What was the last bit of gear you bought in 2024?

Formally yes, but if I want serious stuff from Kondo, Stealth, Esoteric whatever din is not an option.

These are not brands I have any experience with, but would it not make more sense to use cables from a brand that does cater for Naim DIN connections given that if they offer such a solution they are more likely to have designed a cable that has good compatibility? Apart from Naim’s own Super Lumina and Hiline an obvious choice would be Chord, unless their top of the line Music range is not suffuiciently reassuringly expensive for your tastes.

Expensive cables are definitely something to consider buying second hand. I’m sure there is plenty of R&D and labour cost to make the cables, but I do find the prices astonishing…I have some second hand Sarum cables at circa one third of the retail price. My top purchase was an opened, unused Sarum T streaming cable for just over £700 that is £2000+ brand new. I was very happy with myself that day :innocent: :upside_down_face:

I agree. I think that in terms of design aesthetics, Naim has definitely lost its way recently, beginning with that terrible-looking turntable. But then again, they’re hardly alone, as a lot of hi-fi these days looks awful.

Linn, Bauer and Michell turntables look great, Sugden amps look cool and some of Dynaudio’s retro (S40, Heritage Special, Contour Legacy) speakers are lush.

But the only hi-fi company I can think of which has a consistently aestetically pleasing and highly functional design language is Luxman – and a lot of the time they’re looking back to the 1970s…

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I’ve used Super Lumina and Tellurium black diamond, although they’re good there’re definitely options above. Another thing is that balanced theoretically provides an option to solve “pin 1 problem”. Some believe it opens opportunities above any single-ended connection can offer.

Naim clearly don’t. They have said as much, and where they offer both they still tell you to use single ended DIN for best sound quality. Other brands will of course have a different design approach and in some cases may well have optimised those designs around balanced connections, but that’s not just about choosing the best cable, it’s about the complete end to end design, and choosing a cable that fits that design well.

I think this is one of those areas where opinions are so divided either way, it is not healthy to debate it :innocent: I thought the key thing they did well is to offer cables that connect to the legacy classics range. I hate it when a company makes big changes and ignores their current loyal ones. Chord Electronics are good at this too. When they released the Mojo 2, they held back making it usb c so their existing Poly owners would not be left behind.

Super Lumina DIN XLR delivered from UK.

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Shiny! I am very jealous and now want to buy something else!!! Luckily I have no money to spend!

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I read somewhere it was to reduce resonance and eddy currents.

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At least I don’t believe that, but you believe what you want.

It was explained by Steve Sells himself, in the new classic thread.

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Maybe so, but what else would he say, hardly that it is due to cost savings.

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Am puzzled… using XLR is cost saving ?? :thinking: as mentioned in the thread … Be it din-XLR , or XLR -XLR , they still produce music . And naim directions as of now is clear — they are introducing full balance XLR on top of the din , isn’t it good ? Giving us more choices to explore around , making music more interesting … :wink: it’s interesting to see different makes coming together with naim kits by introducing full balance (at least for me) , be it cables or components, makes it more vibrant… when my full XLR IC are run in, I would love to try on a DIN-XLR too , another happy options for me in time to come :smile: keeps me going with my kits

Nice … have fun !!! :laughing:

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I am planning to change my Superline/SCDR to the Boulder balanced phono-stage. But I plan to stick with my 252 so I will be using XLR-DIN adapters (AVO will make me a set). However, I will have my two tonearms converted to balanced connections for the phono-stage.

That may have to wait for a while though. The open-source software project I was working on 30 hrs/week is defunded as of last week. I was offered a full-time position to transfer to client consulting but don’t want to do that, so as of next weekend I am retired. That means I won’t make any major purchases for a while. I have shares in the company I worked for so I hope to sell them in a couple/few years. Then I might make a change to the Boulder.

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Wow … you have a lot of things to do :laughing: and it’s an enjoying process getting all the said kits /cables together !! Enjoy!!! Would love to hear your updates when the time matured !!meanwhile , enjoy the music

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I have been listening the Boulder 1108 for the last month…a generous loan by my dealer of past 30 years. Alas, I have to finally return it tomorrow. I will miss it, but hope to acquire my own sooner or later.

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You will …and you will miss the boulder more , as tomorrow it’s only the first day without it :sweat_smile: