Hifi you’ve bought but thought was ridiculously expensive?

And I complain about my Frey 2 interconnects… :sweat_smile:

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In hindsight, I guess full rrp for my Nait 50 given what happened to the price thereafter. However if the price hadn’t dropped I would have remained happy with what I paid.

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I bought a specific bespoke cable for my Superline which was ridiculously expensive but made a very very considerable difference to the sound.

Ovator s600
I bought them second hand and did not realise how much I would have to pay for them after I demoed them for a few weeks.
But they were superior to my SBLs.

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Bricasti M3 DAC/streamer,
Pass Labs INT-25.

The Bricasti wasn’t able to connect to the Net about once every three times (my subsequent ND5 XS2 never missed a connection, and sounded better), the INT-25 left me wondering what the fuss about Nelson Pass was.

Size-wise, perhaps. Seriously - SBLs were ambassadors of an audio culture, S-600s were just big.
My opinion only. :slightly_smiling_face:

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Yes they are big but they work fantastic in a larger room. I’ve a living room over 40 square metres and the Ovators can give you the feeling that you’re a little being standing on the tongue of Maria Callas when she was singing. Also, I’ve never heared an organ played on Hifi so well and that’s important for me as you know.

The SBLs are very balanced and harmonious too, but can’t give the same large and spacious perception. Tuneful they are!

IBLs are like a love-affair …

Which one to choose, Max?

I can’t sell on any of these!

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well you can also simply give the IBLs to me some day if the need arises, if that makes it any easier :wink:

I thought spending £360 for NACA5 cable was quite a lot

However there is no doubt that it sounds very good with my XS3

To balance the NACA5 cost I compared it with the cost of a previous speaker cable I used; that was Tellurium Q Ultra Black cable which was over £1.5k for the length required… did it sound good? yes it did but I eventually sold it with a big profit

I am now happy that the speaker cable I’m using was designed to work well with my XS3 and certainly the synergy seems spot on to me

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Initially one thinks expensive applies throughout everything hifi related. If you get further. Then there are very distinct categories of expenses.
Not forgetting hifi is an esoteric consumer meta commodity meant to flaunt one’s own discretionary knowledge and faculties..

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Yes I conveniently forgot about that, at the time the 2x8m lenghts of NACA5 properly terminated, felt really expensive, and that was well before today’s prices.

Then again some time ago I was happy to simply have these then 15 year old cables refurbished (cut down both sides 20cm to where there was uncorroded copper again, new genuine plugs on both ends properly soldered) as an amazing VFM upgrade.

Could be worse. I managed to pay £1,000 for 2x5m of NACA5 including VAT, duty and some shipping fees.
In my defence it was deep cryo’d treated and had SA8s at amplifier end and an F type connection at speaker end - all expertly soldered by AV Options in US but even so best keep it between us!
Fortunately I really like the above in combination with AV Options XLR but it is a bit ridiculous.

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My NACA5 was professionally built by a Naim dealer

I’ve checked out the soldering on the Naim plugs and it’s quite impressive