Me either, I have 440 replies to read yet.
Will I manage ?
Hardly.
Group A results announced!
Original Image: Author provided - no reuse.
Naim NAC A5 tops Group A with Inakustik and Tellurium Q crashing out.
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Hi @SoundsOfMusic ,
Thanks for joining in here (and with the football reference). 
I do agree with you that I may be a little bit ‘nuts’.
I don’t know if you ever looked at the ‘What Audiophile Type Are You?’ thread from 2025 (relevant links to jump in are here and here)?
In that discussion I self-identified as a sub-category of the ‘Measurement Monk’, AKA the ‘Mad Measurement Monk’ - i.e. somebody who believes “cables do make a difference”.
Are you willing to share what Audiophile Type categories with which you align?
PS: I am obviously a Room Treatment Warlock as well - have you ever considered such things?
There is a long running thread on the topic here: Listening Room Reality.
Hi @Innocent_Bystander ,
Thanks for your observation regarding the importance of repeatability. I personally believe that doing the listening judgement this way (for loudspeaker cables) using human listening candidates is not very effective as the time between cable changes is way too long. Furthermore, it becomes prohibitively costly to get anywhere close to results that might be considered to have some statistical significance (whatever those results might be).
That is why I am trying to get repeatability into the acoustic measurements (using a calibrated microphone and REW in the equivalent of a ITU/EBU quality standard listening space).
In undertaking this endeavour (as well as a learning experience for me) there has been extra ROI with specific knowledge gained re the performance (and ‘claimed’ directionality) of Naim NAC A5 - thanks to your questioning the deterioration in L measurement on NAC A5 wrt increasing frequency.
There is still more to come…back to football…
During last week a diligent journalist uncovered the fact that FIFA were aware that a second RED card situation had occurred in matches played for Group B team selection process.
Here is the image obtained by the journalist.
Original Image: Author provided - no reuse.
Hi All,
In the real world the FIFA World Cup moves on to the semi-finals and then the final.
Here in HiFi world there has been some controversy. Germany (Inakustik) were unhappy with some of the referee decisions in the matches in Group A and have appealed the outcome!
Having checked the data - they (Inakustik) may have a legitimate point - although nobody on the forum spotted the score charts with some weird inconsistencies and double scorings at the time of the matches being posted.
Need to call in the HiFi equivalent of VAR to see if the declared result of Group A still stands.
The full name of the HiFi equivalent of football VAR is the Experimental Assistance Referee - or in short form ‘The EAR’.
NB: This EAR is different and entirely unconnected with the HiFi publication The EAR.
The EAR has asked the Group A matches data be presented, not by ‘teams’, but rather by ‘order of play’. I.e. analysis of ‘preferred sound’ selection by order play position (A, B or C).
Original Image: Author provided - no reuse.
I didn’t enjoy that video.
I avoided it the first time you posted it and was sad when I watched it and it was just trivial nonsense.
The only tolerably amusing thing to come from that link was IB’s alternative list:
“Brand Groupies (of which dominant here by definition are Naimophiles), Serial Tweakers and their close relations Fad Followers, HiFi Fashionisters, VFM (Value for Money) freaks, Flat Earthers, Gear Collectors, Song Collectors, Accuracy Freak, Nirvana Seeker, Objectivist, Boogie Loving Foot Tapper and, the most perverse of all, Music Lovers.”
I am a music lover, Naim lover, and Boogie Loving Foot Tapper (with primary interest in jazz and blues).
I am not at all a measurement guy when it comes to Hifi or listening to Music, although I am of course aware that it’s crucial to be a measurement guy when it comes to Building amps or dacs or musical instruments.
I got my first Hifi in 1980 when I left school and got a job.
As a punk, a bad drummer, and a bibliophile, I decided to buy a Hifi magazine at WHSmith in Solihull.
I was repelled by the waterfall graphs and pages of technical gubbins that seemed to me at the time to have absolutely nothing to do with the love of Music.
I did pick up a couple of panels from GIK that are behind my listening chair so I’m not against room treatment.
I think it may now be ‘all over’ when it comes to categorising people who like listening to music, and not at all a
game of two halves.
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I am sorry that you did not enjoy the silly video. However I am pleased that you took the time to watch it - I appreciate that consideration.
Actually, I had some personal disapproval of the introduction of the video. The creator (of the video) used a refence to a (chronic) illness as a means to make a joke - generally I do not like such comedy, particularly when aimed at chronic medical conditions.
I appreciate your acknowledgment of the necessity of undertaking measurements in engineering endeavours in general. Personally I had no intent of being on the path that I am on in my HiFi journey to musical nirvana (with REW measurements and LTSpice simulations of cables etc) were it not for losing trust in much of the HiFi industry.
FYI there have been multiple situations since 2014 (and Naim and Linn have been involved in a few of them) where the industry has shown a lack of respect to my reasonable questions regarding products and also apparent faults or performance limitations with HiFi products that I purchased.
The good news for Naim is that all my recent enquires (during the recent 12 months) have been answered quickly and with sufficient technical accuracy.
Yesterday, Linn Products Ltd have (finally) responded to a very specific technical explorations that I had previously reported to Linn which were relevant to my loudspeaker cable selection project.
I am nearly there now (in selecting the ‘technically correct’ loudspeaker cable) - although definitely well into extra time and I feel fairly confident in stating that most of those directly involved are fed up with this thread!
PS: I have wide taste in music genres. I also like listening to jazz and discovered (via a forum poster) quite an unusual album (released in 2019?) - Chi, by Dave Liebman, Adam Rudolph and Hamid Drake.
Worth a listen IMO.
ATB
E of E
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Thank you for this tip.
Dave Liebman was with Miles Davis’ in 1973 - there are some great videos of this band on YT.
He played on Dark Magus, Get Up with It, and On the Corner.
Thom Jurek wrote this about Dark Magus:
“…the rest is all deep rhythm-based funk and dark groove. Greasy, mysterious, and full of menacing energy, Dark Magus shows a band at the end of its rope, desperate to change because the story has torn itself out of the book, but not knowing where to go and turning in on itself instead. These dynamics have the feel of unresolved, boiling tension.”
A bit like the Argy-Bargy on t’pitch t’other night!
Some threads get a bit like that too at times! 
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Hi All,
I promised @Innocent_Bystander a while ago some results of transient analysis in LTSpice of different loudspeaker cables being used in my system (model).
The idea is to show the art of the possible in modelling different loudspeaker cables in a given system from which a technical choice can be made as to which is the ‘optimum’ loudspeaker cable for that system.
Unfortunately these LTSpice models cannot include any circuit detail of the amplifier I am using (even though the models could do that) as including such detail here would breach forum rules. Accordingly I have used a simple voltage source with the correct inline output impedance to equal the specification of the amplifier. (@BBK may also be interested in what I have been doing).
Furthermore, the model of the Magico M2 loudspeaker is quite far from reality in the midrange frequencies. Nevertheless the model has important accuracy for what I wish to study of the current demand in the low bass frequencies and in particular the high frequency current demand determined by the aggressive crossover network and electrical load of the Magico M2 above 10kHz.
Shown below is a screenshot of two circuit models and the associated simulation of the transient power delivery into the loudspeaker (at the terminals) of a risetime limited small signal square wave.
Upper circuit and trace example is Inakustik LS 2404 Ref AIR - which has a 30 ohm characteristic impedance with low inductance and moderate capacitance.
Lower circuit and trace example is Cardas Clear Beyond - which is a 4 ohm ‘matched’ characteristic impedance approach - very low inductance and very high capacitance.
Original Image: Author provided - no reuse.
To a casual observer, it does not seem like there are any differences between the plots (of transient power delivery). However if one zooms into the shape of leading edge of power delivery waveform following the demand ‘square wave’ edge one can begin to see differences in how the tweeter gets stimulated.
Below is a screenshot of the two simulations above, plus one other (Chord Sarum T) zoomed to the leading edge and this time including the Voltage and Current waveforms at the amplifier terminals.
Original Image: Author provided - no reuse.
In my media room I have established that these differences in the listed examples of loudspeaker cable are audible (to human listeners) and furthermore, are measurable in the acoustic domain using calibrated measurement microphone with REW analysis.
YMMV!
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You’re contagious… I think I’ve caught the bug too. 
I’ve just ordered a VNA to see whether impedance matching actually makes any audible difference. The idea is to reduce ringing on the speaker cable.
I’m using 7.5 m Naim speaker cables, and from the cable parameters I estimate the characteristic impedance to be around 250 Ω, with the first resonance somewhere around 8.4 MHz.
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Hi Edmund , am not learnt in such engineering ,may I ask in layman term, how would one determine the winner in the category you mentioned and nac a1 been the winner , how can one determine that without going through all measurements? Very interesting findings etc you have here , but I don’t really understand, I only depends on my hearings 
would be interesting to hear from you on this .
also , these measurements, are they important infos on getting anything that’s hifi ?
Thanks in advance
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Hi @BBK ,
Ordering a Vector Network Analyser (VNA) - that is serious - you have my congratulations!
I assume you have already seen the ‘Alpha Audio’ work on loudspeaker and interconnect cable testing? As I only have a handheld LCR meter, my measurements of cable electrical data have been restricted to just four or five frequencies separated by decade ratios. Link here to data tables previously published that include NAIM NAC A5.
To achieve a ‘matched impedance’ approach (to a nominal 8 ohm or 4 ohm loudspeaker) usually results in an excessively high capacitance cable (cf CARDAS Clear and Clear Beyond cables). Nevertheless, my understanding is that many modern amplifiers can cope with such cables.
In the three LT Spice simulations shown in my previous posting, I have plotted the simulated transient response of Cardas Clear Beyond, Chord Sarum-T and Inakustik LS 2404 Ref Air cables in my basic system model. In real life, very high capacitance cables or loads can hit the limit of the amplifiers ability to provide the necessary current delivery on fast transients - that potential aspect is not shown in the modelling above.
It may be of interest that as a result of my quest to find the technically correct loudspeaker cable for my system I have collected electrical parameter data on circa 19 different loudspeaker cables - I could share more of this data if people are interested?
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Hi @naimophile ,
Thanks for asking the questions. I realise I am on the extreme end of unusual in HiFi in undertaking many of the things discussed on this thread.
Basically, my general view is that using ones ears to choose what you like is the most sensible way for personal use and enjoyment. However, there are many risks with that approach - for example one may end up paying too much to achieve given level of musical performance.
In spite of what the system I have assembled may suggest, my opinion is that it is NOT necessary to spend mega money to get great musical performance from HiFi. For example, my previous main system was a Naim CD5, Nait 5 and Linn Ninka loudspeakers which I owned from 2003 to 2020.
My approach of using measurements to evaluate HiFi is a consequence of several poor experiences with the HiFi industry (in general) where I needed robust evidence (I have the engineering training and the tools are low cost) and ‘the ears’ debate would not suffice.
Regarding the Group A cable listening result, NAIM NAC A5 cable did not really ‘win’ the listening competition. The results of that six person assessment was that the listener preference was for the cable they heard most recently. This is apparent if one studies the preferences cast by the listeners on their score sheet. See image of the score sheets again below.
Original Image: Author provided - no reuse.
FYI, IF the result of session 5 on 4th July had been for Tellurium Q (TQ) in 1st place and Naim NAC A5 in 2nd place, all cables would have equal votes and there would be a complete tie between all three cable types.
BTW, the German team got upset because I accidentally fitted the Inakustik LS2404 Ref Air cable round the wrong way on the session on 4th July (yes, I really made that error during the trial!).
There are more subtle problems with the Group A listening trial - some of which I have only been able to fully investigate yesterday - more on that later.
As noted above, there are some unfortunate disadvantages with the ‘using your ears’ method.
Some on the forum recommend trying ‘things’ (be that cables, equipment, speaker locations etc) for extended periods and checking if one regrets the loss of some ‘special sound’ when the arrangement is changed back. I just use microphone measurements supported by REW.
Others here are perfectly justified in using their ears.
Forum members may be interested to read the professional guidelines for human assessment of audio equipment:- search for ‘Recommendation ITU-R BS.1284-2 (01/2019) on General methods for the subjective assessment of sound quality’ and also perhaps ‘AES Recommended Practice for professional audio (AES20-1996) - Subjective evaluation of loudspeakers’.
Thanks for your interest. There is quite a bit more I could post on the technical simulations of my system with various cables - however the final selection of cable will not involve multi user listening test sessions similar to those undertaken for ‘Group A’.
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Hi @Edmud-of-Essex,
There is one catch. The impedance we’re interested in isn’t the speaker impedance in the audio band, but its impedance at the frequency where the speaker cable behaves as a transmission line and its first resonance occurs. That frequency is determined primarily by the cable length and its propagation velocity.
For example, with a 4 m cable and an estimated velocity factor of about 0.552, the first resonance is around 10.35 MHz.
My current understanding is that the next step is to measure the impedance seen at the speaker terminals at that frequency, not at audio frequencies. In my case I measured:
Zspeaker = 6.7 + j31.8 Ω
The idea is then to add a network in parallel with the speaker so that the combined impedance approaches the characteristic impedance of the cable (66 Ω in my case).
That works out to approximately:
Za = 8.95 − j29.8 Ω
which is very close to a 9 Ω resistor in series with a capacitor having about 29.8 Ω of reactance at 10.35 MHz, or roughly 503 pF.
At audio frequencies this network is almost an open circuit. For example, at 20 kHz the capacitor’s reactance is about 15 kΩ, so it places virtually no additional load on the amplifier.
Of course, adding any RF network at the amplifier output can potentially affect stability. My expectation is that, because this network is series-damped and is intended to make the RF termination more resistive, it is more likely to improve the RF behaviour than reduce the amplifier’s phase margin. That said, I think verifying the result by measuring at the amplifier output is still essential before final implementation.
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Hi @BBK .
Thanks for your continued interest in what I have been doing.
You are of course (as often and always) quite correct.
You and I will need to be careful with this discussion so that we don’t drift into discussing particulars about amplifiers or amplifier output circuits - we will get moderated of we do.
Very soon I hope to be able to share a bit more of why I specifically used LT Spice to undertake the simulations of amplifier-cable-loudspeaker.
In summary I wanted to be in a position to able to send some information to a manufacturer to make a specific point about performance and potential failure modes. However - following several communications back and forth during the last two months between me and the manufacturer - it has not been necessary for me to provide that level of simulation detail.
The beneficial side effect of all this is that I now can simulate any cable (where I have access to the multi-point frequency electrical performance data) and reliably predict the acoustic performance in my system in my room to mine (and several other persons) perception of sound.
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Hi I_B,
This is a serious International (HiFi) tournament - no chance of that kind of shenanigans!
I believe it is worth revisiting a ‘RED card’ situation that a photo journalist captured and shared previously at post number 444 here.
The photo journalist has persuaded the post production team to zoom in on the significant details, enhancing the image to share with the forum…
Original Image: Author provided - no reuse.
Note that this situation did NOT occur on the pitch during the play sessions. This circumstance only occurred 20 minutes after the USA team left the field of play (for Group B warm up) and was an altercation at the end of the player tunnel where the teams split to go the respective dressing rooms.
However, it is worth remembering that this particular team has ‘form’ for these kind of altercations (as perhaps is also typical with certain international football teams).
As I am not very familiar with football regulations - particularly how they are applied and enforced at an international level - does the image above show a RED card offence or not?
Furthermore, what sanction (if any) can be applied to the nominated team (from the USA) that is currently in the Group B competition?
Any thoughts from the forum members on the above question would be appreciated as I need to get on with the Group B competition?
Hi All (and @Innocent_Bystander ),
My apologies I_B for messaging you - I am assuming you saw the previous post and did not wish to comment as it was a stupid football joke?
Here is the serious report:-
The RED dial illumination on the Linn Klimax Solo 800 amplifier only occurs when using Cardas Clear Beyond loudspeaker cables (of long length) when connected to Magico M2 loudspeakers. Furthermore the duration of RED illumination is for a very small fraction of a second as the amplifier shuts down after 20 mins of not playing music.
FYI, it is extremely difficult to capture the image I have shown above.
For normal operation there is a ‘jaunty little animation’ of the surrounding radially positioned white LEDs that occurs after 20 minutes of no music, after which ONLY the central dial light remains white, indicating the amplifier is fully in standby.
For the ‘RED card’ situation shown with Cardas Clear Beyond, the animation continues and cycles round, never ceasing as the amplifier tries to go to sleep and then immediately wakes up and then tries to go to sleep again and so on ad infinitum - until I turn the thing off!
As a result of this peculiar difficulty, I have decided that this USA brand of loudspeaker cable is eliminated from the competition.
Not because the Linn Klimax Solo 800 amplifiers cannot drive these cables when attached to Magico M2s - they certainly can. It is because I would need to add a jack lead cable with shorting switch on the external shutdown input on the rear of the amplifiers to keep them asleep when they want to be asleep.
FYI, my next post(s) concern the alleged directionality of Naim NAC A5 and explore the reasons why there are two rows of votes on the score cards for the first two days of Group A listening tests. This has been shown (twice) previously at post 437 here and post 453 here.
I would very much appreciate if you and/or others would provide some comment on these aspects.
ATB
E of E
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I hadn’t replied to this yet because nothing had grabbed me, other than an odd thin black cable apparently emerging from the carpet, and another black cable coiled and obviously not connected to anything it must be too cryptic for me - I meant to return to it to study further but time has orecluded.
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Hi All,
I am also taking the liberty of messaging @Innocent_Bystander , @BBK and @Simon-in-Suffolk as they may wish to respond having considered what happened during the loudspeaker cable evaluation listening tests at the beginning of July as follows…
I have previously published the annotated score sheets for the loudspeaker cable human listening evaluation trials, however there is detail to which I would like to draw particular attention.
Background: I have quite a few loudspeaker cables that I own (purchased HiFi retail) and some that I have made myself (e.g. copper pipe) and also terminated myself (e.g. Naim NAC A5 - a few different lengths).
Way back in April 2026, I undertook REW measurements of many such cables and shared a example screenshot of one of the REW files at post number 398 (link here).
After obtaining those measurements I had a pause. The copper pipe and all other cable types were either fully soldered or ‘pressure welded’ plug and or spade terminations. However the Naim NAC A5 (1.5m length) used the tinned soldered cable ends with screw secured plug and spade terminations. I was concerned that this method was not sufficiently robust to use for the human listener evaluations. For those evaluations I would be changing the cables as fast as I could and needed the terminations to be robust to tolerate such repeated handling.
Accordingly I changed the terminations on the Naim NAC A5 to fully soldered plugs (LS end) and spade lugs (amplifier end) on the tinned copper cable ends.
When the first listening test took place (on 30th June) after ‘listening’ to the first cable and as the listener exited the media room they were very eager to inform me of something. Speaking to me would have been a breach of experimental protocol. However they did not need to alert me - I could see immediately a problem - one of the amplifiers had fault tripped.
Given that some of my recent activity has been exploring the limits of the ‘operating envelope’ of these fancy amplifiers I was annoyed but not overly concerned. The loudspeaker cable in question was very short (1.5m) and the amplifiers had recently returned from Linn Products Ltd during which (I understand) an internal component change had been undertaken.
On the following day (1st July) the second listening evaluation took place. This time after listening to the second cable (and as the listener exited the media room) they too were very eager to inform me of something. Again (similar to the previous day) on entering the media room I could see immediately the problem - one amplifier had fault tripped!
Original Image: Author provided - no reuse.
The main immediate difficulty (in both cases) was how to recover the listening test trial as at this point something is clearly very wrong. The cable pair in question had not previously caused such faults. I decided to ask the listeners to give two sets of ranking, one for all three cables to the point in the test track where the amplifier fault had occurred and the other ranking column for the two cables that played all the way through the test track without amplifier tripping.
The outcome is that the score sheets for 30th June and 1st July have two rows of ranking for the loudspeaker cables whereas all other score sheets have just one ranking column.
FYI the affected score sheets are highlighted with blue marker pen in the image above.
There is quite a bit more information to come - but the post would get too long.
Perhaps if interested just reply with some comment and I will continue?
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Did you get to the bottom of the tripping? Surely if this is occurring this is not an optimum evaluation?
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