Hi guys, quite disturbed now. Today I listen to music, somehow feel like the right speaker is not producing music as it should. I go near my Scala speaker to hear, and all I can hear is music distorted and hissing sound. Quite a shocker to me. I thought is my brand new Scala problem so I swap the cable and now my left speaker got the severe distortion.
So I can conclude it is the 500DR. I have contacted my dealer already. Problem is there has been a dealer switch here in Singapore and I did not buy the 500DR from them. I did bought the Scala from them though. I hope they will provide good service on 500DR, but will have to hear from them tomorrow.
In the meantime, can I ask forum member to speculate what could possibly be the issues of the severe distortion heard on the right channel?
The distortion I can described as just plain bad music+hissing+distorted sound.
1- re-checked all the cables and terminations? This could be an unseated cable or a broken joint somewhere.
2- Just swapping the 'speaker cables won’t isolate the pre-amp or perhaps source as the issue. Can you switch feeds on these, recognising that you may need to use RCA cables as DINs don’t allow this.
Obviously, great care with switching on and off when doing all this – and keep the volume down low!
Indeed. Now I am swapping out the speaker cable to identify if it is fault speaker cable. But my main tripping every times. Lengthly time to debug. I am thinking now it can be so many myriad of causes that to enumerate them all will take lots of time + spare gears (which I do not have, like spare cable, spare pre-amp, spare source)
And also not sure if dealer will be happy to drag their own gear to my home. Very risky buying boxes of hi-fi gear. Suddenly have the thought to down-box.
Will Naim gear spoil if during the debugging the main always trip?
If the power trips off turn off all the Naim boxes before resetting, them power up in sequence from the source.
Power down before unplugging any cable carrying power.
If it’s possible for speaker connectors to short them power down the 500 before swapping them over. If they have touched when the amp’s powered up this might have killed the channel.
Try another input on the 552, or another source if you have one. You’ve assumed it’s the 500 but on what basis? My 555 lost a channel spontaneously just short of three month after its return from Naim, only on the DIN out however, RCA still worked on both.
I have identify it is the SuperLumina speaker cable. Guess I will go look for Chord as the SuperLumina has the tendency to be sticky in humid environment anyway.
That’s good news if it’s just the cable connectors causing the issue. IIRC it’s probably just oxidisation and should be easy to clean off. As you’re in Singapore I know that the humidity there can cause all kinds of issues we rarely see here in the UK. You might want to carefully clean out the 4mm sockets on the amp too - just be careful though as it can be easy to lose cotton bud ends inside the sockets, which doesn’t help performance…
Those connectors look very rough. Try cleaning them with isopropyl alcohol. In worst case you can send them to Naim to get new plugs mounted at your cost.
Banana connectors so outputs then I also cleaned same connection on my speakers but they were not as dirty. I believe sound became more sharp/crisp/clean indeed. Less distortion?
I use Kontak cleaner. I will clean more connections now. The “buds” that is included with the Kontak fluid is very good. No risk in leaving any buds inside the amp.
I also cleaned same connection on my speakers but they were not as dirty. I believe sound became more sharp/crisp/clean indeed. Less distortion?
