Has anyone compared this two cables on a naim system?
I recently migrated to a Supernait 3, and my interconnects are audioquest earth rca that I already had, is the high line a better fit for my NDX 2 and Supernait 3, the audioquest are very musical and make a wide and big sound but I am very curious about the hiline and if anyone compared it to the audioquest earth.
These are both very expensive cables and if the hiline is something to consider over the earth please say so and why. I read on the forum the hiline is very fragile and that scares me a little.
The DIN version of the Hiline is, as you say, a little fragile, although in an all Naim system it’s probably best to use DIN regardless. It would certainly be high on my list of cables to use in your system. No experience of your Audioquest I’m afraid.
The inside the box din has a brighter sound less bass and a smaller image, the image is more condensed between the speakers, the earth makes a huge image compared and has a lot more bass. But the lavender has better presence in the voices and the textures are sharper. I find the lavender overall less musical but more precise.
I do not want to miss the body and big recreation of space the earth archives, but would love the have the clarity of the lavender on the voices and textures.
I’ve never tried Audioquest but compared Hiline against both Chord Signature and Sarum and can say quite categorically the Hiline is far far more organic. Don’t try Superlumina, if you know what’s good for your wallet!
At the moment the hiline is the option I am considering and the price is already high for me, the super lumina could be amazing but the price seems irrational at least on this system, it costs almost as much as a supernait 3.
As much I would like the super lumina is too much for me.
Is your NDX2’s ground switch set to floating or default/chassis? I don’t know how much difference it makes with a supernait but with a full set of separates it’s worth getting right so that the ND can provide the system’s signal ground connection (there should be only one).
Do power sockets in Portugal lock in the live and neutral connections? They do in the UK and in France there’s an earth pin in the socket of the standard fittings but not all of Europe has this. If not it’s worth checking socket and plug polarity.
Conpared to the Lavender the Hiline fills out the bass and to some extent the scale and lets a bit more detail through while keeping the music intact. I substituted a Lavendar for my Hiline for a few weeks between my 555 and 552 while the Hiline was being repaired. The Lavender seemed to simplify what was going on. When I had it between CDX2 and 282 it had a similar effect and, though my preference was less clear cut, the Hiline won. The only RCAs I’ve tried, and and they didn’t last long, were Chord Chrysalis which used the same cable as Lavender (until Naim bought up all the remaining stock).
Not all the sockets in my houses in France have an earth pin. I have just had a dedicated spur from box (no fuses of course) and this did improve the sound.
Nor in the living room of our flat in Montpellier but these had no earth connection at all, though there was an earth wire passing behind them on the way to the socket on the balcony. I spliced into this as Naim boxes, except MuSos, need earthing.
That won’t be helping, particularly with the Naim DIN cables. Here’s the FAQ on DIN connection.
You may decide to take that with a grain of salt but when I’ve had two signal grounds, from a CD player and a streamer set to chassis the degradation was quite noticeable.
There’s also a safety angle, Naim boxes are not double insulated but connected to their own ground pin in the power connector and rely on a current through it to blow the fuse in the event of a fault.
Received an hi-line on Friday, had time to listen to it 5 days in a row, I find the hi-line a great cable, very detailed and textured, it has a very clean presentation, like it.
I did not find it better than the earth, simply a different presentation, soundstage on the earth is bigger and fuller and more immersive, I did find the earth more pleasing to me, but I liked the more realistic presence of voices on the hi-line, but not 1099 euros more present to justify on my case, and the fragility of the cable is not something I desire to deal with.
If the hi-line presentation was as wide and big as the earth in my living Roon I would have taken it. Next year I would try to listen to a power line.
I do wonder if you should have given the Hiline some more time before deciding? I found it took a while to settle but it might also have been my imagination.
By the way: is it should have given or shouldn’t have given or both? (English is not my first language).
Hiline never worked out in my system. The added detail makes it sound bit all over the place IMO and frequencies more separated rather than working together. A Chord Sarum Super Aray did though.
One thing I noticed is that with the hi-line on some álbuns a had to turn down the volume because it was not musical it was a little too much. Going back to the earth turning up the volume was not an issue. What the earth lacks on the naim gear is the clarity of the voices of the hi-line, but is not bad and is more relaxed.
But my power cables also are from audioquest and they could pair better with the earth than with the hi-line.