Hi everyone,
Contemplating running a bit of the speaker cable in a conduit along the side of the house. Is NAC A5 even rated for use like that, and is there a temperature range spec somewhere?
Cheers
Not a good idea. Different temperatures change the way the cable sounds. And audio cables are tested and listened to at room temperature
As long as the cable is UV protected and not exposed to extreme temperatures I can’t see that this would be an issue and most likely be actually or effectively audibly transparent… but do remember speaker cables are best when not too long, but do observe minimum length with many Naim amplifiers of course.
I suspect around 5m is a sweet spot.
For what it’s worth the temperature coefficient of copper around room or regular temperature is +.393 per degree C … that means the real (DC) resistance increases +0.393 % per degree C…
Which means the colder it is the more efficient it is at coupling the speaker to the amplifier. Remember this is real resistance and NOT reactive impedance which Naim amps are sensitive to.
Just be careful if you have a wood burning stove or other source of high heat. Some years ago I routed a LFE .1 subwoofer cable behind a wood burning stove. I thought there was a big enough gap for it to be safe and that the temps wouldn’t get high enough to cause a problem. I would check it regularly and the outer sheathing looked fine. That was until one day the subwoofer stopped working. Everything looked fine, including the sub lead. Replaced the sub lead with another and all was well. I could only guess that inside something had melted and likely shorted - that something you really don’t want to happen with speaker leads!
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tbh I was considering running a speaker cable around the back of our stove… that way I could actually get the hifi up and working (it’s NOT now). In the end I wimped out of the idea because of the worry of melted cables.
Yes I must admit, given the extreme heat my wood burning stove gets… I am not sure I would route any cabling near it… let alone speaker cable.
However to be honest… the OP was discussing routing cable outside… I think if we had those temperatures outside our house would burst into flame. 
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I’ve ran nac5 through the floor and into the 600mm cavity under my house to speakers in another room. Works Fantastic.
I was told my a Naim dealer that 7 meters of nac5 is the sweet spot so that’s what I have.
My naim speaker cable A4 is 2m per channel. Does it harm the NAIM nap140 poweramp?
A lot of information about this in the search function.
Thanks for all the responses, folks. A couple of general comments:
- the pair of NAC A5 that I’m running is already a long one at 13m a side as I used to route it through the attic in a previous home. The same one would be enough for this
- it would be under eaves, so not seeing sunlight directly. As such, I wouldn’t expect it to rise much beyond ambient temperature. No other sources of heat in the path. If anything it will be more exposed to very cold temperatures as I’m in New England (so it could conceivably see -15 Celsius or so)
PVC temperature range is typically -15’C to 70’C.
I’m not saying NACA5 is PVC, but it is a similar type of polymer & its temp range will be something in that ball park.
If its in a conduit it should be OK if you are in a temperate zone, but tropics can be a problem depending on conduit type & sun exposure.
@viraf53 2m of A4 is OK in that it will not ‘harm’ your 140, but I suspect it might sound better with double that length.
You’ll be OK with Super Lumina, the insulation is FEP, as is fire rated cable.
So, good up to 200 deg C.
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