The missing sound in my upgrade

So the posh Chord cleaner is bound to be effective, as it forces you to follow Naim’s advice to unplug your cables and plug them back in to clean the contacts. :woozy_face:

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Mad isn’t it Chris!
I don’t see why Chord have gone down this road. Easy money I suppose.

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:joy:

Hi Blackbird

Thank you for your nice telling about the journey through black boxes and how they can change over time. I will also try to play around with comparing the two power supplies, 555psdr and xpsdr now that I have both. Yes, there is still “something” to be optimised, I’m not completely satisfied yet. It is, as I hear, time to get used to the new sound and a lot of hours of burnin which is what people here most recommend.
Regarding a better DIN cable as you mention. There is only one cable up to 272, and that is Burndy

I believe they are referring to the cable between your CD player and the 272.

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Oh of course in that direction. hmm can it also mean DIN to XLR from 272 to NAP250? After all, this is also a rather decisive connection

I’m struggling to understand gow this Chord stuff is supposed to work. It’s a surface coating that you apply after cleaning the contacts, but the ingredients appear to be non-conductive, so I don’t see how that helps.

Hi Peter ,hope you are good . Regarding your system mounted as it is . I’d like you to imagine a high diver bouncing on the plank before diving into the pool . Your shelves will have a resonant frequency ,probably quite low compared to a proper rack .Also depending how much each shelf is torqued to its support bar each shelf is going to have different resonant frequency . Depending how loud you play music there is going to be a lot going on through all your boxes . This may be the reason improvements are being hidden or disguised .
Regarding contact cleaners etc , if you push pull your plugs many times and inspect the prongs ( UK plugs) you will be surprised the actual contact patch . If done enough you can see the cut into the metal where socket contacts cut the plug contacts , and some times it’s not much at all, the important bit is to cut through to fresh metal .

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I honestly don’t know. I was at the first demo in Bristol in 2020(?) and all they did was swap out some cables that were treated and seemed to make a difference.
I know that some people feel that cables and accessories are a con, cries of snake oil etc, but my experience of Chord having had long conversations is that they are genuine caring people, that listening forms a major part of their work. I find it hard to believe as I once heard that they have regular meetings themed “anything new to con the customer”.

Sure, I haven’t tried this stuff so I have no opinion either way. I’m just trying to understand how filling tiny pits with a non-conductive material would improve performance. In the Chord blurb they say that the increased surface contact area reduces resistance and increases the current.

Defies logic. I get lost in many of the technical conversations, just happy to be able to enjoy music.

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All this cable discussion. I would think that the supplied DIN cables you get from Naim when you buy for example CDX2 and 272 are good enough?
Naim will never compromise their own product. And how do they test their own equipment before it leaves the factory? With a much more expensive cable than the one you get with the unit?
Is the rule just that you have to buy a more expensive cable, in this case the Chord brand, just to remove all doubt that you have the best?
It’s a jungle out there

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Cables are high margin add-on sales for dealers. I would always start with the cables supplied in the box and use them for at least a few months. Then, just maybe, try an upgrade cable if you feel the urge. If the improvement doesn’t justify the cost, don’t keep it. I find it best to determine this by going back to the original cable and seeing which you prefer. Some cables just seem to sound a little different, and it’s easy to interpret this as better on first impressions.

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Yes, burning in and getting used to the new sound are two important recommendations.

More important than this is to get your racking sorted out otherwise you will never hear the changes as clearly as you would like to.

Second most important for sound quality would be to get a dedicated radial installed with its own consumer unit and excellent quality earthing.

Well Stephen
I have some ShawlineX speaker cable by Chord. Are they inferior to Naim’s own cables?

The better boxes you get the more the included cables hold back your system full potential.

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Which can be a bit contradictory to their own product. A bit of a shame, I’d say. As soon as you buy an expensive box from Naim, you start a new chapter of how to get the best out of them. Does a cable come with the devices without them having an opinion on it? Of course, I realise that I’ve joined a more expensive league because I have an opinion that Naim makes great products and it sounds good. But a line has to be drawn somewhere, and of course it’s entirely up to me

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There are a lot of die-hard users on this forum who have gone down the rabbit hole of cables, only to concede & end up returning back to Naim’s own. It was there all along…

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I’m just left wondering if the OP had all the ‘correct’ cables and the ‘correct’ racking, whether he would have needed a 555ps at all. :wink:

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Naim has quite a range themselves from Lavender up to Super Lumina which is Chord Sarum T price level. So they know themselves what the effect of cables has.

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