Townshend Fractal F1 speaker cable

Hi-Fi Corner
1

Anyone have any experience with using Townshend Fractal F1 speaker cable. I know #broomy uses them but I don’t think he uses Naim amplification.
I’ve read the official line and forum debates about only using Naim cable with Naim equipment (I myself have a full SuperLumina loom and 500 series separates) but I wanted to know if there are any users of the F1 with Naim amplifiers and if they have experienced any problems?

2

Electrical specs per metre

|Inductance:|1.03uH|
|Capacitance:|0.91nF|

Compare with naca5
Inductance 1uH
Capacitance 16pF

Inductance almost the same, but big difference in capacitance 910 versus 16

Superlumina 0.74uH & 66pF

3

Thanks Robert. I’ve seen this information on other threads but don’t know how this affects the performance of my NAP500, The Naim technical team seem unable to provide an explanation either, other than saying it ‘wouldn’t pair well’.

4

See second paragraph. Also Richard D tried kimber on a 180 iirc and it didn’t like it, sounded off and ran hot.

5

Fractal cables have a little box on the end which (a bit like like Naim’s Super Lumina, which have a little box with a resistor in it) they claim contains some magic electronics that make them compatible with any amplifier. I’m sure Townshend would be able to confirm this if you give them a call.

6

I’d be concerned by such high capacitance. Stick to Naim’s guidelines (low capacitance and moderately high inductance) for best performance and reliability.

1 Like
7

Thank you for all the info, comments and links.

8

Nothing magic, its called a zobel network. For stability.