Real use case on speaker cable damaging naim amp?

Currently on the speaker side the naca5 use this type of banana (first pic). Wonder if it might be worth changing to new Deltron in gold which I have on hand or if it is same same quality.

Original Naim is the best.

On the amp end it might but cannot fit them on the speaker end and the terminals is gold so I prefer to match metals in this case.

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It’s no problem using the Naim ones.

I would say that it’s more important how the Naim banana plug connects ( not being too tight),than having the same metal.

I use gold-plated Deltrons on the speaker end - Spendor A7s. All Naim at the 250 end. NACA5 of course

I use gold Deltrons at the speaker connects and Naim at the amp.
I prefer Deltron (the same design used with Naim) because they have a larger contact area in theory compared to some other designs, only bettered (maybe) by the BFA type.

I once used Naim nickel plated pins in gold plated speaker posts, the dissimilar metal mix developed an erosion problem, a grey dust/slime that looked to be nickel. The fix was completely new gold Deltrons and new gold speaker binding posts.

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Not sure I understand. The naim banana in their plastic housing is what it is sort of. The pins can ever so slightly be out of position in its casing but if you touch them you feel them moving very easy a mm in any direction.

Also the design of the naim plug make the cable go straight down touching the fraim shelf so one must bend the cable at the start to not lay against the fraim. Strange design IMO.

This is correct. But incomplete. The connection is more important. But the metal contact is not unimportant. And the Deltrons are very good quality. Easily as good as the Naim though a shame they don’t do 90 degree solder on large bucket.

That’s part of the design,not be too tight.
“ Even their plating has been the subject of research and development work.”

I have the cables going upward from the nap 500,no problem with touching the Fraim

The best thing would be if Loudspeaker companies stopped using “Goldplated metal”
Yes,the Deltron’s is good ,but I prefer the Naim ones.

I feel the force on the amp connectors will be too much with the cables going up.

I mentioned this a while ago, and got flamed for questioning the design…

I think it’s a totally impractical design and I don’t care how many forumites tell me to shut up because Naim tech bods spent 1000’s of sleepless nights designing it to be the perfect connector :smiley:

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Uniti products come with a much better design. Straight Naim plugs for the amp end (but sadly use only Unit specific spacing) and the 90 degree plugs for the speaker end.

@Igel Why would speaker manufacturers conform to Naim standards. Naim don’t even make speakers and most other amps use gold plate. Lowest common denominator rules I think.

I find the stiffness of NACA5 means that you can bend it into position and it will stay where you want it to be. So you can usually bend it upwards near the plugs in order to avoid touching the rack.

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I’ve always found with stiff cables such as A5 and the Burndy cables, it’s best to shape them to their approximate socket locations first and then plug in rather than plug in and bend them into place. It puts less strain on the connectors and allows a more ‘relaxed’ cable run.

I found the same recently with some Chord interconnect cables where a bit of time spent carefully shaping the cables to their approximate component socket locations helped installation and allows the plugs to locate easily in the sockets with minimal strain.

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Yes my routine too :+1:

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could be a slippery slope - as the specifics will vary somewhat from amp design to amp design - and could get complicated.

I am minded to focus on results - if there is ringing in the sound - or the amp runs hot for no apparent reason then I would then look at speaker cable.

For optimum quality and transfer you want the speaker cable to be as short as possible - its just that Naim use the speaker cable to provide some stability loading that are typically otherwise incorporated into amp designs… so the minimum of 3.5 metres then becomes optimal for some of their amps - that is the speaker cable forms part of the amp design itself. You can use longer speaker cables as a sort of tone control/LP filter - but to me that is detracting from fidelity - but not necessarily taste.

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That’s a good idea for Naim to redesign Uniti plug to work with the bigger amps.
The Ovator plug could maybe be redesigned also.
The angled Naim plug
is good if you want the amps and speakers close to the back wall.

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Only the smaller boxes (Atom, Unitiqute, V1) use the small Naim plugs as the closer spacing is needed to fit all the connections on the small rear panel. All other Unitis accept regular sized Naim plugs.

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