SN3 DIN cable & Speakers

A share won’t sound any different to the Din in the first place the way to compare is DIN - DIN then RCA - RCA
It’s the socketry and path after the sockets that make the difference.

Tried Vertere RCA-DIN and RCA-RCA from phono1 to NSC222.
DIN significantly better. Cleaner sound, less fatiguing, more balanced.
Same cable, same source, so clearly with the 222 use the DIn input.

Perhaps we can reference facts on the academic / engineering web and texts such as Horowitz and Hill… best not rely on marketing or social media web spiel if you want to actually understand what is happening … they can say all sorts of rubbish.
If you are genuinely interested take an electronics design course and perhaps undertake a module on small signal amplification…

This might help why common grounding with star grounding is important… and it’s not specific to audio products!

The key thing with 5 pin DIN is the common Earth reference between both channels. This is important so as to provide a consistent ground reference between both channels, and induced voltage, no matter how small, will be applied to both channels. This low level detail should help stereo imaging etc which is one reason it’s done.
Clearly if you are using balanced connections different considerations apply.

If all you want to do is quote subjective opinion then it’s going to get very boring. :sleeping:
I’ve lots of text from my education too.
Point number 3 is very interesting shared ground is the noisiest.
Surely anyone reading about ring main and separate spur get the idea of isolation so why can’t people get their head round it in interconnects as well.
Isolate and individual is better.

Can you share your subjective opinions then? Just so we are clear? I am starting to get a little confused following this… you appear to have quoted safety earth grounding details… we are not or haven’t been talking about that… that is a different subject entirely although by definition some common principles.

Happy to discuss engineering texts, and even compare outcomes of worked examples if you wish… we can even compare worked examples of designs we have done in the past we have had to deal with small signal grounding issues.

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My intuition would be that with star earthing, presumably routed through the pre-amp to the lowest earth potential, then there is no ‘inter (stereo) chanel’ earth current, so the utility of DINs is negated.

Again you’re trying to make yourself look more clever by throwing in unarguable variables.
All grounding ends up in the same place it’s just how it gets there or is that wrong too.
Why is Din-the only sharing signals together system that gets accepted it’s because it’s easier to manufacture and implicate without having excess cabling for a happy domestic environment.
Just like all of a sudden a 25 WPC amps is better than a big multi box system that the same people have preached is much better but not now.
Peoples arses must be full of splinters on that fence.
Opinions were asked and mine given that’s that.

Wow, such defensive aggression… that tells me everything about you. It’s a shame I thought we were about some stimulating engineering discussion on small signal common grounding… I was even fetching my well thumbed copy of Horowitz and Hill…
oh well… bye.

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The utility of 5 pin DIN is 6 contact connections as opposed 8 for phono on a stereo pair.
With respect to common return or not, if common any induced noise is consistent in both channels, at least in the returns. Yes the star earth brings this together, but the originators won’t be, so there would still potential differences induced… in this case relative to the sink.

Now with stereo phono/. RCA connections creating a dual return ground common can be an issue and if unchecked (creation of induction hum), and various methods exist and are used to lift the ground and or avoid an induction loop, such as just having a return on one channel, have a lossy resistance in the return perhaps along with very low frequency cutoff capacitor … which could affect very low frequencies in the audio signal. I am sure there are many other methods… with 5 pin DIN this is avoided. But clearly RCA can be made to work successfully… and self evidently is the commonest audio interconnect now.

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Glad we agree on that.
It’s why I never previously owned Naim , Quad or the A&R A60 way back in the day.
Happy to share in Naim now that they have listened.
I do like the retro build quality and componentry. :+1:t2:

I nearly weny for an A&R A60…in the 1980s…but declined when was told ‘and we can solder a DIN lead onto your turntable lead’.

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The built in phono stage on the A60 had RCAs which would have suited most turntables it would have been paired with at the time.
The other inputs were DIN, so perhaps an RCA to DIN would have been required for a separate phono amp.

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Just for interest and not adding any fuel on the DIN vs RCA fire.
Back in 2012 I ran a series of experiments with different IC connectors and cable lengths – the cable length aspect was to test what happens with shortest possible with minimal capacitance & inductance.

The interest aspect is that I made both DIN and RCA cables using the same cable - Mogami W2549 twin core & wire stranded screen, core to screen parameters are C = 76pF/m L= 0.8uH.
The final configurations are shown in the picture
DIN had each wire core connected to ch1 & ch2, the screen (common) to -ve.
RCA used the cores to connect ch & -ve, the screen was wired in “Pseudo Balanced” configeration, this connects the screen to -ve at one RCA end only, the other end is open (floating).
The DIN’s were made to fit between the Naim Supernait, CDX2 & NAT05, the RCA’s from Phono Stage to Supernait.

However during the experiment stages I also connected RCA pairs between CDX2 & Supernait to see if DIN is (as claimed by Naim) superior to RCA. And keep in mind, unlike practically any comparison tests done by anyone, my cable wire was exactly the same with both DIN & RCA.
I could hear a difference, albeit subtle. Hence why I finalised my inter Naim IC’s as DIN-DIN and as short as possible.

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Good man know yourself.
Cheers mate :+1:t2:

Exactly, that’s what it is all about, with my previous Naim amps I could swap out between RCA and DIN, and albeit subtle, preferred DIN as the audio by comparison just had a marginally sweeter flow. Now it’s a shame Chord Electronics don’t support single ended DIN, but you can’t have everything :grinning:
So I use RCA (WTA) to DIN Hiline with my Nait50… and no complaints.

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Be my guest. I’ll stay brainwashed without excessive pain. I agree about XLRs, less on RCAs in the studio… But what do I know?
As for using one’s ears, I have successfully used mine for forty years, they earned me a good living and some decent reputation. So be my guest again.

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Whilst the wire was the same, the configuration of it was totally different between the two.

Your RCA leads by definition keep the left and right channels separate but using 2 core + overall screen in a DIN does risk inducing crosstalk between the left and right channels.

For a fair comparison, you would need to run two lengths of cable (one per channel) between each DIN which would result in some of the “fudging” illustrated above to physically fit within the connector shell.

The lavender cable chosen by Naim has cores which are individually screened and is remarkably similar to the 4 core individually screened cables that are intended for use with 5 pin DIN connectors.

By contrast, the cable in a SNAIC is 4 cores with an overall screen which is conveying DC power along with 2 audio channels. Forum rules prevent me discussing these in any detail but there are certainly other ways of wiring such a cable - with audible differences.

I started with a pair of Mogami Neglex RCA’s between my NDX2 and SN3. Then jumped to Naim Lavender RCA → DIN. Then Morgana RCA → DIN. Then Gothic Audio Ella DIN → DIN.

For my system and ears, the DIN → DIN was hands-down the winner in every area. But I suppose this could be variable based upon system.

Richard, sorry my friend but my testing was years ago and I’m well finished and moved on.
But one point, in my final iteration of short DIN cables with less than 10pF between cores, and who knows what pH, cross talk is practically non existent.

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