It’s a little more complex than that, because although inductance is important here, capacitance and resistance come into play too - for example, the moderately high inductance must be combined with low capacitance, as high capacitance can also cause instability and poor performance. Just going by an inductance figure here is not enough.
My personal view is that if you don’t stray too far from Naim’s recommendation of low capacitance, moderately high inductance cable of a reasonably long length then you’ll most likely be fine.
At the other end of the scale, if you insist on using some high end braided cable (usually designed for very low inductance and high capacitance) or those solid cables that look like lightning conductors, then you should expect to experience issues, not the least, poor sound, hot running, premature shut-downs, and an early bath with the service dept.
I see the issue as being incredibly simple.If you want to be sure of not damaging your Naim amp then you stick to whatever the manufacturer tells you is safe to use. No more or less than that.
That does not mean that any other cable will necessarily damge your amp, but you cannot be sure it won’t. Just because Mr. X, Y and Z have used cable A, B or C and say it sounds fantastic and have not experienced any issues does not mean a thing. Any issues may not manifest themselves for several years, or Mr. X, Y and Z may not have noticed them or may have noticed something but not realised it was due to the cables.
So you basically have two sources of information to choose from as to what is safe for your Naim amp. Either you believe Naim or you choose instead to believe people ‘in the field’ as it were who have used other cables but report that they have not experienced any issues.
For me the choice is simple and compelling if one wants to be sure of staying safe.
I thought I’d remembered from long ago that inductance varied inversely with capacitance in a cable but looking at a couple of examples it looks like there’s more to it.
NACA5
Capacitance: 16pF per metre
Resistance: 9 milliohms per metre
Inductance: 1uH per metre
Townshend F1/m
|Inductance:| 1.03uH|
|Capacitance:| 0.91nF|
|Resistance:| 10.1mohms|
|Leakage:| 120 Mohms|
|Impedance:| 30 ohms to match the typically high impedance of speakers above 5Khz|
The use of the word ‘may’ would imply that Naim are not stating that all “high definition” cable is ‘incompatible’ with their amps but rather there are some that may cause damage. It comes across to me as more of a precautionary warning
For a clear steer from someone who does not have a secret hatred of Naim but does have a lot of relevant knowledge, @Richard.Dane 's helpful comments above could hardly be clearer.
Indeed so. Please take note of the wording here, ie. ‘you’ll most likely be fine’. Not, you will definitely be fine.
In other words there persists an element of doubt. And rightly so, because like Naim, Richard Dane has no control over what alternative cables anyone might choose to use.
So the situation remains, as I said before, that if you want to be 100% sure that your speaker cable will not damage your Naim amp then you will stick to using Naim cable. Any other cable at all carries a potential risk.
The comment on it being ‘fair’ is an odd one, as though the inclusion of the word ‘may’ somehow makes it fairer than saying ‘will’. Also that it ‘looks fair to most of us’. How do you know this? Have you communicated with most of the other forum members to ascertain their opinions?
What is fair is that Naim are giving the correct guidance on the use of speaker cable with their amps in order to protect them. Not that they are saying that other cables will not necessarily damage your amp.
It is a simple enough situation that some people seem unable to bring themselves to accept.
Which is odd because nodody in the world is preventing you from using whatever cable you want to. You can even use string soaked in saline if you like! But that’s not good enough for some people. They seem to want the manufacturer to give them permission…
The upshot of all this is ‘do exactly as you want to - despite anything else’. Which is what, in my experience, the majority of people seem to do anyway.
”This car may not be driven if you are drunk, under age or are blind. You must under no circumstances repair the car at a third part repair centre. Doing so might result in the car loosing its wheels and worst case cause death”
I’ve always thought that NAC A5 sounds good enough to me, no need to drift off into unknown territory, surely it’s just better to enjoy the music and to save up for that ‘proper’ upgrade, higher up in their hierarchy. Life’s too short. But then again we get told this by those who don’t do just that. We tend to live in a very inverted world these days…
I’ve said it before but I always appreciated Naim taking the nightmare of finding suitable cables out of the equation. Some people though just seem to want to make life more complicated/harder than it needs to be.
Some people will still have the car repaired at a third party centre. The irony is that those same people will later be bleating about being injured when the wheels unexpectedly fell of their car - and how terribly unfair it all is.
So you are suggesting NAC A5 as an alternative to TelluriumQ Black II, I think we all get that. If you want to continue to write about the perils and pitfalls of not using NAC A5 with Naim amps why not start a new thread ? I’m sure some people would be interested but not necessarily all those following this thread.
…picked up a 14 foot (4.26 meters) length of NAC A5 with my system in 2017.
Been using it with a XS 2, SN 3, and 282/250DR system with ProAC D2D, Naim Ovator S-400, ProAc D30RS and ATC SCM 7 v3 speakers and the music has always been fantastic! I am sure other speaker cable work as well but just wanted to mention that to my ears, my room and system the NAC A5 has been excellent.
I don’t own Naim equipment anymmore (save for 3 Powerlines) but it always used to be the case for the 25 years or so that I did own it. I assume it still is or what are we all talking about it for?
