Hi all, I’m new to the forum and would be interested in hearing your views on my setup as I’ve built it up over the years without any real clue - is it balanced, is there a weak point, what would you upgrade next?
PS. I love the natural balanced sound you get from Naim and have tried to stick to that principal with choice of components
Welcome to the forum, you got a nice system, and I think it’s pretty balanced. However, your Atlas Hyper 3.5 speaker cables are fishy. How long are they?
It’s nice that their website provides the electrical specifications, this is not very common. However, they are not very well suited to Naim power amps. According to the website:
Capacitance
53.52 pF/m
Inductance
0.592 µH/m
Resistance
0.0049 Ohms/m
Which is quite high capacitance and quite low inductance. While recommendation for Naim amps is that
High capacitance &/or very low inductance cables are to be avoided at all costs and may result in damage to your amplifier.
The Naim NACA5 speaker cable specifications are:
Capacitance: 16pF per metre
Resistance: 9 milliohms per metre
Inductance: 1uH per metre
Minimum length: 3.5 metres per channel
Maximum length: 20 metres per channel (note that longer lengths can be used up to around 25 m but then some small signal loss must be expected)
Inductance is more important, but depending on your cable length you may fall out of the recommended envelope for either capacitance, or inductance, or both.
In any case, I would try NACA5 and compare to yours. (Note that according to some, cables burn in and NACA5 needs especially long to be at its best. I don’t know if that’s really the case, but nevertheless it is probably best to avoid this variable. Maybe your dealer can lend some)
Welcome to the forum, you have a lovely system……there will be a lot of great advice to take in. Just work with a trusted dealer and home demo to make that all important decision for your room.
Andrew, I do not have the knowledge these guys have but all I would advise is don’t rush into anything and don’t feel you have to change anything. A lovely system you already have, try to enjoy the music more than the hifi.
Best wishes.
System all looks good. If you are happy with it stay put. If you want to upgrade then choices are endless. You could upgrade streamer and add an XPS DR or 555PS DR.
NDX2 offers latest streaming platform for accessibility to newer apps. Greater reliability for apps. But what you have is all good.
Other option is to upgrade from Supernait 2 and go for 282 HiCapDR 250DR combination. Big money but big uplift.
Or go Olive and get an 82 HiCap and 250 Olive or Chrome Bumper. Used, older, retro but will sound amazing on a budget.
Many thanks for your considered response @Suedkiez. It will take me a while to absorb but slightly worrying flag about impudence. The cables are new. They are 3.5 metres and 7m long - I know some say they have to be equal length but I used cable specialists and their engineer said that for a system under £40k, the shorter cable could be up to 50% shorter without the difference being audible.
Compromised on space - this is an anteroom and a walk through as I don’t have a dedicated enclosed sound room. It booms a little when turned up (not as much as you might expect though) but the headphones are fine for when I want volume. The Spendors are great at lower volumes
The uneven length would most likely not be a problem if both were within the envelope of recommended values.
However, the shorter cable at least is below the recommended inductance. 3.5 meters at ~0.6 uH/m is 2.1 uH. But the minimum recommended 3.5 meters of NACA5 at 1 uH/m results in 3.5 uH.
Capacitance of both cables is within the envelope of the recommendation (as defined by NACA5 between 3.5 and 25 meters, ideally 5-10), but the whole situation is not ideal
I see. I wasn’t primarily concerned about boominess, but the early reflections from the side wall can’t be good for imaging. But if space is constrained, sometimes you have to live with what’s possible
Hi @Suedkiez could you point me in the direction of this quote soon can write to Atlas about it? They specifically mention Naim on their website so I want to get to the bottom of what the threshold is for High Capacitance that could cause damage
Here it is again: