Hello,
I am excited at the idea of acquiring my (on transit) Naim Atom Unity but I came across some comments (Closed so cannot continue on those) about connecting it with bi wired speakers that made me concerned.
Long story short, can i connect my speakers without losing quality and if so how ? Have attached a photo of my old school speakers.
Thanks a lot for your help
Naim amps don’t like bi-wire cables, and they’re generally of dubious value anyway, so with speakers that are bi-wireable you should just link the bi-wire terminals together - in this case a link of speaker cable between both the red terminals, and then the same for the black terminals will do the trick. Then you connect your speaker cables into either set of red and black terminals - you can have fun and see whether you hear any difference…
Hi Thitetaf, welcome to the world of Naim & your new Atom
As Richard says, bi-wiring is not good, it doubles capacitance & halves inductance, just the opposite to what’s best for Naim amps.
A single speaker cable pair connected to the speakers ‘bi-wire’ terminals is by far the best.
Your speakers when new had metal links between HF & LF terminals. These are OK but can be improved with wire jumpers or better still solder the connections in so called “F” config.
I have mine in F style & the picture shows how.
Thanks a lot for your swift reply ! What a support ! Will try to buy some cable online tomorrow. In terms of length, assuming my speakers are 2-3 meters away from the unity what length / brand would you recommend ?
I would definitely recommend Naim NACA5 cable, properly soldered at the amp end with the speaker connectors that come with your Atom. At least 3.5m per channel is needed.
A bit from the FAQ;
I agree with Richard that using NACA5 with properly soldered banana plugs is the best option. Soldering the plugs supplied with the Atom is quite tricky, and I would recommend that you find a dealer with good soldering skills who can assemble the cable for you. (Not all dealers know how to solder properly!!)
I would suggest getting banana plugs soldered on the speaker ends too.
NACA5 is notoriously stiff, and needs to be carefully laid and bent into shape. I don’t have a problem with this, but if you really don’t want to tackle it, choose a cable from a supplier who is familiar with Naim amps such as Chord or Witch Hat, who produce speaker cables to a spec. that matches Naim power amps well.
Regarding which set of terminals to connect to, Audioquest recommends this:
“When using jumpers (factory supplied or replacements), be sure
to put both red and black connectors to the treble input of a 3-way or panel-
hybrid . Bass is less sensitive to having the jumpers in the signal path.
For 2-way speakers, be sure to put the red connector to treble + and black
connector to bass -. This is the only way to preserve the tonal voice the
speaker designer intended.”
You can try all three ways
(Caveat: Audioquest believe in bi-wiring for better or worse)
Audioquest don’t design power amplifiers, therefore they can hardly be considered as qualified.
However as they do sell cables, I suspect that might have a bearing on their enthusiasm for bi-wiring.
Interestingly, Totem recommend bi-wiring too. I’ve tried both regular NACA5 and bi-wired cable with my Nova and couldn’t tell any difference. I use Superlumina with my SN2 and Totems though, using the supplied speaker links.
NACA5 is ideal for Naim systems, but it can be very awkward to use. The Neat speakers I use with my Atom are wall-mounted and NACA5 was so stiff it tended to move the orientation of the speakers, so I switched to a Chord alternative designed for the purpose.
One thing I would suggest is not to underestimate the length you need. Many Naim amps (possibly not the Atom) sound best with more than 3.5m. And, at some point, you may wish to re-organise your listening room (many of us like to tweak) and finding you’re half a metre short on speaker cable can be frustrating and potentially expensive.
Roger
Most on here will say to get NACA5. I have an Atom and found it is horrible wire. Sounds ok but nothing special and is nightmare to actually get it to position where you want it and pulls out the plugs. I noticed very little difference with the basic Chord cables I had before the NACA5 certainly was not worthy the extra cost. I decided to ditch it in the end and now use Witchhat they will put all the plugd on, Naim silly ones for the Atom and banana plugs for speaker end it will be cheaper and sound no worse and they are very flexible.
I didn’t make a comment on the merit of bi-wiring and added the caveat for a reason. The comment I posted was specifically what they think about single-wiring to bi-terminals. As they are a cable builder I believe their expertise counts. At worst, they provide three options for the OP to try, there is no harm in that, is there
I’m able to hide the NACA5 in the media room. But it is a bugger to work with and isn’t coming back to my lounge!
Their expertise ignores the specific requirements of Naim amps, along with a small number of other brands, which most definitely do not benefit from biwiring, and at worst, could sound off, or even be damaged by them.
Audioquest do make some decent cables, and some which are a good match for Naim amps, but I think generalisations in their sales literature are best treated with caution.
Could you please read what I wrote, twice. Thank you
Thanks all and thanks Roger. Are you able I I give me a specs of the Chord ones you used ? Do you believe I should get it soldered by a professional as well ? I have a soldering machine, am definitely a pro though !
I use Chord Odyssey, as you see in my picture of the ‘F’ connection. Chord don’t publish much in the way of specs, but I measured mine & found that (as expected for a close coupled twisted pair) that the all important inductance to be 0.6uH/m & capacitance is 56pF/m
This is middle of the road & as I said typical of any round form cable.
I use 5.5m per channel & my Supernait is more than happy driving the 4ohm floor standers.
The cable is very flexible but another nice feature is its silicon outer jacket is inert & when bent into a shape it stays in that shape & does not spring back.
Other spec details …
12 AWG = 3.31mm/2 (2.05mm diameter)
19 strand silver-plated oxygen free copper.
Teflon (PTFE) insulation & 8mm OD silicon outer jacket
Thanks a lot and great job reading my post. That was a hell of a mess of English I just realized. I’ll blame the auto correct.
Apologies for the delay in replying. The cables I use are Chord Sarsen. Please bear in mind that they were chosen with my particular situation in mind. They needed to be suitable for near-field listening through wall-mounted speakers and as inconspicuous as possible. I had them terminated with Chord Ohmic Banana plugs. What HiFi? rather rubbished the cable but to me it sounded as good as Naca5. One wet weekend afternoon, I’ll do the comparison again.
Roger
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