so it is a meaningless truism.

And Naim not having this network seem to react more, no? Which is why these braided, etc., speaker cables exist in the first place, they might work with other amps

No… what you can say is that certain Naim amps are more sensitive to the lumped capacitance of the loudspeaker and cable load than some other amps designs.

So why would not including the capacitive feed back isolation be considered bad practice in formal circles if it has no effect, and why does Naim recommend these specific cable values and others do not?

My point. The speaker cable has more of an affect on Naims, so I still don’t see why jlewis’s sentence would be incorrect

A zener diode in the amp output? Have fun grilling transistors and amps.

Sorry, but from a technical perspective it´s the speaker and xover design what makes the sound. In particular, it is the impedance behavior of the loudspeaker and it´s xover that determines whether a dedicated amplifier can handle this loudspeaker.

Mike, go to the naughty step… immediately!
:rofl:

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But the speaker itself has the dominant ‘effect’ not the speaker cable. The Naim amp is sensitive to the load characteristic it sees from the lumped speaker and cable…
So yes the traditional Naim amp is more sensitive to this load reactive characteristic to remain stable… and if if this is what you are meaning then I agree.

But all amps ‘react’ to the electrical properties of speaker cables not just Naim… it came across as if this was unique to Naim… so the quote to have been correct should have said ‘and of course probably all amplifiers react with the electrical properties of speaker cables’.

On a serious not general high performance audio wisdom in the industry is to keep for speaker cable inductance as low and capacitance as low as possible and keep the series impedance very low compared to the connected speaker … use short runs (though with Naim remember the lumped capacitance consideration) , and if you need longer runs focus more on higher impedance speakers… otherwise the speakers will induce harmonic distortions into the speaker cable.

Look, I said I don’t remember the details

Which is true but has nothing to do with classic Naim amps expecting and being more reliant on the speaker cables presenting certain properties than most other amps seem to be, for reasons of design

Well I tell ya…as for research in psychology, self-report is unreliable. Soundstage? Self-report. Cable burn-in? Self-report. And so on. For myself, my Nova apparently doesn’t like the AQ cables I bought, so, as the Nova…wasn’t a small purchase…for me anyway…and what’s the point if it’s limited…OK. I’ll buy the Naim cables. I have, not self-report, but a concrete benchmark, by which to judge. If the overheating subsides, lol…I’ll start talking about soundstage and power conditioners. :grin:

Yes. So? Still not making it wrong to write “…and , of course, Naim amplifiers react to the electrical properties of 'speaker cables.”

Not so much about me, it’s just that I think that this is what jlewis meant (but of course I am not him and may interpreting it wrong), so I just was surprised by the reply to him.

No worries, no need to labor the point :slight_smile:

True… but…
ALL audio power amplifiers react to the electrical properties of the speaker cables. It’s just that the degree of reaction depends on the combination of the design of the feedback and output structures of the amp and the specifics of the electrical properties of the speaker cables. (And this principle applies to line drivers in general.)