Good news and bad news

For some time now I have had an intermittent problem with my On/Off button latching on. Having followed several threads on the subject over the last few years and having followed Richards advice and poking it with a rubber ended pencil to no avail I decided to take matters into my own hands and remove the outer casing/sleeve and see if the switch was misaligned. I should point out also that when I switched my 52 to CD from phono it made a loud humming noise. This is the first time and was the main impetus behind seeing what was going on with the switch.

Having done that I could see nothing that would cause the problem. Both springs were fine. A couple of pushes and everything was good! Problem solved or so I thought.

I assembled the case back together and the switch continued to behave. I put it back in my rack and attached all the leads and the switch was faultless. However the loud hum is still there. I have taken the leads out of my boxes and reassembled them but the hum is still there when I switch from phono to CD. I had the 52 serviced about 18 months ago with the SuperCap the details of which I posted on the forum.

Help! Any suggestions as to the possible cause and means of sorting it out?

Cheers, Steve2

Have you tried using a different lead from CD to amp? I had a loud 50Hz hum once, and the cause was a broken ground wire in a Tellurium Q din cable.

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Cheers HungryHalibut for your suggestion. I will give it a go!

Thank you HungryHalibut. I now need a new Lead. My current one is a Linn cable which I got with my CDS3 or 52. Not sure which. So this will be next task, finding a suitable lead.

Thanks once again.

So did you test it with another lead just to check, before spending on a new one?

Not yet! I have not got a spare lead or if I have it will be in one of the Naim boxes in the attic. I will endeavour to clamber into the attic this week and see. Thanks for your advice and support.

Just finished dusting myself down from crawling around in the attic. Having gone through all my boxes I find that I have not got a spare lead. I spoke to Technical support at Naim and explained the situation to Duncan and he thinks that the fault lies with the cable. I took one of the DIN connectors off very gently so I thought to find the wires were no longer soldered to the pins.

Not sure whether to order some DIN connectors from RS and resolder the cable at both ends or just buy another cable. The cable is a Linn cable which I got when I bought my 52 Preamp. Not wishing to start another cable war…any suggestions as to what might be a good replacement.

I would say this if you are competent to good at soldering do it yourself. If you are not get another lead. Signal leads are. PITA.

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This should tell you what goes where, bear in mind that it the socket view. Reattaching a detached wire should just need a hot iron but as it’s all well pre ROHS crystal 505 was Naim’s preferred solder of yore, don’t know about Linn but leaded anyway.

If replacing the cable you could do worse than Naim’s Lavender, Chord Chrysalis is a good alternative but long out of production. Hiline would be good but tends to fragility, Naim repair FOC, unless you’re outside the UK where carriage becomes an issue.

Just to conclude my situation as outlined above. HungryHalibut was spot on when he suggested that the cause of my trouble could be a faulty cable. I initially thought of repairing my Linn cable but in the end after a chat with Wayne at Cymbiosis I settled on having a standard Naim 5 Pin DIN inerconnect which arrived this afternoon.

My system sounds sublime now and with the added benefit that it will only get better once the cable has burned in. Happy days!

Big shout out to Wayne at Cymbiosis and HungryHalibut. Thanks guys.

Steve2

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