Are the cables SOOO sensitive? The set up is understandable, ensure you have your equipment connected correctly, cable tension being important. After that though?
My kit is installed all wrong according to forum law. No Fraim!
LH stack is bottom to top is 552ps, Aries, 552, P8 not on a wall shelf
RH stack is 300ps, Vega, 300, GNps10 and ph10.
Cables are free but crossing at all the wrong points or cable tied to avoid seeing them.
It works.
As an experiment when I installed the kit I played with positions of kit and position of cables. As long as the Burndys were relaxed by bending, shaking and letting the connection points be not under bending load I couldnāt hear a difference. I have after reading this thread this morning retested by moving the cables, no difference, moving them back, no difference.
I can now go back to just listening to a fine system, completely ignorant of how good it could have been if only I had done it properly.
Itās intriguing that we end up with these setup-camps discussions, which we recently experienced on āthe tweaking threadā as well. I can only think, that accepting an inferior setup ie ignoring Naimās recommendations ( and yes it is a quirky brand) boils down to domestic restrains and our individual personalities, and thatās ok. Saying: ā yeah but it sounds alright to meā without having done an A to B is absolutely fine, in which case just chuck the bowl of spaghetti back down your already weight overloaded Fraim stack.
I will agree entirely with bruss and JamesN in their approach. We have invested a lot of money in our gear, so WHY on earth NOT?. Even if you canāt hear an immediate uplift, knowing that itās done proper is simply peace of mind, as I see it. I thankfully suffer no domestic restraints and yes I have exhibited complete OCD behaviour with my whole set up, and can now sit down and listen knowing, that nothing has moved behind the boxes and chillax, it simply costs nothing.
Iāll happily wear my sheep-badge with pride Best Peter
Yes and there is something to be said for that of course. Common sense. However it gets pushed a bit too far by Naim Ambassadors, especially since there are some Providers out there with lots of experience who worked for Naim and design/test their stuff with Naim equipment. The easy thing is just try it and see. Some cases you get a home demo for free as well and so costs nothing
Indeed, I did not follow the flockā¦many years ago I became disenchanted (mainly, too many boxes, huming transformers and better music/Ā£)ā¦but I still appreciate that Naim make excellent gear.
Indeed Naim do make wonderful gear, I love my Nova / Neat Iota Alphas. Iām hoping they take some of the Nova philosophy into their higher end offerings (less boxes, humming and cables!)
I think Peter that you and some others who have a dedicated listening area or room have taken our hobby a stage further than I and many others have, and for me are likely to. I do like to have everything as correct as I can get it but as you point out either domestic requirements or wanting a particular aesthetic can be a limiting factor. I also think but have never tested whether a small change can be heard in a domestic situation as opposed to a dedicated listening room/area. I suspect I would hear a difference in your environment which I may not hear in mine. I would be a tad miffed if I do get to invest in a listening room and donāt then make the best of it with the appropriate kit carefully placed. Whether I would then want to massage my Burndys on a weekly basis of course is another question. Enjoy your wonderful system.
No doubt Peter, some amusingly knowledgeable posts earlierš This one seemed to infer a connection between Paul Walkers driving skills and his death as a passenger, which does seem particularly bizarre (if not macabre) thoughā¦
I try to optimise my set up with 2 Fraims, vertical spacing, cable dressing etc but understand not everyone can do that. However, everyone can optimise their own set up within reasonable constraints and expect a reasonable result. I donāt think you can pay no attention whatsoever and expect top results though, not with Naim.
There are some basic considerations which Naim are particularly sensitive to, possibly a function of the way they are constructed with regards to vibration management. If you really donāt want to bother (and nothing wrong with that), choose kit with a different design ethos and accept Naim is not for you. Just donāt stack Naim boxes and tie cable in knots then complain it doesnāt sound good, itās not designed to.
The biggest thing about naim cables i find very strange is that, we try and keep power cables away from source cables, they canāt touch etc and then naim go and design there cables with source and power in the same cable, we even send the source back to the power supply in some caseās, the box that we want to keep as far away as we can, this i find very strange and makes the rest sound very hard to believe or get my head round.
I know its not mains voltage but it is still power and surely they would be better split apart
I think that is an interesting field for discussion, emr and its effect on sound. Sadly I have no knowledge in this area beyond basic schoolboy physics. Reading up, there are dependencies between wave, particle, near and far field effects alongside induced current. I imagine that the Naim elves have had to make compromises re cost and practicality in deciding how to split the components and connections. Iām not sure I have a house big enough to have each electronic component in its own box instead of on a circuit board.
Weāve added a SL din/xlr between 272 and 250DR. It made a big difference. Weāll use a SL din/din between nDAC and 252 in new setup.
But in the middle of this weāve got the burndy with everything packed in. Weāre wondering if the benefit of the SL cables will be lost or diminished in this new setup.
The power and signal wires also appear to be tie wrapped together inside the amp going by pictures.