Naim cables - £7255 - Shock!

In my case it was a careful dealer home demo and we checked all the usual Hiline-like installation aspects. It had a lower noise floor and greater separation etc but lost the fine textural details of voice and above all classical instruments. Once I’d pointed it out the dealer heard too. We moved on to the Chord Music, which I found disappointing in the same way.

But that also stops half its design features from working as intended…

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@Michaelb
Yes. I need to come up with something better - that keeps the rings free but straight. That’s why it’s only a temporary bodge!
Bit of string round the cable and hooked to the TT shelf maybe. Ugly, but…thin nylon like fishing line maybe…

Wonder how Naim do it at HQ?

Is there actually any need to do anything? Surely the SL was designed with it having no additional “support” provided as it comes out of the back of the components…

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Good question.
I’d assumed the rings needed to be straight to work, but…?

I’ll try an A/B…see if I hear any difference between supported v hanging (with my ears, probably not! :slight_smile:)

I assumed that Naim anticipate that gravity will do its thing.

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Just let it dangle down. That’s how it was designed. It should only be in contact with something at either end - that something being the Naim box. If you start adding string and foam you are stopping it working as intended.

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Is gravity different in Salisbury where the r&d work was done? I will (wild) guess that the developers experienced this same phenomenon in Salisbury.

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The question is why isn’t it a good thing? It was designed to work that way, so why tweak? If it can dangle unobstructed then that’s all you need to bother about.

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All good points…foam gone.
Cloth ears time…

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With my CD555 and 552 aligned close to the front of the fraim my SL interconnect ‘just’ touches the fraim back leg. I have remedied this by using a string of very loose elastic bands which just touch the wire enough to move it out the mm or 2 it needs. The bands are joined at both ends to a small plastic hook on the wall. The cable is unhindered and still moves freely when touched lightly. My only other solution was to have far more of it touching the fraim.

Welcome thoughts :grimacing:

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State of my Burndy - I’d probably be in the Condemned Cells, :rofl:

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You get slammed in solitary for that Steve. :rofl:

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We’re in semi-solitary already :slight_smile:

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Ain’t that the truth.

Jokes and hifi tweaking apart, hope everyone is Ok though. :+1:t5:

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The same to you and yours, and the whole (er… :slight_smile:) Forum Family.

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Haven’t posted here for a little while but have had chance to play a little more with the SL DIN to DIN from my NDX 2 to NAC 252 to compare with the HiLine, standard DIN cable that came with the equipment and a Chord Signature RCA to DIN and as much as I try to hear differences I just cannot. Sure the SL and HiLine cables look and feel nice but I am really struggling to justify changing my cables over to them from a price point of view. It would be good to have everything specified up as much as one can without going to the 500 series but I think these cables may be better suited to these systems where maybe they are able to extract more of the signal from the source equipment. Oh well at least I can save some money when I have to return the cables lol.

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I have only taken one step in the cable improvement process and that was using a HL between my NDX2 / 282. The sound to me was better (or just different?) so I made the purchase at £350 second hand.
One thing that always concerns me though with esoteric cables is why they cost so much. R&D and materials of construction obviously play a role, but to charge '000s for short lengths of cable doesnt seem to add up. Copper is about $5/kg and even silver is only $500/kg - decent quality plugs are also not expensive. I speculate the margin on these items, even after amortisation of R&D costs and slightly higher RM costs, is massive.
That said, if you have spare cash you are entitiled to spend it on what you want…I have a nice Omega watch, and do you know what, it tells the time in exactly the same way as my previous £10 watch from Argos :grinning:

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As said the massive mark up on cables is a real cash cow for these firms

I’ve sucked in air rapidly like the rest of us seeing the price of some of these cables over the years but it’s worth bearing in mind that certainly in the case of Naim at least, they are all hand made by a small team in their Salisbury UK factory and in modest quantites. I doubt you’d find many SNAIC shakers in Far East factories.
In fact even the standard Grey IC supplied with a Naim source does a pretty decent job out of the box. I’ve personally used mostly Hi-Lines and on occasion Chord Company DIN cables over the years and not found them lacking.

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