The NAP500 is bridged.
I don’t know. I have made some changes to the system over the past month and have not been happy. Was not using it with the subs and I changed out a highcap-2 non dr and have been demoing a Supercap-2 non dr that i think may need service because with it on the 282 it seemed flat and over powering, it sounded louder, but all of the detail of the SL speaker cables was lost. I will say that the clarity volume and tightness of the bass the SuperCap brought out of the B&W CM 6s was stunning, but overall the total detail I had before I added it was lost. Once I stuck the Subs on with the Rel (naim) baseline blues it seemed to wake the whole system up. The sound stage that had disappeared wit the SuperCap opener up a very large part of the clarity and detail came back and the additional bass was welcomed even if not tweaked. The Rel upgraded cables have had a very positive affect and seem to have a bit of synergy with the SLs even if they do downgrade purity of the SLs somewhat because of the different quality of there bananas. At this point it’s all temporary until I decide what to do about the heating problem which tonight was half of what it was yesterday. So, not sure what I’m going to do right now.
That’s not necessarily correct… It usually is, but not always!
Right again. But can you sight any examples of Balanced Bridge amps that this would apply to?
Not specifically as the issue isn’t specific to bridge configuration amps.
However I can cite combinations of specifications of room / sub / sub positioning / speaker where this is likely to be the case (again not certain until tested!).
This sounds similar to a problem that I encountered with dual REL R-218s connected to a NAP140.
Try floating one of the REL high-level cable black leads. If you get a loud hum or any other abnormal sounds, then stop (have your volume on the low side when you first try this). If on the other hand, there’s no loud humming or other alarming noises, and everything sounds good, you can see if the overheating issue has been solved.
By the way, if your NAP250 gets hot, shut it off and let it cool down completely, before testing a different connection option. The temperature is probably increasing slowly over many minutes. And if you don’t fully cool down, before trying something else, it will be very difficult to determine if you’ve solved the problem or not.
It’s not strictly necessary, but a handheld infrared thermometer gun is quite handy in situations like this. I happen to have a Fluke 62 Max, but there are inexpensive ones available on the usual big river shopping site. With a thermo gun, you can completely disconnect the subwoofers, and run the system with music for an hour to establish a typical “normal” temperature. Once you reconnect the subwoofers, you can monitor the temperature, and then stop immediately, if it starts climbing notably past the typical temperature. Oh, and for consistency, choose one spot to measure, and then stick with that same spot for consistency. I just went with the center of the amp’s front panel, but it doesn’t really matter, as long as you then always measure from the same spot.
By the way, if you haven’t done so already, I’d recommend opening a ticket with REL.
Tamarin, Thank you for your detailed answer. I did call Rel and opened a ticket. The strange thing is that after I called them I noticed the 250-2 was not getting hot a little warm to the touch, but not hot. Also, I don’t have real high quality rack & for lack of space and some pieces are stacked in the small quarters of the rack so I rearrange the rack and it has seemed to have done the trick. I remember when I had a nova in the same rack and had one sub on it low level with a single rca audioquest boxer cable it would get really hot to the point of thermal shutdown so I tried adding a duel cabinet fan to the that shelf on the rack and just to see what would happen and it cooled it down 70%. I really need a better rack set up. A Fraim would be nice, but I can’t see that happening anywhere in near and maybe distance future lol.
The one thing I wonder with the Bassline Blue naim cable is with the the stackable jumpers. Because I know the silver of the black female jumper is no where near the purity of SL speaker cables, if in fact the Rel banana connection is some type of silver at all, so I wondered if it may be watering the SLs down.
Okay, good. Once you get to the head of the queue, REL has very good support. At least in my experience.
Nothing to do with subwoofers, but if it’s an enclosed cabinet style rack, you are definitely at risk for overheating. Especially with Naim amps, integrated amps, streamers and all-in-ones. Even the absence of a little bit of space above can cause components to run hotter (leave at least an inch or two of free space above such components).
Naim bananas are nickel, which I believe matches Naim speaker output jacks.
If I had SL’s I wouldn’t want to use stackable bananna plugs between them and the amp or speakers. Higher-end Naim cables (Highline, PowerLine and SL) are also engineered to reduce microphony effects. So putting something between them and their intended target might possibly compromise that.
But if I was using stock or basic cables, I wouldn’t worry about it too much.
Btw, the stock REL high-level cables are quite decent in my opinion. I just like to tin the exposed leads to prevent tarnish.
Thank you for the great advice again. It’s obvious you have had your experience with Naim and Rel Subs. Yes, when I received the BLBs it felt kinda strange, sacrilegious using SLs bananas on the ends of Rel stackables lol and I still not totally comfortable with the idea, but both cables do sound good together. The rels do add a lot to the CM6 S2 that I’m outgrowing. Have you ever used the non-Naim rated Bassline Blues with Spades on the speaker end of a Naim system ? Just curious because it’s seems not many people use the naim Bass blues with naim equipment.
Glad to help.
I haven’t ever used Bassline Blues. I have some Signal Cable high-level REL cables which are nice (you can get them as mono cables, and/or you can get them with spades). But otherwise, I either use the stock REL high-level cables, or my own custom made (mono) cables for dual subwoofer configurations.
The non-Naim Bassline Blues should work just fine connected at the speaker ends. However, in a dual mono subwoofer configuration, you don’t need the two separate positive leads (Red & Yellow), which are summed by a single, stereo REL subwoofer in single subwoofer configurations. The choices are:
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Connect both the Red & Yellow leads, of each high-level cable, to the corresponding speaker’s positive binding post. This may be doable with spades if your speaker’s binding post can accomodate a pair of stacked spades.
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Use only the Red OR Yellow lead, of each high-level cable, to the corresponding speaker’s positive binding post. This is fine because you don’t need to sum both the left & right signals to a single subwoofer, when you use a dedicated subwoofer for each channel. The input to the subwoofer will be a few dB less when using just the Red or just the Yellow lead, but that should be fine. There is one possible minor disadvantage, as explained to me by REL Support, in that the floating positive lead can act like an antenna into the REL amplifier. They advised that it is best to disconnect the unused positive lead at the speakOn connector side (trim or tape the disconnected lead to avoid shorts). Not something that you should mess with unless you are comfortable doing so.
Hi @freedomsounds. Just checking in on this thread to see how you are progressing. I can add a bit about the Bassline Blue cable.
In conversations that I had with REL support when I was researching how to connect a stereo pair to my Naim 500, they mentioned that the Bassline Blue for Naim differs from the “regular” Bassline Blue by the addition of 100 ohm resistance in series to the positive lead. This makes them compatible with the particular design of Naim power amps. So the stock cable supplied with a REL sub could be made compatible with Naim amps by a similar modification. This was actually suggested as an alternative to the Bassline Blue.
Hi JSchmidt, Thank you for checking in, it nice to see that there are a few sub lovers with naim systems here. I was wondering what the cable code differences between the Naim Bassline Blue & the Regular BLB so that is good to know. I was not sure what I was going to think of the NBLB cables when decide to take the leap of faith, but will say that I am glad I did ! They really are a step up and sink very well within my Naim ecosystem. The thing that was most surprising for me was I had just switched out a hi cap 2 non-dr with a SuperCap 2 non-dr in the
system (282,250,nDac,Xps 2 dr) and the system was sounding off (flat). The xps & hi cap running without the subs had a naturalness & transparency I had not attained before it the system, but when I switched out the hi cap for the SuperCap all of the transparency and openness went south, even after a month of SC run-in time the naim magic had still not reappear. So, just on a whim I decided it was time to get the proper cables for the subs and add them into the mix and it was a real surprise, because right from the start the soundstage & most of the naim magic came back and after a week of tweaking the subs it sounding more like naim normal.
For some reason the cables and subs allowed the power of the SuperCap to really shine within the system. I was pretty close the switching the hi cap back in, but now I do think I could go back unless it was hi cap dr.
I know Rel states that the BLS affects the whole sound stage & I will have to say that its true & in a good way. A worthy upgrade.
I run dual REL R-328 subs with a 300DR. I connect the subs to the speaker terminals using a cable my dealer made up from Transparent in-wall shielded cable. It sounds great and I have never had issues with the amp heating up.
Looks great !
I’d be looking for a less cobbled together connection than this.
An ideal might be a solder-on 4mm plug with a side entry available for the non-critical sub connection.
When I had A5 and a sub I just ran some QED 42 strand (or similar) piggybacked at the speaker end.
Not sure how proud I am of this but:
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Fortunately, my speakers feature WBT cable connectors that have both banana and spade receivers. I use the bananas for my speaker cable, and spades for my REL cables.
I would just use spades on speakers that give you both options, as those Focals do. Worked well on my Kudos speakers too with an N-Sub. Failing that your soldered solution would be my first choice. It doesn’t mater what it looks like if you can’t see it, although I can see that hacking into a pair of Super Lumina cables to do that might be a step too far for some.
I added the stackable Cardas plugs with my REL sub and single binding post speakers. That way I didn’t have to change the plugs on my WH Phantom cables. The REL cable can be either bare wire or spades. They work very well and I’m completely happy with them.
I don’t understand (out side of cost) why Rel did not make or allow for an alternative Naim BLB cable with Spades. At first I was hesitant to go with the stackable bananas and was wanting and wanting to go the spade route given my SLSC are bananas. But guess there is a reason.