(Importance of )cables…?
What’s your opinion about cables between different Naimproducts? Where is it most/less important to spend money?
My setup:Nac282+Napsc+Nap250Dr+HicapDr+Nd5xs2
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All cables should be Naim’s standard, as supplied cables, plus NAC A5 speaker cables.
I see no reason to deviate from that. The Naim SNAIC’s should certainly not be replaced. I would not - personally - spend any money on non-Naim cables.
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Nice set up.
Cable wise, the supplied cables work well, with NAC A5 for the loudspeakers. Other options include, Naim HiLine / SuperLine or Chord cables work well with Naim.
Have you considered putting the NAPSC and the HiCap on the bottom shelf. Better to put the bigger transformers at the bottom and working upwards with smaller one…
Such as;
NAC 282
ND5XS2
NAP 250 DR
HiCap / NAPSC
DG…
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Based on my experience, most important and descending. Purchase used to get most value for money. Don’t move around at similar price range. Try to make a huge leap that is a bit painful.
- Signal cable between source and pre-amp.
- Signal cable between pre-amp and amp.
- Speaker cables
- Power cables
- Ethernet cables
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The standard Naim cables are excellent imho, and may well be all you ever need. I have an ND5XS2/Core/ 82/HC/250 in one system and it has Naim cables (including A5 speaker cable) throughout.
My main system has 52/SC/300DR, B&W804D3, NDX2/XPSDR, CDS2 and Stiletto LP12).
The standard cables were fine there too. However, we tried a complete set of WH Morgana cables a few years ago and they were a bit better so they stayed. I tried the Morganas on the system with the 82 when I got them - 1 set of ears thought them a minuscule bit better here too but I could hear literally no difference versus the Naim cables when using the 82.
I have long speaker cable runs leading to the B&Ws and we found Tellurium Black was fractionally clearer than Naim A5, but the gap was fairly small. We got the TQ cable in the end largely because it was so much easier to accommodate (it bends!).
As Naim’s own Uber-expensive cables show, there are a decent number of buyers who think that in an expensive Naim system we may well be able to hear a small benefit from different cables. Almost none of us claim a massive change, such as we got swapping 82 to 52 or 282 to 252, though 1 or 2 may disagree.
On the other hand, many cables are worse than the Naim standards (or are actively unsuitable) and many good cables are more ‘different’ than ‘better’.
More important, a genuine cable upgrade is usually not cheap. With most ears and systems, even if different cables really are a fraction better, spending the same money elsewhere is usually much better value for SQ.
There is one wrinkle here. Many of us have a mass of cables behind a rack and don’t do much cable-dressing. Switching to shielded cables seemed to me to make careful cable-dressing much less relevant for SQ. How much care we do or don’t take over cable-dressing may explain why some of us found it easier to hear an improvement with non-Naim cables than others did.
Finally, all other things being equal (which is hard to pin down of course), and imho, @Blackbird has his list order dead right.
Naim’s supplied cables and A5 will suit your amps and Naim’s sound priorities well. At 282 level I’d Fraim up first. Then not necessarily in this order, Powerlines, a source upgrade or add a DAC, If going for the DAC a Belden 4974R (~£50) will make a good starting point in place of an SPDif, it beat the first three levels of Chord cable when I used a DAC with my Core, it’s BNC both ends but will still work well with an adaptor at one of them. I hesitate to suggest a Hiline given their fragility but I’m still happy with the effect of mine with 500 series.
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That’s how I have it. Naca5 speakerc, the rest original except a Hilinec between streamer-282.
Have tested other speakercables(at an affordable level) but haven’t find a reason to change them, so far…
What I don’t regret though, is when I put a cable straight from the fusebox to a new Furutech wallsocket in my listening room. That was fantastic imo, so much cleaner and clarity.
Had a lot of other things disturbing on the way to my "old " wallsocket…
Power supply and in particular the benefit of a dedicated supply and different socket and cable options are all worthwhile discussions, as you suggest. Fortunately, there are lots of threads on exactly this.
Personally, I went for un-switched sockets fed from the meter and a Hydra from Grahams - I don’t even have Powerlines.
No idea what cable in use at the moment ?
Before anything, source first, begin there.
And remove that Napsc away from others.
When I first purchased my Naim system in October 2023, I used the standard Naim interconnects while I was waiting for Chord Shawline. I found the standard Naim interconnect cables to lack highs. I was using them with old discontinued Chord speaker cables. I just changed to Chord EpicX interconnects and Chord EpicX speaker cable. The changes were not subtle. My previous speaker cable was Chord Silver Screen. Long discontinued.
The speaker cable had to bend around bookcases. NACA 5 was just too inflexible.
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Based on my considerable experience.
Between electronics stick with Naim cables.
Dedicated radial spur with if possible Naim PLs.
Speaker cable tends to be speaker dependant, with my Titans and Dynas before I found Chord Odyssey the best fit but I might try Kudos KS1, if I can be bothered!
But worth borrowing some different wires from your dealer and trying for yourself.
Regards,
Lindsay
My NYC Dealer really likes Chord. I trust his judgement. The Silver Screen preceded Oddysy BTW.
With your system, @Per71 you’d very likely be better spending money on upgrading the source, rather than buying fancy cables. Think of cables as icing; first you need to make the cake.
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The only weak point in Naim’s (standard/base level) cable arsenal was the preamp-to-250(XLR) which are comprehensively bettered by the Wizard Cap offering.
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I just upgraded to an NDX2 with XPSDr. I have a Rega P9 TT. I don’t listen to Vinyl enough to warrant an upgrade. Naim does not offer anything in a CDP beyond the CD5si. The cables, particularly speaker needed upgrading.
Sorry, my reply was meant for the OP. I imagine you’d concur.
I do completely. The OP’s steamer could benefit. No problem HH.
Another vote for stock cables + NAC A5
Wonder if anyone knows if former Witch hat cables employees have started a new company making cables? I mean, their cables were really good and affordable. It was the business side that went south.