Putting together a system on a shoestring

Hi-Fi Corner
1

This is actually another speaker cable question - sorry :blush:

I’ve spent all my available funds on a beautiful Uniti Atom and want to squeeze the best out of it (safely) for the time being. I’ve consolidated everything into the main living room so now my existing Nordost Super Flatline are both too short physically and a very poor electrical match for the Naim.

Looking at a 7m run of cable to my existing old B&W speakers and was thinking about using Van Del Hul The Clearwater as the stopgap solution. It seems to be fairly low Capacitance. We’ve only a very small number of retailers here so choice fantastic and about £10/€12 per meter is my current budget limit. Any strong objections to the Clearwater option?

Cheers - Mike

2

Linn K20 is (potentially) your - cheap - friend… :expressionless:

Almost-same-as NAC A4…

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I’ve got Nordost Flatline on my Star, and they sound great . my dealer said they were a good match when he installed it a couple of years ago.

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Thanks - I’ll definitely look into that, hadn’t really considered Linn as I thought it would be nearer the cost of new NACA5.

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My Super Flatline are Bi-Wired so to be avoided I think? And way too short of course .

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Another vote for Linn K20 - I used it with my Atom (recommended by my Naim dealer) and it was cheap and excellent

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NACA5 used to be considered inexpensive (it was never ‘cheap’). Has it become expensive these days?

(One thing I won’t ever need to change in my system.)

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£39 per metre is the last price I saw… Which (IMO) is not cheap.

Linn K20 I just found at £6 per metre… :crazy_face:

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I paid £4.95 per metre in 1996. If you apply RPI from then to now the cost would be £11.60. Copper prices have gone up and down but would not account for the large uplift in prices. Maybe it was a loss leader before?

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In Feb’96, A5 was £4-96 per metre… In August it was £5-11.
(I have pdfs of the Naim Price Lists.)

When first introduced, A4 was £1-00 per metre… Thats what I paid.

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In my country the A5 costs 55 euros a meter, not a cheap cable and is very stiff to handle.

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I’m looking to see if I can source K20 locally as this sounds like a good temporary solution within my budget limits. I can’t seem to find the outer dimensions for this cable (or NACA4 for that matter) - would anyone know this aprroximately?

My setup means there would be considerable slack cable on one side. Cribbing from a photo I spotted on this forum, I’m thinking of running the spare through foam pipe insulation in a zig-zag pattern (not coiled). Just curious what diameter I’d need to specify. I could of course wait until I had the K20 in my hands of course.

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Pretty much the same as A5 - which is…

About 14mm by 5 mm.

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QED Silver Anniversary works well with my Nait5si (which is what I think the Atom is based on) and Emit M10s. Easy to work with, lots of detail.

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Find some preloved A5 and enjoy.

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This, its what I used with my SuperUniti and more recently with my NAP 300DR

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I use Audioquest Rocket 11 from my Atom to my ATC SCM20 SL’s. Wonderful sound. The cable very flexible too. I found a seller who had priced it up wrongly at 25% of rrp on the internet but I dare say that has been rectified now.

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Thanks for the tip. I’ve used Rocket 11 on another system in the past and agree its a good all round cable.
What sort of length of run are you using it over?

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Hi, I’ve got approx 2 x 6 yards runs with no adverse issues

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Good to know!

Over here (Ireland) I think the K20 is a lower cost option but its getting hold of any that might be the challenge :slight_smile: