Many of us rate Tellurium Q, Kudos KS-1 and the Witch Hat cables as all sounding at least as good as (but not radically different in presentation to) A5, which remains the default choice. They are all more bendable than A5, esp the latter two, and WH in particular was deliberately designed to be good with Naim while being more user-friendly and flexible.
That doesn’t mean you have to like them of course, but could you be a bit more specific about what aspect of the design you don’t like?
If it is nothing to do with technicalities or how they are meant to work but simply how they look, and if hiding them won’t help, then KS-1 may be the best choice.
However, and it is a big ‘however’, I would join the voices suggesting you listen to a couple of candidates before spending any money.
Thanks for the info! By design I mean only the looks. I am not looking for something better sounding than NACA5. I am looking for something more flexible and good looking with the same or better sound characteristics than NACA5.
I read that Witch Hat was founded by ex Naim engineers and they wanted to create a more flexible cable with similar sonic characteristics to NACA5. From all the reviews here it seems they are on something great. I just don’t like the design. The look of it. It’s personal taste.
The Kudos KS-1 looks gorgeous in white. If you say it has similar characteristics to NACA5 and is compatible with Nova (won’t overheat and etc.), then I have good option
Does this means that the Kudos KS-1 has minimal capacitance and higher inductance?
Linn K20 is also a very viable, inexpensive option that would work quite well. I lived with NACA5 for quite a few years until I just had enough of the blasted stiffness of it. No more, no thanks. I found the K20 sounds every bit as good and much easier to work with. FWIW…
Thanks all for the recommendations! I will take the Kudos KS-1. They make it 3 meters and 4 meters. I guess some of you will say that 4 meters is better considering Naim recommends at least 3.5 meters, although some say Nova is more forgiving on this.
@sound-hound, @NickofWimbledon thanks for the info on cable management. I’ve been reading more on this in the forum and the figure eight is the recommended way after no cable management as well
Do you know if Kudos make speaker jumpers? I guess it is recommended to use the same cable for the jumper as the main one.
@Polarbear apologies for asking here, however I couldn’t find a way for a private message. I know you use Kudos KS-1 speaker cable. I will order one tomorrow and I have an option to use AQ silver banana plugs for the speakers or the regular ones. Which one would you recommend me? The amp end will be with Nail connector. My system is Uniti Nova and Sonus faber Sonetto III.
I believe that Linn’s LK20 is basically the same as Naim’s older cable, NACA4. It is much more flexible than NACA5, so that may suit the OP’s needs better.
NACA4 used to turn up a lot on eBay, so that may be a less expensive way in.
To be honest, I see no need to try and better the Naim cable terminations. They seem to be the best. I tried the Chord silver terminations and they screwed the sound up badly.
Thanks. I will try the silver connectors for the speakers as I see Witch Hat are using them in some of their speaker cables and they certainly know what they are doing
You asked a while ago whether Kudos make jumper cables. All they do is supply rolls of cable to dealers, who then make the cables. When I had biwirable speakers, I used an F connection. It’s much neater than jumpers. The cable can be soldered without cutting it. The plugs are 4mm gold plated Z plugs. I’d recommend this arrangement for your speakers.
They way the cables were made up precluded that, though I hear what you are saying. My current speakers have only one set of terminals, making things much more straightforward.
