Hi Ray. And you found that was an upgrade? That’s incredible considering the price difference.
Naim is a business which sells, amongst other things, speaker cables, so you can hardly expect them to compile a list of competitors products that they would recommend!
They do, however, tell you the all important inductance and capacitance specs of NACA5 so that you can work out the compatibility of any other cable if the manufacturer makes those specifications available.
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Interesting.
I demoed a pair of heavily discounted SuperLumina cables a couple of years ago and in some way I wish I’d bought them however while they brought good control and resolution in the lower registers everything sounded rather ‘thin’ and it made an old Carol Kidd recording sound as though the vocalist was in her late 80’s-90’s so weak were the vocals!
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The difference is very subtle, slightly fuller sound, less hifi.
Suits me better in my listening environment which is a normal living room and not tailored specifically as a listening room…
WitchHat Phantom I may have already posted this, excellent cable which is very flexible. Their N2 is also very good value for money.
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Hi, as far as I know, Naim recommends only its own cables ie. NAC A5 or Superlumina, and that anyone going with another brand should ensure the speaker cable is low capacitance and of moderate inductance.
More about this in Richard’s post:
Very useful thread this one. It (indirectly) helped me a lot. First I figured although the newer product lines of Naim may not be that picky anymore, it would not hurt either to accomodate that inductance/capacitance rule. I purchased my Argon Audio Blue Edition SC1’s when I upgraded my speakers, but still had my old TEAC amp. My dealer recommended them for my setup and budget, and I never was able to find the specs. following various leads from this thread I decided to go for 2 x 3.5m Linn K20. NACA5 is just too expensive to me.
The effect though is noticable. I think for the first time I am experiencing some form of what I would call extreme soundstage effects: In one song some percussion effect was positioned so far back that my mind was tricked in thinking something fell over in the kitchen. Two songs later (Diamonds by the Boxer Rebellion) a repeated cymbal tap was positioned almost a meter in front of the speaker, which tricked my brain in looking at the bookshelf that’s there on the wall (thinking a screw fell off). Remarkable. I always had difficulty believing gear reviewers making those comments. Now I believe, amen.
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WH Phantom user here. Made the switch a year ago after >10 years with Chord Epic Twin.
Never looked back. My last speaker cable.
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Found this information today from when I bought my 42/110 in 1982, whilst looking through some old receipts.
I believe it remains correct, apart from the phone number! But if not I will remove the document.
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Nice find! Essentially still the case though the capacitance given for NACA5 in the FAQ is half of this and inductance a bit higher:
"you should ensure that the cable is low capacitance and of moderate inductance. High capacitance &/or very low inductance cables are to be avoided at all costs and may result in damage to your amplifier.
NACA5 specifications are as follows:
Capacitance: 16pF per metre
Resistance: 9 milliohms per metre
Inductance: 1uH per metre"
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May I ask in what ways the Witchhat Phantom is an improvement over Chord Epic Twin?
As you clarify the current specs I’ll leave it unless someone really objects, I found my original manual as well and some product range info all in quite good nick.
Love the pipe smoker character in the cartoon
Thanks
I found that the older naim speaker cable works well with naim speakers, as it has a darker sound to it and most naim speakers like this, but once you move away from say sbl’s, you really need to move away from the older naim cable, if you really want to exploit your newer speakers.
I still have a few different speaker cables, naca5 being one off them and comparing them to the others it certainly holds the details back, and is a bit dull sounding.
But once again its all about matching, bright speaker will like it, dull speaker wont. Get the pairing right for you and your sorted, it doesn’t matter what works for me or him, its all about your system, your room and what you like.
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Bass clarity. Instrument separation. Soundstage. Noise floor. All improvements with Phantom
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Does anyone here know about these cables.
LFD hybrid speaker cables
This appeared in another thread about price lists in March, just before the lockdown…together with lots of other interesting documents.
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I wanted to share a recent experiment that might save you money. In May I bought a Naim NDX2 streamer To add to my Uniti Core - a really good purchase that got me back into listening to lots of music. Then over the next few months, I added a Chord M Scaler and Hugo TT2 DAC and most recently a Gryphon Diablo 300 integrated amplifier plus some bits like Isoacoustic GAIAs. All feeding into my existing trusty B&W 802s. So all fairly reasonable quality components.
I had existing good quality speaker cables and interconnects from very well known companies costing around £1500. Time to upgrade cables and I budgeted about £3k for them. But first as an experiment to test if I could hear differences in cables. I ordered 3 BNC, 1 RCA pair and a pair of 12AWG speaker cables from the US company Blue Jeans (Others brands are available) using their UK website - total cost incl pp, duty and tax £210. The results has been nothing short of amazing. The best sound I have ever heard from my system. Huge sound stage, lovely detail, instrument accuracy, separation and beautiful treble, mids and base. That’s me done and £2.5k+ saved. By the way, I tried each type of cable separately- each was better than its higher end alternatives and the combination is sublime to my hearing and taste. The higher end cables sounded great, but collapsed the soundstage, lost the highs and lows and created a slightly “muddy haze” with all instruments sort of bleeding into each other.
I can understand why retailers and magazines will not suggest some of these direct sale suppliers as there is no margin or revenue in it for them. But at the price of a few hundred pounds, it may be an experiment others may want to try. I’m glad I did. And given that 3 specialist dealers got the best part of £30k out of me … I looked after them too.
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I found similar improvements when I switched to Phantoms from Nordost Red Dawn Rev 2. Much to my surprise their top end was more extended in a musical way, something that Nordost’s were noted for. I don’t know how the more recent versions of Red Dawn would compare, but they cost about a third more than the Phantoms. I am a very happy bunny and don’t see me changing speaker cables unless I come into such serious money that common sense goes out of the window!
Best wishes Amer
Great cables, they sound great!
They are Blacknote and they were the last cables I replaced with WitchHat ones, and only then because I knew I could send them back for a full refund up to 30 days later. So I was surprised that the Phantoms sounded better in my system almost straight away. After a few days I was certain I was going to keep them.
Best wishes Amer
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