Hi all,
I’m upgrading my b&w 804s to 802d2.
Am running 350 mono blocks with a nac 332.
My current speaker cables are QED XT 40
Hoping the community can tell me do I need to upgrade cables? Or any other advice you may have.
I’m a practical guy regarding a lot of thing including audio. My approach would be to listen to the new speakers with the current cables for a few weeks and you ears will tell you. If you find shortcomings then start searching for other cables.
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I believe the XT40 should serve you quite well for bass performance given the 350 and the speakers. You might want to compare to some other cables with regards to overall transparency as the XT40 might limit your new system a bit - or, depending on preference, could even be a good thing should the speakers feel a bit on the bright side?
I think the XT40s are pretty low-end speaker cables in the context of your system. Is your dealer able to lend you any higher end cables so you can hear the difference for yourself? I’m thinking of something along the lines of Tellurium Q Black II or similar.
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It is definitely worth borrowing and comparing different speaker cables. The differences are quite significant. I also compared different cables and found Tellurium Ultra Black II to be a great option. They are a big step up from the normal Black II. With the quality of your system, a high-quality speaker cable is definitely worthwhile. Otherwise, you have a bottleneck here.
Hi,
I’ve been running 802d2s since they first came out.I’ve tried a number of speaker cables, including Naim Statement, and just go back to simple NACA5. good luck
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Thanks all for the suggestions.
I think what I’ll do is just enjoy them for a while and then hopefully get my dealer to let me try out a few different cables at home once I’ve got used to the sound and finalised positioning.
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Buy speaker cable second hand if you can as it loses value quickly. I have thought about Tellurium Black and Chord Epic X.
Love the view from the Window 
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I suggest Vertere. QED in general sound edgy to me, TQ are hair-thin thingies still debatable, and my experience of them, for the little it’s worth, is of forgettable designs.
But if you want a truly personal opinion, I’d buy 2 x your needed lengths of Duelund 16G single wires, would twist them loosely and put bananas at their ends.
Best.
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You could think about Naim’s Super Lumina, available used, sometimes at very good prices.
ATB, J
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It was so bad I gave it away to a friend
I’d love to hear more about your experience with the Duelund in a Naim setup. I’ve heard very positive things but never used them as speaker wire.
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Agree totally
SL interconnects and speaker cables are significant upgrade over standard Naim cables
A box upgrade
I purchased all of mine second hand at less than 40% off retail price
No regrets
David
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Hi mdownes
I’m coming at this question from the opposite direction. I have 802d3 speakers which I was running with chord sarum cables and links. When I moved home just over a year ago, I found that the cable lengths did not work in my new living room. A local dealer kindly loaned me a set of Kudos cables which I purchased. Admittedly the new room is very different to the last listening room, but I really miss the sarum cables. Best suggestion I can offer is to run your new speakers with the QED cable for a month or so. Then borrow from your local dealer two or three sets of cables. More than that could be confusing. Hopefully that will give you a better idea. You really do need to have the cables at home to help inform your decision making. A dealer’s audition room will help, but it won’t provide the same platform from which to decide as a home listen.
Peter
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Hi,
I learned about the Duelund speaker cables - the 16GA - at a guy’s place. He was demoing various speaker cables to me and a mutual friend.
I found the Duelund, in that context, to be the most balanced, dynamic, ‘normal’ and very rich at the same time.
He gave me his two 2 mt. runs and I tried it at home. Alternatives were my 5.5 mt. Linn K20 and a factory terminated set of Vertere, 2.5 mt. Pulse X-minis.
The Duelund sounded more naturally, ‘spontaneously’ satisfying with both the Nait XS and the NAC62/NAP90. It’s more focused, meaty and solid sounding albeit with no fattiness than either of the others. It’s lively and not bright. It stayed.
It’s a 16 AWG, meaning that it has a cross section of about 1.3 mm.2. Now, most websites of serious makers - Cambridge Audio, Klipsch to name a pair - advise about the minimum gauge for given length, speaker impedance and amp’s power. 16AWG seems a perfectly adequate section for lengths up to 15 ft or so if 8ohms are the average impedance and power is reasonable. In fact, past experience of mine proved that several mt. of Chord Campana, 16AWG, sounded perfectly ok and there was no apparent loss of power, bass, treble, you name it, compared to NAC A5. It was also excellent at imaging, in a very natural, not-3D way: exactly like the Duelund.
In my case, resistance of 2-odd mt. of 16AWG Duelund is possibly - albeit I’d say inaudibly - a little higher than a similar length of the oversized NAC A4 or A5; this may add a tad of resistance to the output R of the amp, hence vaguely reducing the overall damping factor. It’s not a problem to me because I love low-powered, low DF amplifiers behaving like tubes - and some older Naim amps are just like that.
As for capacity, I am unable to measure it and have no data. And as for inductance, keeping the Duelund single wires moderately and loosely twisted (exactly the way Julian Vereker suggested doing with single wires in case NAC As weren’t available), the way I do, should make it a proper load for an older Naim amp.
In short, I find it the perfect speaker wire: it’s small, black, easy to terminate, unfussy, totally non-fancy, sounds excellent and speaks of a different, more civilized, musical and reasonable audio era than the crazy, drugged HiFi culture we’re soaked in now.
I never recommend gear I’m using, but to me the Duelund is so far, in the context of my audio needs, an ideal choice.
Best,
Max
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Could you provide a brief description on the characteristics of the Chord Sarum speaker cables which you miss when you switched to the Kudos cables? Is it the older Sarum or the latest Sarum T?
FWIW I have stuck with my Chord Signature XL for many years as they continued to deliver with every upgrade I introduced to the system. In other words they were never a bottleneck. The Signature XL was my first costly speaker cable purchase and I recall being very impressed by the significant transformation they brought to the system after I installed them. My previous cables were Chord Epic and NAC A5 and after comparing these cables for several years, I found that although they sound different, it’s just a small difference. The Signature XL brought a level of clarity that is missing with all the cheaper cables. It’s a clean sound with good separation and detail from top to bottom, well-defined bass and an airy and extended treble. The Epic and NAC A5 sounded fuller and thicker in the midrange with less separation. As a result, it’s an overall warmer sound with a bunched up midrange. I recently upgraded my amp and the dealer brought an alternative Gryphon speaker cable for me to test, and it’s the same result as the Gryphon speaker cable sounded almost the same as my previously owned Epic and NAC A5, warm and concentrated in the midrange with less airy and detailed presentation. I prefer the Signature XL to the Gryphon cable so there’s no sale for the dealer.
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My cables are the Sarum, superseded by Sarum T which I understand to be an improvement.
Perhaps of more interest to you, particularly as my change was forced on me in a new room without the benefit of hearing the Sarum cables here…. Originally, the Sarum replaced Signature cables. The change in sound was at first a little underwhelming. No great sensation of several veils being removed! My conclusion was that the Sarum just sounded more natural / realistic than the Signatures. Subtle, but made for easier listening as everything just felt like it had more space/ easier to identify without any ‘shoutyness’. That was a good few years ago but that was my recollection.
Definitely worth an audition with the Sarum T - I suspect you may be impressed. But you never really know in different rooms with different systems. Cables can be the subjective element.
Peter
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I have SuperLumina into my ProAc K6 Signatures but it took a long time for the SL to sound better than the NACA5 it replaced.
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Has anyone tried the QED Supremus Zr cable?