How often should speaker cables be replaced?

Black SNAICs should be fine. It’s definitely worth upgrading from Grey SNAICs.

As for the Naim interconnect, it started out as light grey and very slightly thinner than the current lavender/grey. The latter is slightly better sonically, I find.

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Very helpful, thanks. One of my SNAICs must have a loose connection a when I accidentally touch the cable at the back of the NAXO or 282 ends I get some distortion/noise briefly.

All my SNAICs are grey, and I think there’s a blue SNAIC that came with an older chrome bumper NAXO I cannot currently find.

Might get a SNAIC order in before prices rise (though only £20).

A blue SNAIC…? Are you sure it’s not a Chord DIN Interconnect. IIRC, the earlier ones were a shade of mid blue.

It could be I can’t find it though sure it will turn up. When I got the SBLs and went active I got a used PAXO for free and for some reason preferred a used chrome bumper NAXO to the olive version at the time, and got the matching chrome bumper Hicap, fairly sure the SNAIC 5 for the CB Naxo is blue without locking rings - maybe it is a Chord one.

They’re £180 before 6th I think unless I have an older accessory price list. £19 each more not £20, my bad as they say :wink:

Pretty sure it’s got the latching Deltron connectors in the cable identifier FAQ, though fairly certain the cable is blue. Will post a pic when I find it.

When I had my epiphanic audition of the Solstice TT we compared it, very favorably, with an adjacent ND555. It was only afterwards that I realized that the Solstice phono stage was connected to the 552 with a Lavender IC while the ND555 had a HiLine. I wonder if the Lavender shouldn’t be considered the truly iconic Naim product…

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Lavender and A5 are fantastic value.

In the context of a Naim system, and With an analogue source I tend to prefer the lavender/grey interconnect over pretty much anything else.

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It means that although oxygen can get in, water can’t, and both would be needed to achieve oxidation to a level that is concerning.

I’ve been renovating old woodworking machinery recently and the copper inside the very old cabling (80 years old for one motor) is still clean when exposed. The surface of the copper wires has of course been corroded at the ends of the wires, back a couple of inches of shielding in some cases, but otherwise in as new condition (visually anyway).

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Absolutely. I was always taught to at least check the connections every 10 years. If they look fine don’t mess. If the copper has dulled beyond brown to black or green, reterminate (losing 10cm off each end) or replace.

Though my soldering gets a flush tin up to the sheath so checking the cable is nigh on impossible. And I reseal on top of that with heat shrink.

Worth noting that there is no absolute answer. Someone living in low humidity Denver is not likely to see the same degredation as someone living with a coast view in Lyme Regis. If you are somewhere where cars all have rust spots on them, you are probably looking at regular retermination or eventual replacement.

I think this is a concern too far … Should we start worrying about the wiring inside say a CB era 250 (like mine… c.1985). Surely not…?

As @anon39880737 notes - wiring inside an 80 year old motor is still fine. I think the real concern over older wiring is its insulation, not the ‘wire’ itself. This is why houses in the UK, with old rubber-covered wiring should be re-wired, in something more modern.

Remember that historical artefacts containing copper have survived for thousands of years. Its pretty stable stuff, really…!

But… if you are so concerned over your speaker cables, replace them. You will have no problem selling your old ones… :crazy_face:

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I just think i keep them

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Wouldn’t be too sure. I’ve an early 80s HiCap that had corroded wiring at a crimp terminal. Some degradation in crimp connections is to be expected after 40 years in my experience (45 years in telecommunications)

These Honda’s were built to last back then.

G

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I think we should be concerned about real world problems, not such inconsequential trivia.

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I suspect that could apply to 95% of the posts on this forum, if not more.

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Are you proposing to shut down the forum?

I wouldn’t bother then if you are not interested, and leave the rest of us to discuss inconsequential nonsense!

Sigh…