I don’t recall you answering a previous question, how old is the Atom? If new, how many hours has it been playing music for?
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lol … interesting analysis … in fact I’m not a young person either … 44 years old.
I agree that my hearing probably doesn’t detect high frequencies like 20 years ago … but then we weren’t interested in quality sound. …just high volume and powerful bass … 
but now I distinguish quality sound from just a powerful one. Of course I like to turn the volume to the max sometimes in the car … although there is a pretty good sound “Burmester” is not a joke … but with 14 speakers it’s different … it’s not the good old stereo sound … but at home listening to jazz or r & b … and from time to time Iron Maiden…
… I want a completely different feeling …
I was very pleased with Arkam, but after many years it was time to switch to something more modern and I was hesitant between Atom and NAD M10 … and lastly between Audiolab Omnia, but I decided to bet on Naim because of the brand’s reputation. …I hope I made the right choice, but time will tell…
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Fascinating isn’t it - Audioquest Type IV gave me no issues on an Atom/Nova and was quite exciting sonically, but once I found my NACA5 from storage I stuck with it.
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AQ has so many cables in so many different designs and configurations that it’s difficult to know which one suits Naim and which don’t. Some may, but who knows, some definitely don’t, and they have the “don’t publish specs” disease. The Type 4 may have been of a different design. The Type 5 has “Balanced Star-Quad Geometry” which probably causes high capacitance
and Airedog was not too happy with it
Thanks a lot…very useful information!
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Potentially, but first thing is to give the Atom a few weeks to ‘breathe’ then decide if you need to tweak anything.
You may be able to do better than Naim NACA5 speaker cable but as a baseline you’d know it’s both safe and recommended. It’s also not prohibitively expensive.
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If you don’t know the specs of a cable and NACA5 is too complicated to get, it’s a good bet to use cables that are of similar design as NACA5: two strands of cable with a bit of a distance between them. Anything that is braided and/or litz type (many thin wire strands, individually insulated and twisted or woven together) is a red flag.
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I can recommend Tellurium Q Black II for example (if NACA5 are difficult to get for you). I have those for more than one year with my atom now and they are a nice improvement.
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Hi, I bought it 3 weeks ago…since then it has been playing for more than 10 hours per day…
Thanks for the recommendation!
You are welcome. You should maybe check the different reviews on Tellurium cables. Maybe even the Silver II is fitting to your needs a bit better than the Black II when you are seeing a little lack in details at the moment. But for me Black II are perfect …
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In addition to the Tellurium Q Black 2, which has many good reviews on the forum, Witch Hat are also well liked and they know their Naim. Some like certain Chord cables. If you search the forum for Tellurium and Witch Hat you will find a thousand speaker cable threads
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Yes, the Type 5 are what I’d purchased and they caused the Nova to overheat and shut down with a screen warning. I had to use them for a week while waiting for the NAC A5 cables so I kept the volume down and put a fan on the Nova.
I should add the NAC A5 cables greatly improved the…everything. But also, that is on my Nova. I had the Atom first, for 5 months or so, and I did have different AQ cables with the Atom which worked fine. I bought the Type 5 cables when the Nova arrived (upon the recommendation of a salesman.)
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I know the Arcam Solo Mini, we used to have one at the office. A sweet sounding little box but nowhere near the quality of the Atom. As it shouldn’t be given the Atom is 5/6 times more expensive.
I agree it’s a good idea to take out any question marks around the speaker cable first. The NACA5 is affordable and a 100 % sure bet for SQ with the Atom. Get it properly terminated with the right banana’s, it does make a difference.
Have you played around with the positioning of the speakers optimising for the different presentation of the Atom? Distance between them, distance from the walls, height, toe-in/toe-out. Small changes can make a big difference. What are they sitting on? Stands, just ‘loose’ on a bookshelf or sitting firmly on spikes/feet etc?
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Hi guys, thanks for the advices on the speaker cables to all of you !
Unfortunately here in Bulgaria there are only three brands of cables w/o the cheap Chinese ones - Chord, QED and Audioquest ( type 4 is missing)… there is a dealer who offers NAC A5, but the price is much higher than in UK …so do you have any suggestions for specific models from these brands, because the other option is to order from UK …?
Thanks in advance!
https://community.naimaudio.com/search?q=chord%20speaker%20cable
But why would you have to order in UK? Order in Germany or another EU country, that’s certainly simpler and probably cheaper with customs
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Witch Hat Audio do N2 cable which is the equivalent of NACA5 and a lot cheaper. But if you want a better cable then their Phantoms are rather good and very well priced.
They will ship to you also.
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Hi, in fact I am very pleased with the Arcam solo mini and I think that although quite an old model, it is still one of the best mini hifi systems on the market in terms of sound quality … and at the time (2010-2011) was only twice cheaper not 5/6 times than the analogue of Naim Unitiqute…I mean in amplifier section comparison otherwise they are quite different products …
Thanks for the cables advise!
Regarding the positioning of the speakers … the situation is not good, I have absolutely no place to improvise with their location … I know it’s not right, but I don’t have much choice … as you can see from the attached photos they are quite close to the sides 15 cm … the distance from the back wall is 20 cm, but the speakers are small and this is not a problem at the moment … but I am considering buying speakers with front bass port, for this reason or the larger model of the same brand Definitive Technology Demand 9 (image attached) which are with upper active bass reflex…
Regards,
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Actually I don’t know why… maybe because I used to it…I have a friend who travels every week to UK…
Thanks for sharing the discussion above!
Regards,
OK, the system seems to be on a kitchen top by the looks of it? I’m not sure what to advise tbo. Besides getting potentially wrong cables out of the equation.