I will attach some pictures on Saturday, so I can show all the boxes I’m trying to tick - hence my obsession with trying to get the best out of all I’ve got.
You see I’ve roughly reached the Naim pinnacle prior to Statement. Getting comments / quips are welcome!
Jon
You’ve moved on from your profile to ND555 with 2 555 power supplies and a NAP 500 have you?
Ok here are some pictures of what I have done. This obsession suggests I have too much time, but in these pictures, see how I have spaced out all my Chord Sarum interconnects and have their power leads as well.
Full Naim system, with a separate spur and you can also see my speaker links are Chord Music along with my Super Luminas.
Now I bought some carpet underlay and made 4 layers in 10 cm strips under the speaker cable - wanted to lift the cable off the floor, but also protect it from the kids under the rug.
But now the rug looks like there are two waves going through it and the speakers aren’t on their spikes. So the sound im getting may be compromised!
I usually listen to Blind Willie McTell by Bob Dylan as I know the track intimately. He does sound slower, so maybe I am hearing more fade.
Don’t know what to do next. What connections should I put the banana plugs in treble in bass or mixed???
Jon
You seem still to be making assumptions based on no evidence, or “evidence” from a very suspect source such as AI or pictures of what others have done - without knowing what their setups achieved, nor, crucially, whether your environment is the same (physical and electromagnetic). Maybe the systems you have seen, or the AI bots have hunted out, would sound better with the cable run appropriately under a rug rather than on risers…
I think the suggestion meant having underlay under a carpet, with channels cut in it (the underlay), so the carpet lies flat, simply bridging the cables over the cable-width channels. Adaptable to a rug by using a rug-shaped piece of underlay, though needing adhesive tape beneath or above the cable to hold the underlay together.
I think you’re right! I think I’ve been so locked on raising speaker cable off the floor and I might need to forego that nuance - I doubt many on this forum raise their speaker cables anyway.
Here is another issue I am realising from this, perhaps more pertinent to folk like me who are keen to achieve high end sound, but also have restrictions due to available time, residential location, ‘burdens’ (!) of children… Upgrade one item at a time. Let me explain why. The 552 charges up the 252 with steroids so requires a bigger room - to hear its additions you can’t have it on 06:30 or 07:00, so straight up the high frequencies are forced upon you. Man, Freya Ridings Lost Without You - even though it’s extremely well recorded - hurts the ears!! The Super Lumina also raises this frequency, so there is an exacerbated high end.
(I bet I’m getting groans from other’s here!)
So put that together, and the positioning of speakers becomes an issue. As are regrets. Especially when one has to face one’s partner after destroying the lounge aesthetics!
Back to the drawing board. 
Jon
Have you played with listening position as well a speaker positions? Are your speakers well away from side walls, and listening position away from the wall behind you? These can make huge differences.
Meanwhile one thing all too often ignored, to the detriment of sound quality, is the effect of the room. Of course it is often difficult where the room is also a family living room, but some treatment may be possible without destroying aesthetics, e.g art panel absorbers and/or diffusers at first reflection points on side walls and behind the listening position, and other places if the room is too ‘bright’ acoustically. (Does a handclap give you a distinct high frequency multiple decaying echoes - if so that could be the cause of your issues.) Rooms vary, as does equipment, but if there are excessive reflections then the sound will never be as clear as it could be, as well as exaggerating high frequencies.
It’s not advisable to keep children under a rug.
Is the EM field outside the boundaries of Physics?
Thanks for the advice. In short, I’ve been so presumptuous that I’ve got a perfectly shaped room - including being able to keep the two rack equipment well away from the speakers - that I’m realising this is, in actual fact, me being ignorant and expecting equipment higher up the range to be all I need.
Another lesson learnt!
So yeah, you raise good questions. I’ll give them a go, cheers.
Jon
Where is your rack in relation to the speakers. I am confused as to your layout.
Can you take a photo showing both the situation of the cks and speakers.
That may help us to understand the situation.
DG…
Hi DG,
I’ve just taken a picture, feeding somewhat off what Innocent Bystander advised. I have brought my speakers away from the sides and I’m grabbing 5 minutes to see if that’s worked. It sounds more together. Wish I had more time!
I have the equipment quite far away from the speakers albeit in my modest room. I’ve reached my near financial end of upgrading so I want to now get the set up as perfect as I can make it.
I’ll attach two pictures I’ve just taken. Excuse the slippers!
Jon
It seems to me that you just need to pause for a while, do some assessment of your setup in your room (either by ear or, I think better - certainly quicker and more objective, using REW software with a measuring microphone to measure what is actually happening in your room), and experiment with speaker and listening positions, then assess any appropriate and acceptable room treatment, before faffing around with fancy cables, cable supports, etc etc. There are many relevant threads on this forum, but I commend this one in particular -
a lot of reading, but a lot of valuable info as well.
This thread is also valuable, but rather more extensive and an awful lot to wade through and digest:
You have a very understanding partner if she accepts having the Mendip Hills for a rug…my wife wouldn’t - and I’d absolutely agree with her.
There must be a less obtrusive solution, surely?
Brilliant, thank you! I even posted a job on line to get an audio specialist to help - much to my chagrin I hasten to add from what I got back, but that’s another story. I even wondered whether contacting my local Naim retailer to see if they could help at a set price.
But I’ll follow the threads you link first, and probably buy a microphone and REW software, which I have heard of elsewhere.
As this thread stays open for two months, I’ll update as and when I do.
(But I must reiterate that moving the speakers an extra foot from the side walls has made all the frequencies ‘marry up’ and wow it’s made mediocre yet poignant songs like Julie by the Levelers all the more impactful. You get my nod of gratitude!)
Jon
Yes that’s what I thought, but I’ve been told off by her now and she wants me to fix it - kids tripping up, so I guess she has a point. It’s also backfired more as my kids are using the ‘waves’ as skis, and pushing their prams over them which defeats the whole ******* purpose of protecting the cables!
Jon
What a nightmare
Get your own room, it’s the only way
Simple answer to everything. Take your Naim gear out of the cage, and put the kids in there - Voila!
How about if you had underlay under the entire rug, rather than just where the cables were? It would still allow you to have a channel for the cables, and would resolve the lumpy rug problem…
