I’m surprised Naim haven’t published any torque settings for the Fraim.
If Naim were go on to say 14Nm you can bet users will say they get better results with 13Nm.
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Two stands that work really well: Fraim (I have had it for 21 years) and Mana (still have). Anything else, don’t bother. If you have furniture, Fraim glass on the Fraim ball bearings is good. And racks between speakers does not work.
I have found you can over-tighten Fraim. I have ‘rescued’ one system in past from a shelf that was over-tightened and loosening it and just re-tightening it using the bar Naim provide by hand tightly without straining at it brought back the missing perfomance.
It may be some prefer the sound with it tighter but I hear under-tightened as losing resolution, blurring musical details and timing - and over-tightening introduces a shrill HF resonance that loses detail and makes for a stridant and lifeless effect as I hear it.
Since it is a mechanical filter with the wood acting as the needed damping you will always have under-damped, over-damped and critical damping possibilities as with all filters, so I think I just like the critical damped position. It is easy to hear as you get a full ‘with-it’ presentation and the system just sounds happy.
But people may have preferences otherwise and it may also by system-dependant to some extent.
DB.
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The question begs here that if Naim think it should be ‘very tight’ (i.e. someway ahead of nip-tight and a tad more), why do they only supply a puny soft-metal tommy bar, which can deform very easily?
Could you please explain as to why? Rack between speakers seems to be the most common configuration.
I’m guessing totally, but this thread hints a bit that the choice of supplied tools naturally limits the torque an average owner would apply when assembling
Then there’s this anecdote
which suggests quite some force should be applied.
Not quite sure why Naim would be reluctant to quote a torque figure, I wonder if they’ve ever been asked!?
Hello Sean basically sounds bounce off the edges of the rack and arrive at different times to your ears. What you want is the direct sound, side walls reflect sound and it arrives a bit later than the main signal which is also a problem, but TVs racks etc is a no no. If it can’t be helped at least position it behind the front baffle of the speakers.
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I agree with you as far as Mana goes Devraj. The Fraim was based on the success of Mana, but Mana achieved excellent sound quality from Naim equipment at much less cost than the Fraim. A few years ago I managed to get steel replacement spikes for my two Mana supports, made a significant improvement to the sound. I don’t know if the Fraim was the first to use soft steel to improve the sound of the support or Mana.
Mana also has a smaller footprint, which makes it bit more flexible for placement purposes, which is helpful in my set up, while it does require a bit of careful setting up, but not that difficult. Interestingly they do not recommend the spike screws to be as tight as possible. Anyway Mana no longer sell their supports so can only be found secondhand. I wonder if Mana would have been much more popular if they had been willing to sell through dealers instead of keeping costs down for users by only selling direct? Best wishes Amer
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Most systems it can’t be helped unless everyone lives in mansions.
I get your point re the positioning of the baffles and agree it’s the way to go
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I’ve seen some pretty huge rooms (& gardens come to that) here…so, yes! Most Naimees appear to live in, if not mansions, large-ish country houses 
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Lucky devils they are steviebee
True but I’m only allowed to use the West wing for hifi!
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Indeed, living rooms as big as our whole flat 
The Forum FAQ around Fraim doesn’t suggest a strong tightening i.e. pinch tight + 1/8 turn (with revisit after initial settling in). I’ve had to undo a Fraim which had been ‘fully tightened’ and the tommy bar was significantly bent, and it was very much a struggle to break the Fraim down.
The words and tools supplied are appearing to differ here?
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Re Mana, the first time I heard one was around 1990, and I wasn’t greatly taken by it, rave reviews notwithstanding. I now suspect that the table I heard was a victim of the “Linn-tight” school of thought that was prevalent at that time.
During the Mana’s twilight years – early 2000s – the accepted wisdom of the their forum experts was that the nuts should be barely nipped up. Over the course of several rebuilds of my own Phase Four shelf, I found that less tight was generally better.
I was always uneasy that if I didn’t give them a good nip they would gradually come undone, but that never happened, so I eventually just did them up finger tight, followed by the tiniest possible turn of the supplied spanner, just enough to feel resistance.
At one point, somebody claimed that they got the best results by just doing them up finger tight and skipping the spanner entirely. I never had the nerve to do that, but I now think it would probably be fine.
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I suppose folks will have to either experiment for themselves or leave finger tight as per some forum suggestions against the Roy George method and tighten (without over tightening) everything up.
I think the problem there is that with the wood veneered shelves giving a consistent torque figure is difficult.
When tightening the nuts, I find that the supplied thin spanner is as good an indicator as anything - try to over tighten and the spanner will begin to deform. However, I use a good quality Britool spanner and you get to a point where you learn the feel.
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specifying a torque is always difficult. Threads oiled or cleaned, or full of dust? The lower the torque required the more these things become significant.
Times have changed a bit, there are TV:s that mount tight to the wall. There are pretty open racks with not much surface to bounce on and as you say, have the speakers infront of the rack.
I you want to really go all-out you should go single-speaker (no TV-speakers, no laptop with speakers, no phones and not even an electronic summer on your wristwatch).
One of my first Linn/Naim demos (early 80’s) had the dealer running in/out of the listening room with a phone eagerly asking if we could hear the difference. This was of course after first having us leave wristwatches outside the demo-room 
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