How do ye feel about Power line Cables?

By the way, no car and certainly not a beemer. My mode of transportation is the subway and/or 1964 Vespa GL

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Had PLs on everything then decided to to swap them out. Preferred the stock mains leads on Naim kit and Mark Grant mains leads on everything else (very good shielding and low RFI). Got back what I paid for PLs. I found them awkward to use, UK versions, compared with stock & MG leads. As always try before you buy is best answer, but if you buy then try you can usually recover your outlay if they donā€™t give you the boost you hooe for.

With Naim kit sorting out mains supply boosted SQ far more than PLs and was cheaper. With Linn and Chord kit, I found mains supply made little difference. Different PSU designs. As always these kind of tweaks do not make the same level of difference as upgrading a black box, IME.

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Woody - I agree with your premise, it mirrors what I said in the Fraim thread a few days ago that Naim will happily sell some tremendous kit but then follow it up with an expectation that we need to carry on spending to realise its potential.

RackKit - Naim do exactly what BMW already do, they make a range of products that cover price and performance points. They donā€™t sell a car as the best thing available then suggest you fit a better exhaust system or replace the engine with a much better one that gives much better performance. You want an M1? You buy an M1. You donā€™t buy an M1 under the impression that itā€™s all youā€™ll need only to discover on visits to the showroom and the BMW forums that buying the car was only the start of it, and that the brick garage you planned to keep it in is useless and needs replacing with a gold encrusted building set just so from your house.

So just how much extra would you be prepared to pay for this, because clearly there would be a price increase involved in including an accessory that retails at about Ā£600, which many would regard as excessive, especially as that is over 50% of the cost of Naimā€™s entry level boxes.

Whilst I would love Naim to lower prices to enable me to upgrade I recognise that their business model isnā€™t aimed at the volume end of the market. If you want the best you have to recognise that it isnā€™t going to be cheap. Bleating about it is a bitā€¦ lame Iā€™m afraid to say.

Thatā€™s a very cool mode of transport. :sunglasses:

I know they do which is I used them as an example.

Hope to get a (used) power line cable tomorrow. It is not a question of where I will use it. I think itā€™s the 552 that will benefit the most.

I could also try the Supercap / Superline but because of the distance (4m) of the 552 I use a long power cord with (self-made) power strip and believe it made no sense. But maybe Iā€™ll test there first.

I first heard a powerline on its release when Naim came to my local dealership. Iā€™d already bought a CD5x by then and was quite pleased that there were no cable upgrades in Naim world so was a bit put out when they brought one along and the bloody thing improved just about every Naim box it was used on, thouigh not always in the same way or to the same extent. Eventually I bought one by which time the CD5x had been joined by a FC2x, 282, superline, Aro, Hicap and 250-2, mostly replacing Rega (and an iso). I tried it on just about everything except the PSC (that came later when I had a few more). On the power amp is boosted the bass power, not necessarily a good thing, on the hicap(282) it increased resolution, again a mixed blessing at the time, I used it for a while on the FC2x(used for CD5x analog circuits only) but canā€™t remember the effect, just that it had one (maybe it was tone), but the place where it stayed, once Iā€™d thouight to try it, was the CD5x (ie digital side) itself where it improved coherence of the music, that is allowing me to make more sense of it.
More followed, starting at source (CDX2 by then) and eventually I tried one on the PSC, where it stayed in preferance to using it on the 250 but only until I got another.
500 series come with them as standard
Incidently they make Rega boxes sound horrible, at least the ones Iā€™ve tried, the DAC particularly.

Definitely,
Worth every pound. As a skeptical person, I was not convinced that a power cord could actually sound better than a standard cable.
When I connected the three cables to my CD player, power supply and amplifier, I understood what the fuss was about.
At the end of the day, they added detail, transparency, expanded the stage size created by the speakers.
One of the NAIM products that upgrade the existing system considerably, at a reasonable cost.

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i picked most of mine up from an auction site as i liked what they did but if you keep on chuckikng money at the brand eventually they come with the kit :crazy_face:

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The major upgrade for me was a direct cheap power cable (20m) between the Hifi star matrix and the main house power distribution box. Insert a cable in a existant pipe with some space left between 2 floors in a house is not easyā€¦
Tried VDH / Furutech power cables, nothing relevant to the cheap chinese (?) Naim standard chords.

My system, CDX2-282-HCDR-300DR-Dynaudio Contour S3.4
SL

I didnā€™t believe that a mains lead on its could make much difference so carried on using my 2-head Hydra after upgrading from an XPSDR to a 555PSDR last Autumn, then gave the PL a try on a whim. The difference was significant and surprising; not night & day, but a noticeable lift.

It took about a month to find a good deal on ex demo stock to find another, which goes to the 300DR. This gave less of a lift than the Hydra -> PL Lite had, but was still worth it.

Iā€™m happy, but I donā€™t think itā€™s a Ā£1200 upgrade. In the box and ex demo swung it for me.

I have been an enthusiastic Power Line customer since the beginning. They make the sound feel more sorted to me. I have 8 of them on three separate systems (500, XS, and UQ2b) and can hear the benefit every time, especially on the dedicated circuits. If I could try them on the MuSo, TV and toaster, I would.

I do have a Valhalla2 power cord feeding the Nordost power strip that all the Power Lines are plugged into for the 500 setup. Valhalla2 is at the ragged edge of my budget and one will have to do. Power cords have a real and perceptible benefit around here. We have two dedicated circuits and earth ground grids for each of them. With earth grounds, you can hear the difference.

Come see us if you are out this way.

skip

Iā€™ve used some very good non Naim leads such as the Furutech Empire from their pro range (much lower cost than their audiophile range).

But what really stands out for me is the design excellence of the Naim PowerLine. Generally, the costlier the lead, the greater the effort that goes into making it look and feel expensive to the detriment of practicality. So many other leads are so heavy they need support at both ends to stop them falling out of the wall socket and the unit itself. The PowerLine doesnā€™t have these problems. The cable has both very heavy AWG conductors but with a flexible and light insulator that is easy to work with and the plugs and both ends serve a purpose without being ridiculously heavy.

To that end, my Furutech Empire is fantastic but very hard to use. The PowerLine costs 4 times more and is a bit better but actually usable in a realistic context. There are not many cables at the PowerLine price point that are easy to use at all.

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I might consider some Powerline sometime if I see some good prices for used.

I just bought a Super Wiremold Cryo from AV Options, and I will audition a Nordost Heimdall II power cord for my NDX2 in a couple weeks.

You should check AV options for their Cryo Tibia. They know whatā€™s up and they are a bargain at the price.

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OK, I ordered a TibiaPlus12 Deep-Cryo to try. Itā€™s cheap enough and I figure I can resell it or use it for something less critical if it disappoints.

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Thanks everyone. Iā€™m reading diligently everyoneā€™s post and taking it all in- Mr Novice :grinning:

I added two Powerlines and tried them on all of my Naim gear ND5XS, 282, 250-2, 300 and also a Hicap and heard no major difference on any of them. It has been said on this forum that you need a dedicated mains supply to get the best from a Powerline so perhaps the ancient wiring in my house held them back.

Just to add Iā€™m not a cable sceptic Iā€™ve tried lots of expensive cables that made varying differences ranging from none to mild apart from the Hiline which made a noticeable improvement so apart from that I returned to Naimā€™s stock cables which are excellent by the way.