Time for a change?

What I find strange with PB’s experience is that he has quite a long history of auditioning and upgrading components which you would think ought to condition expectations for the burn in variations. The variance reported seems to sit well outside the norm and whilst there may be external influencing factors, I am wondering if something hasn’t quite gone to plan at Naim HQ. Might be worthwhile inviting the good Doctor back for a check up/ second opinion (and I don’t mean the one from the hospital!). Hope it resolves itself soon for you Nigel.

Peter

Well, it’s funny you should say that Peter but I had a consultation with Peter yesterday and we had a conflab over coffee. Peter is as curious as everyone else as to why it’s not settling down. We had a long discussion about cables, power supply and set up. As a result, two cables have gone and two cables came into the system. Back are the original Naim XLR’ and we have gone back to basics. Back to something we both know. Peter’s going to call round on Thursday to see what’s happening. I suspect the Audionote power block is a weak link and Peter suspects the actual power supply.

The speaker cable does go through the wall and I suspect they run side to side for some of the journey. They are close to 12 meters long which is a substantial run. I do have the original cables I had in the old system and we could test these against the new cables but we wouldn’t want to run cables across the wooden floor nd an alternative route for the cables isn’t obvious.

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With the pair of you on the case, the doodlebug has less chance of survival than if Sherlock Holmes himself were leading the charge!! Seriously, I’ve not come across a more methodical person than Peter. Let the truth be out!

Peter

Have a look at the picture above Mark, 5 metres wouldn’t reach the speakers, they have to go up the wall, across the joist and back down to the speakers. It’s a long way.

FAQ says 5-10 meters optimum and max. 20 for NACA5. I believe @Polarbear has Kudos cable, so it depends on that one’s specs, but 12 meters don’t seem too bad if it’s not too dissimilar.

The new rooms having an effect Mark, it’ has a high vaulted ceiling and quite sizeable. It echoes and distorts slightly. We will be bringing in more furnishings to soften the effects of the room. Curtains will come at some point and pictures will go up soon. We’re still moving in and it will take time to make it more homely.

Can’t you borrow another ps , the one where the fuse died? Perhaps it’s a bit defective?

12m of NACA5 should be pretty much ideal in my experience. Of course there is a different speaker cable here, so who knows?

Given the vast amount of changes at play, I wonder how you know the room echoes and distorts only slightly? Did you do some room measurements?

As it’s both sizeable and has a high and vaulted ceiling, I wouldn’t be surprised if has a substantial influence on the SQ and presentation. A vaulted ceiling in particular can have an unpredictable effect over a wide range of frequencies.

But this doesn’t really account for the inconsistancy in SQ. Depending on how long the system is up & running now, that would concern me the most. :thinking:

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I have the nod from the man that know’s that 12m of Kudos speaker cable isn’t a problem :slight_smile:

I can understand that PB, but if it were me, I’d give the old cables a quick go anyway just to be able to discount the through the wall cabling as a possible cause of problems?

It’s quite obvious just being in the room what the effect are, you don’t need testing equipment just your ears.

You’re right, its more the inconsistency in the sound quality which is concerning. Even accounting for the effects of the room it’s obvious, even to the in trained ear that somethings not right.

However tomorrow will be quite enlightening.

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It’s not the room Mark, the effects of the new room cann be addressed when the time is right :smirk:

I have changed to Kudos cable Mark, you must have been the only one that didn’t read the thread I ran about it. The change resulted in a terrible sound which happened to be caused by the plugs used to terminate the cables. A quick change of plugs solved the system.

This leads to another question to fellow forum members, can cables decay over time?

Sorry if I’ve missed it, but have you moved house? If so, inconsistently could be due to main pollution from outside the house (I.e. on the wider distribution network).

Regrettably yes PB. Chris Brooks, owner of a Naim/Linn/Rega dealership in Warrington back in the day, once did a demo of new NAC A4 versus old. It illustrated how the A4 performance gradually decayed over 10+ years. This was thought to be partially due to oxidation of the cable ends and partially due to corrosion of the main copper by the PVC (?) insulation as it aged.

Either way, the new cable made the system sound smoother and more natural than the old cables did.

I hope your system comes back on song soon.

Best regards, BF

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IIRC, this was one of a number of areas where NACA5 was a big improvement over NACA4.

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Surely it’s simply multi-strand copper dipped in plastic/PVC? How does that reduce oxidisation?

That sums up NACA4 (multi-strand copper in PVC insulation) and others of its ilk. Tarnishing of the copper, even creeping verdigris has sometimes been an issue with these cables and it was always a good idea to cut back a bit after some years to a clean copper and re-terminate.

NACA5 was not the same, with different copper conductors and a more sophisticated insulation (a type of Polyethylene, IIRC, hence why it looks and feels very different). I’ve yet to come across an old length of NACA5 with similar issues to the extent of NACA4 and others of its type.

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Don’t worry Mark, we will soon get to the bottom of it :blush:

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