That sounds very much like it ain’t hot enough, the wire is conducting heat away too fast, its either not enough watts or too cool when you start. Maybe leaving the iron to cook for a while longer might help.
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If it takes really that long for NACA5 to burn in, I’d consider buying second hand 
I use a 175 watt iron for doing my NAC A5 with SA8 plugs. It does the job quick and practice will be required but once mastered it will sound absolutely fantastic. Practicing on some old stuff first is highly recommended and will save a lot of heart ache…
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Agreed, you need enough wattage to heat up the exposed copper fast, before the heat has time to conduct down the wire inside the sheath. Apart from melting the insulation, it can wick solder down the wire too. In more flexible cables, you can feel that the end bit of cable has gone rigid if this happens.
I’d say you need a fair bit more than 80W for this, I know some like to use 200W irons.
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You have to be very quick with powerful irons (almost instant) or the plating will blister and render the pin(s) useless and I agree, the quicker the better.
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Started from scratch today with a new approach and some better tools, much better job and sounding really good. Just need to get better plugs for speaker end - any recommendations?
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Good old fashioned Deltron bananas do a good job. They’re cheap, too. If your speaker has gold plated sockets, I’d use gold plated plugs. Otherwise go for the standard nickel plated version.
You could also use Naim plugs, but if the spacing isn’t right, remove the black plastic box. In which case you can use heatshrink tubing to cover the exposed metal.
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Difficult to fault the sound of the cable, incredibly coherent and that’s just day 2!
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What do the members think of this solder job? I’m looking at a used cable and asked the seller to take a picture of the solder job. I’m thinking not so good. Apparently this was done by a dealer in Canada.
Looks great. No problems.
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I’ve seen tidier but it will work properly so I would still buy it.
Best
David
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I agree David, it does not look tidy and does appear to be not all the way in the groove like the picture below that I found on this forum. It’s what I am using to compare the used cable to. I don’t really know better though, all comments are appreciated.
The actual soldering as an electrical joint looks OK, but it’s very sloppy in all areas of preparation & application. It would be a fail in my trade skills book.
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That is a picture of my work. It took me a lot of practice and patience. I would imagine that dealers who do this sort of work all of the time would be even better, so maybe you can ask around?
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Does the protruding cable prevent the plastic box from closing fully when you screw it together? If so, I would get them resoldered.
I’m only looking at pictures the seller provided. With the cover screwed on, it appears Ok.
As a tip, don’t twist the strands, pack then into the slot without tinning and use an iron with a high mass tip, its all about transfer of heat from iron to the work piece. I have an 80w iron for big electrical work and it is more than adequate.
I’d say it’ll be absolutely fine electrically although a tad sloppy, but you could get them redone if you’re concerned. I see you currently have Witchhat N2 - are you unhappy with it? Also how are you finding your A7’s? I have mine almost a year and am really enjoying them particularly since adding the SN3.