I think it’s a clever bit of kit but I have vivid recollections of having difficulty in locating the floating pins (with the risk of bending them!), and this is where perhaps the vulnerability of the primary locating lug (as @Stephen_Tate has ‘popped’ in his pic) comes in to play. Holding just the main collar can expose this connection.
The above said, my later Hi-Line between S/Cap (Superline) and Pre locates without issue, and appears a tad more robust. Either that or I’m instinctively handling it with more care(?).
I’m probably incorrect here, but in the early days I don’t think the collar capping was accurate as to orientation of fitment, hence the struggles?
Fell apart again, when I tried to reclip the small arms broke off from that ring leaving me with an interconnect I now need to tape. I’m trying with masking tape. We will see how it sounds. It always sounds off when I have removed it and it takes a while for it to get back on song. Bummer it broke though.
Yes of course. The resistor leg-ends appear to have heat-shrink over the solder joints, therefore it’s quite difficult to peer inside and see where things are actually connected without properly taking the whole plug apart.
I do wonder why Naim haven’t brought out a Mk2 version with maybe aluminium collars as opposed to the plastic ones. Is performance impacted that much if they do? Who knows? Seems ok for the SuperLumina version though…
Yes, so I measured the cable and there was no measurable resistance, everything checked out at about 0.1 ohms … but the picture suggests one end of the component is connected to the shield in the cable, so could be a shield leakage resistor to ground.
Two failures here in 12 years. Both replaced free of charge but I wasn’t sad to see the back of it when I moved to non-Naim streaming. Quite telling that we have this and the Burndy discussion going simultaneously. Notdiscussions you see with cables from elsewhere.
If I’ve understood the restistor connections correctly (from a photo) its linking the screens to -ve.
A screen will add capacitane thru its proximity to the signal conductors, but this will be a very small number.
I found the HiLine a step up in performance on my CDS3 to the stock lavender but like many others have had one fail so I’m not a great fan of the design.
With the HiLine on the Superline I find the difference is not as clear cut. I find the HiLine gives more detail and timbre but the Lavender somehow seems more effortless and musical. I find I frequently swap them as whichever I/C I’m using at the time I miss the properties of the other. I’d love to hear some other cables but there aren’t many cables in the correct configuration.
It depends if the shield is the return or encompasses both live and return to a large extent. I can’t be sure, but it looks as if the return and shield are different. However the use of silver alloy plated copper conductors might counter to some extent the fall off from the capacitive loading.
I don’t find the Hiline cable used as wonderfully transparent as the DNM parallel copper conductor unshielded cable, but I still do enjoy the Hiline cable, and it makes musical replay enjoyable and adds just a hint of highlight… which I do often like.
The capacitance concern with Naim is with their older power amp designs, not interconnects… the former, so I understand, could go into destructive ultrasonic oscillation when driving a too capacitive loudspeaker load. More current designs have have side stepped this.
Here’s an explanation from Naim support about the RCA to DIN Superlumina design (quote copied to save clicking through!)
In the case of a naim system the “preamp chassis earth” is connected to the “signal earth” inside the preamp. Since our preamps have external power supplies the signal ground is used as the preamp chassis screen. Note that in the following description “ground” or “system ground” is the negative or 0V reference of the system and “mains earth” is the earth connection supplied by the mains lead and plug.
In this customer’s case (of an RCA to DIN lead) the RCA connectors will have the signal and ground connections using the individual conductors soldered together. The white sleeved cables are the ground and the red or black sleeved cables are the signal. In addition (since the RCA’s are the source end) the screen will also be connected to the ground via a padding resistor. The resistor is there to control the characteristic of the screen “seen” by the ground.
So the tape didn’t last long and the cable didn’t sound quite right since it fell apart. Going with Lavender for now. Such a shame. Lavender is not nearly as good when recently plugged back in but who knows it might need some time to sound it’s best. I know the Hiline does.
I got my repaired HiLine back today. No charge from Naim. I had to cover my dealers’ cost for outbound shipping ($20).
I’m afraid to take it out of the box. I think I’ll leave the Lavender in place on my NDX2 and sell the HiLine before it breaks again. The HiLine on my SuperLine is getting replaced by an AV Options cable once it ships (any time now). Then I may sell that one too.
You need to take it out and check it before selling it. My friends came back from naim repair not working and assembled incorrectly. Very rare from naim I assume but I would check it anyway.
Indeed Hiline does take time to sound optimum when reinserted into a socket, because the DIN pins need to gently shift over time to their optimum rest positions when inserted. This is part of the performance you are paying for with DIN Hiline.
Lavender is a lot more rigid, but even that, like Burndy connectors, may have a slight de stressing period when connected.
We kind of should remember interconnect contact plugs and sockets are the Achilles heal in audio connectivity. Performance would be so improved I suspect if connections were soldered.
