No, as you say, it doesn’t matter (I do believe you when you say they refused to shorten them). Presumably they are closed (due to Covid) but even if they were not I’m not sufficiently interested to call them.
I just had a go out of curiosity, the same problem until a VTF question came up and it let me proceed, might be worth persevering
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Well I am not making this up! Richard Dane wrote numerous time on the forum that Naim chose this length based on a combination of listening tests and practicality
Oh, has he - I’ve not read the forum that much. My experience of Naim’s opinion regarding cables pre-dates the arrival of Mr Dane so no doubt I am out of touch. Most likely very long cables are a bad idea and very short ones are impractical.
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I have no insight into the inner workings of Naim, so if Richard says so, that’s what I believe. Knowing Naim, certain idiosyncrasies are certainly not a surprise. But don’t rely on me, you can search for user names, and a few additional search terms will find them. (IIRC, typically something like too short being impractical, and arriving at the current length by listening tests - at least this was the case for PowerLines IIRC)
I am also taking this as a hint:
Hh and yet my leads supplied with the units are only 1 meter long very strange indeed
If you are referring to your CDP and amp, I wonder if you bought them used? If so it sounds as though the previous owner chopped them down. The standard leads are 2M long.
Some discussion here before and after these posts, about both standard leads and Powerline
That looks like the case then hh and yes they were secondhand live and learn so if they were 2 meter long would it improve the sound or something
Clearly they are long enough to reach your sockets and you are happy with the sound, so I wouldn’t worry about it.
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During development of the Powerline, Naim reached the conclusion that the Powerline sounded best at 2m, tested against shorter examples.
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Really! And what if that results in coils of cable hidden under equipment shelves or bunched up behind the equipment, does two metres sound best then?
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No idea. It was just the result of listening tests done at the factory during development of the Powerline; it’s why the Powerline is 2m long.
Okay, if you say so. I don’t know what JV would have made of the idea of ‘optimum length mains leads’! Frankly, the whole idea seems intended to placate the OCD tendencies that are all too prevalent in this hobby of ours.
However, if one is selling a cable with custom plugs fitted at each end I can certainly see why one would seek to discourage alterations to said cable. I’ll leave it at that now - life’s too short for circular arguments about the length of a mains lead.
I’m just reporting the facts as they happened - nothing to do with whether I “say so” or not. I think Julian would have been really interested in the findings as well as the background in mechanical decoupling and the R&D that went into the Airplugs and Powerline. It was basically further development of things already established by Roy and the team under Julian’s direction, many years earlier.
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What!
That’s fighting talk round these parts, Mark.
I could talk for hours about whether life’s too short for circular arguments about the length of a mains lead.
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Is there any theory from Naim as to why a longer mains lead would be better? With the older amps and speaker wire there’s the lack of a zobel network, but I can’t think of anything for mains.
I think the Hydra is excellent value, I use a 3x head hydra to power the 300PS, NAPSC and HiCap.
ND5XS2 the supplied PowerLine Lite, the ND5XS2 doesn’t directly connect to the Naim rig as this passes to an MScaler so I guess earthing arrangements are different.
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I recall here was some reasoned speculation, but I’m not sure if anything official was published. It was possibly something to do with the way the decoupling of the Powerline IEC and mains plug worked; the length of the cable seemed too make an appreciable difference, whereas with a regular mains lead with normal plugs, not so much.
I would have thought that cabled trimmed to a specific length to fit exactly the equipment in their relative places on a rack would not only be safer, easier and tidier in terms of cable dressing but sound better without that inevitable birds nest of unshielded wires or carefully coiled spare mains lead playing havoc with low power signal cables.
I concede that Naim have determined that 2m lengths sound best but were the tests done in a realistic home setting where cable dressing is often compromised or in an open space where the cables could be arranged tidily?
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