Hi all. I have a second system made out of spares which is installed at my friend/neighbor. For the sake of completeness, the system is:
Wiim Pro Plus
Cambridge Audio DacMagic 100
Naim NAIT XS
B&W 865
I recently bought a second-hand Lavender RCA-DIN interconnect to connect the DAC to the NAIT and replace a cheap RCA cable used previously. Upon installing it, the sound became more flat and with less bass. When my friend tried to disconnect the cable and try the old one again, the two RCA plugs practically fell off…
I don’t believe that the cable had been abused so much to disintegrate like that. So I would expect that it can be repaired under warranty. It’s a bit over one year old, so still within the 2-year warranty period (which I understand is transferable within UK). The seller was kind to share the original invoice with me. Unfortunately I live in Belgium, so the logistics might get tricky.
My main question for whoever might know (@Richard.Dane maybe?):
Does the warranty repair have to go through the original dealer? It is easier for me to visit another dealer in one month when I will be visiting UK.
I will also ask the local importer in case they can take care of it, but I doubt they will.
Looks like the cable was cut/severed as no strands evident. Did he pull the plug or the cable when disconnecting? There also seems to be a cut in the lavender sheathing too.
AFAIK it’s pretty much unheard of for both plugs to come away together unless somebody pulled on the tails to remove the plugs at some point and likely weakened them - possibly the original owner? That also may also account for the lacklustre sound you experienced.
If it were me I would get in touch with the original selling dealer and see what they think.
As has already been mentioned I highly suspect this broke due to someone pulling on the wires instead of pulling on the RCA connector body. I would imagine this would fall under physical abuse & not a warranty/manufacturing issue. You may get lucky but I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t cover it under warranty.
A good dealer (not all Naim dealers know how to use a soldering iron!!) or competent service agent should be able to re-solder the plugs. It’s a simple job for the right person. If you can get a repair done under warranty, that’s great, but for such a basic soldering task anyone competent with a soldering iron should be able to fix it.
Thank you all for your replies. My friend was careful enough to pull the RCA plugs, not the cable, when disconnecting. He knows how paranoid I am about these things .
Indeed it seems that the cable has been pulled hard in the past, or potentially damaged when tinkering with the RCA plugs. Although I have soldered some banana plugs in the past, I don’t think I could do this one properly.
Each signal cable needs to go through the orifice in the center of the plastic part…
The negative side is not soldered, but squeezed tight between the plastic face and a metal part of the plug when you screw the RCA pieces together. Then the cable stays in place and I suppose that’s why it seemed OK when I received it…
Obviously in this configuration the signal cable barely makes any contact with the plug and that’s why the sound quality was subpar…
Really frustrating to fall victim of such unscrupulous seller. I don’t think the solders could break during shipping, no matter how hard the box was treated…
I need to figure out my options now. First to see how much a dealer or Latham Audio would charge for repairing this. And obviously notifying the seller that this is not acceptable…
I had one that was bought brand new do this on one of the rca connectors.
Now it did get plugged in and out more frequently than might otherwise have been normal over a short period of time as I was swapping between Supernait 3 and Nait 50 but I’m generally careful an wasn’t impressed with the build quality.
I swapped to Chord cables instead no issues thereafter.
I should have contacted the retailer but didn’t and wrote it off, that’s on me.
Blimey, that’s a coincidence… the same thing happened to my Lavender rca-din cable last week!
(bought new in september 2025)
At first the right signal channel sometimes fell out. Slightly touching the cable brought the signal back but after a couple of times I got so annoyed by it, that I decided to disconnect the cable (obviously always by pulling the plugs, never the cable itself!) and see what was going on.
I unscrewed the left rca plug and noticed that the VERY thin strand of only a few mm, soldered with a tiny bit of solder, had come loose. When I wanted to check how the right side rca plug was holding up, it already came off, when (carefully) unlucking the plug.
I got fed up with it and threw the cable in a drawer and have used my cheap (€17,-) Amazon rca-din cable since. I don’t have a soldery iron. (nor the skills to do this kind of fiddly job I’m afraid)
Perhaps I still have warranty on the cable and I might have the cable repaired.
I also got a couple of designacable morgani ones made up. These again are much better construction.
Like you I also have a cheapo Amazon one that has a purple outer on it that I used first and has been deployed occasionally when caught short of a connection, excellent value and sounds fine.
These were all rca - din configs, necessities of two Nait 50’s. I bought two of the Naim cables first, the broken one and it’s sibling now in the spare cables bin.
I’ve had other naim cables for years and fine but these rca one end were poor.
Never pull any cable out by grabbing the cable. Only grab the connector. The DIN RCA Lavender has very slim wires at the RCA end and the fit of the connectors are tight. Pulling them out grabbing the cable is likely going to end up with bare wires in the hand.
That would never be covered on warranty IMO. It would be pure goodwill if so.
Given that the same thing has happened to two more members who treated the cable carefully, then it does seem to me that the construction is not robust enough and the repair should be covered by the warranty. I’ll contact the original dealer to see what they say.
I’ll check my part number later if I still have the boxes under the sofa in cabin. But I’d imagine it’s the same, bought two at the same time from same retailer online, reputable one I’ve bought from before.
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