I use left channel in the cheapest rca cable as a digital coax. TT came equipped with a rca cable. 4x professional style xlr cables and PN installation cables as speaker cable. Standard power cables. No filter. Play very, very good.
Before Naim were making expensive cables they told us just to use the cables the equipement were delivered with….
People should work with the acoustics in the room before cables, racks and other less important stuff. That makes a huge difference.
Would it be equally fair to say that, before Naim discovered for themselves that better cables could improve SQ, they did not try selling them?
As for the idea that room acoustics matter more most of the time than cables or tacks, I couldn’t agree more. Mind you, in some cases, it is not simple to address room acoustics directly. Testing different cables (for free on trial) is easy.
NOT what they said. They said (words to the effect) that people were welcome to experiment with power leads etc, but so far they hadn’t found one that was better than that provided as standard but that they would continue to review.
I took a flyer on some Kudos KS-1 for my Spendor D7.2’s and so far I like them quite a bit better than the Phantoms. Fuller midrange with more tonality, texture and emotion and the lower noise level lets more information through without added harshness or listening fatigue. Had them for a few days so far.
My dealer threw in 2 x 4m runs of NACA 5 for free when I upgraded last year (they were made up for another customer who changed his mind) and only use the stock Snaics that came with the Naim kit so zero spend on cables for me.
OK, put another way:
Say you were buying a car. The model you choose has an option of a special paint that, according to the dealer, improves ‘aerodynamic efficiency through modulating micro-eddies and improving laminar flow, leading to unrivalled gains in acceleration and efficiency’. Cost…let’s say an extra £5k. You might ask, before spending the money, what sort of performance and efficiency gains could be expected. Like…how many more mpgs? What differences in 0-60 etc?
If the dealer said 'ah, the thing is you cannot actually measure these differences, but all our customers report similar results…and further more the paint has to ‘break in’ which will take just slightly longer than the returns period…
Would you spend that £5k…?
Well, like cables, I’d want to try out the special paint version, compare it to the standard model and see for myself whether I thought it worthwhile to pay the extra…
Must every improvement be measurable and numerically quantifiable before it’s considered real?
Let’s say some boutique cable were advertised as having been engineered to have a particularly low value of X (where X can be inductance, resistance, whatever… doesn’t matter for this illustration). The low value of X is measurable. Would you then consider this cable worthy of listening to, rather than dismissing it as yet more snake oil?
Mark
Many people think NAC A5 at £35 a metre is boutique. Where do you draw the line? Personally I stick with stock Naim cables with the exception of a Witch hat standard Burndy.
I think I have other interests and higher spending priorities that preclude me from blowing £600+ on a Morgana Burndy. I mean how much better does your system need to sound? Mine sounds great and even if it could sound better, why does it need to?
I never really appreciated the difference good cables can make until I lived with them for a while - now I have invested significantly but the improvement to the system is substantial. Good cabling is like a black box upgrade, in some cases like a jump to a new level. My cables seem to let the system breathe and bring a heightened sense of realism and life. My dealer feels that they have brought the 500 series closer to statement level.
What colour is it?
I’ve just realised that i’ve put £3K into my cable upgrades this year alone…must be due another box upgrade…
Perhaps we should also be evaluating and buying paintings based on chromatography results first and foremost? How else??
The car paint analogy is a poor one anyway, as every car manufacturer has a range of metallic and pearl paint colours that can run into £’000’s in some cases. No additional claims are made for performance improvements nor any improvement in the robustness of the paint finish itself yet the vast majority of buyers opt for one of these extra cost paints, so are they being stupid, are the manufacturers immoral??
When I was kid, my 8yr old sister stuck a playing card on her bicycle spokes and tassels on the grips. She was blown away with the improvement. I kept mine stock.
You are being drawn in by the guy Dave 
. Who cares what he writes? We both know how positive cable changes can be as does any discerning Hifi owner.
Your analogy is irrelevant to the world of audio unless you claim that we should respray our black boxes and claim a difference.
Customer interpretation is why I’m on this forum, and if numerous customers here make a claim, it sparks my interest. Owning a car depends on what we see and whether it goes from A to B. You could have expensive audio equipment, which could sound awful to my ears, and where you end up not enjoying or listening to as much music as you like. For another person, this would be their nirvana. I keep an open mind. I am willing to experiment. Some things have worked, and some things have not.
In cycling, they’re many exaggerated claims about the benefits of aerodynamics, with many white papers and stats from wind tunnel data. However, aerodynamics data goes out of the window in the real world and is impossible to quantify. They’re too many variables, wind direction and speed, body shape and positioning, and equipment. Yes, there is a benefit, but it is all about the legs for the amateur. In hi-fi, it is all about our perception of our hearing.
Recently spent £450 on Witch Hat Morgana between Chord Qutest and SN1, replacing old Chord Chrysalis RCA to DIN. I can honestly say it is the biggest bang for buck upgrade I have made in many years. I would challenge any nay sayers not to notice the difference. It has hugely increased my enjoyment of the music. One key point is the filter settings on the Qutest. With the old cable, i couldn’t discern any real difference between each setting. On mentioning this to my dealer, he said that they were quite subtle and only really discernable with decent headphones. Now with the Morgana in place, the filter setting differences are clearly obvious through the speakers.
I doubt any discerning hifi enthusiast would doubt the benefits of cable changes but many of them don’t believe that the cost can justify the relatively small improvement and to be fair those of us that have listened to many “cables” in the past would argue strongly that the improvements are small. Noticeable but small.
I know my system would benefit from a Tellurium-Q Diamond Black Interconnect from my Phono Stage to my NAC202, as I heard it in system when auditioning Speakers.
However, £1000 buys a lot of Vinyl and my £750 8 year old Van Den Hul sounds pretty decent😊