Naim speaker cable A4

Not a new topic I know. This is about the Naim NAC A4 speaker cable and particularly directional flow. See photo. This how i understood it but it seems to have both discussed on the net forums.

Your understanding is correct, AFAIK.

My own A4 runs are very early (1982) and lack any marking. Directionality was determined for me, by my dealer.

I use linn k20 that also has directional markings, I tried both ways, and 1 opposite way to the other,
I could hear no difference,

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Taken from the Naim guide of the 1980s - the writing reads away from the speakers so the opposite direction to what is suggested above

Well, I never knew that, despite owning NACA4 back in the 80s. The opposite way round to NACA5.

I had some Linn K20 and NACA4 way back. The Naim looked nicer. Can’t remember one being much better than the other…

I still use NACA4 in my office system (Atom, Dynaudio Audience 52SE, REL R-328), and it is connected with the correct orientation. :slight_smile:

It’s left over from my original 42.5/HC/140 LP12/SARA system of the 80s.

I was always taught the little round Naim logos go towards the end of the bigger round loudspeaker drivers.

How can we be sure now?

Swap them around, I reckon you won’t be able to tell the difference

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There’s an anecdote about JV having spotted a wrongly marked batch of NAC A5 just listening, so having just discovered that my lavender DIN to RCA has red and white inverted in the RCA plugs, and that I’ve been listening to CDs for weeks with L and R inverted without noticing, I am now officially Audio Deaf®…

A psychoanalyst must undergo psychoanalysis before practicing, why aren’t we all forced to do a blind test of sort before posting here?

:joy:

(But once I spotted an inverted connection in a noisy shop…)

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Wasn’t there a member here once who unknowingly had his system wired out of phase for years? Crikey, it must’ve been a bit of a shock once that was corrected. What a free upgrade :grin:

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I bought my NACA5 s/h and the writing/symbols had long since worn off the outer insulation. I needed different plugs on either end, so couldn’t easily swap it backwards and forwards trying to work the directionality out for myself, so I just soldered them on and forgot about it.

Life’s too short etc…

Mark

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It is ind

:slight_smile: M

The lengths of NACA4 I keep to use with my Nait are the right way round but the L and R on the tuner DIN input of the Nait are swapped due to an oversight of its design.

Since there is a NAT101 connected I have to accept the channel swap. I could easily make a custom DIN interconnect but with the processing used by most FM stations these days I doubt I would hear any difference.

This happened with Roy who caught it during his listening routine that he applied to all new batches of cabling received at the factory. It was serious as it meant scrapping a lot of NACA5 and delaying many crucial orders from dealers and distributors. Turned out he was right too. Investigation back at the cable maker discovered that a new employee had messed things up.

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Ah, ok thanks. My esteem of Roy George was already very high - he designed all the Naim gear I love most - but now it’s higher.

@RichardPW
I checked my (pro terminated) RCA to DIN lavender with a tester, keeping the DIN 180° connection scheme from the Nait manual in front of me. The red RCA was left ch, the white was right ch. I simply swapped colours at the VRDS-9’s outputs.

In my defense, I only noticed it when I played a CD with an orchestra and the violins were at the right and cellos at the left side.

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That’s the orchestral seating favoured by most conductors these days - massed violins on there conductor’s LHS, cellos to the RHS.

Older school maestros had the first violins on their LHS and second violins on their RHS.

If you think that it doesn’t make much difference, play (for example) Carlos Kleiber’s Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony and hear for yourself the first and second violins throwing the theme back and forth to each other in the Allegro last movement.

I don’t think it doesn’t make much difference. I have recordings by Fritz Reiner and the CSO (I have all his recordings, actually) where 1st and 2nd violins are opposite to each other, others by other conductors with double basses at the very center, and so on. It would be interesting to know how the orchestra was placed when Beethoven wrote his 5th - to understand if the effect you mention was in his mind.

There wouldn’t have been much point in Beethoven writing the Finale of the Fifth Symphony as he did if the first and second violins were sitting next to each other.

Thanks for all the comments and advice.

I was noticing occasional instruments apparently missing and the volume at different frequencies varying sometimes. This is an example of out of phase which was mentioned above.

I’ve reversed the direction this morning, everything fine again. I got an enhance, more complete sound overall for it as well.

Fought through another. Thanks.

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