Supernait 1 Speaker Cable Question

I’m in the process of purchasing a Supernait 1, having not owned Naim equipment since my early 20’s some 35+ years ago I admit I’m a little out of the loop regarding Naim gear. Could anyone answer my question, most of my listening is done via headphones due to consideration for my neighbours and I very rarely use speakers. I’m guessing that you cannot operate the Supernait without speakers attached?, am I correct in this assumption?.
My second questions is regarding the Supernait and speaker cables, I currently don’t don’t own Naim speaker cable but will be purchasing some when funds allow, am I ok to attach any of the following speaker cables to the naim black speaker plugs temporarily

Either

  1. QED Silver Anniversary cable or
  2. Ecosse ES2.3 Plus Cable

Any advice appreciated.

Welome to the Naim forum Minuno.

I’m a happy Supernait 1 owner for many years
The Supernait can be used for headphones without speakers.
Its very forgiving of speaker cables, the main thing is to avoid the low inductance, high capacitance types such as Lintz & woven/plaited construction.
The QED & Ecosse cables you list are parrallel or twisted pair construction & are both middle range inductance & capacitance.

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Will it say in the manual that you can use it without speakers or speaker cable connected , that’s the ideal situation for me to be honest. Although I have some Acoustic Energy Reference loudspeakers I very rarely use them and would prefer to just run the SN1 with nothing attached apart from inputs.

Could I ask please how much do you think a service will cost on one of these?, I’ve checked the 2022 price list and there are two different categories I’m hoping it’s classed as an analogue product at £400?.

Appreciated

Get linn k20 speaker cable which shares 99% dna with naca4. You can buy naca5 later.

You don’t need to attach speaker cables. Eg you could legitimately use it as a preamp with a nap200 — no speaker cables needed.

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You don’t want an atom HE? Ok it is £2.5k but it’s probably better suited to your use case.

I had mine serviced a few months ago, cost was £399 plus shipping

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Why wouldn’t you buy a dedicated headphone amp? Seems a waist of half a supernait 1! I mean seriously there are some cracking headphone amps out there now thanks to the recent popularity in headphones

I’ve always wanted to own one of the first SN versions , couldn’t afford it at the time and as prices of used have reached the 1000 mark I thought nows the time, plus on the odd occasion I may wish to get
the speakers out, when I’ve got the finances to buy the speaker cabling I will do. My first priority is getting it serviced in the summer once I’ve saved up.

It’s interesting to read people comparing the various versions and some saying they prefer the 1 to the 2?, I wanted the Dac facility so it’s a win win.

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I have a few headphone amps here but wanted to get back to Naim after this long diversion, I will be using the speakers with it in time , but not on an evening when I do most of my listening. I’ve got Burson and ifi Audio headphone amps as well as the M Dac + which is great via headphones but I’m hoping to drop this box count considerably to be be able to buy the power supply.

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Keep an eye on your local 2nd-hand market for speaker cable, I’m running NACA4 with my SN1 at the moment. You can really pick up some bargains compared to buying new.

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Yup. Go with Linn K20 if buying new - or as @carlp says, look for a set of used Naim NAC A5 leads.
Or A4… :smiley:

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Makes sense. Personally i lust after the Exposure XM Headphone amp. But opposite to you i don’t use headphones very often so it would spend most of its time switched off!

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