I have used WBT and still have sets of unused spade and banana cnnectors. My speakers have WBT banana/spade receivers. They’re OK, but I don’t understand how they are so superior to deltron. I had to retighten the WBT spades all the time. My sub cables use other spades (Transparent I think) and those have stayed put and never need retightening.
In any case, the AQ500 on my Phantom have been great so far and I see no compelling reason to make any changes.
I agree, in part. The older WBT spades were rather heavy and needed to really be snugged down. The newer as of about 7 years ago NextGen products are much lighter, although still robust. And of course the Bananas are of the locking type so they don’t come loose.
I do still wonder why Naim choses to use those silly inverted Nickel bananas speaker outputs, and those speaker cable terminations, Nickel is a terrible conductor…They could at least switch to gold or silver over copper not like the Naim products are cheap. and paradoxically Naim does use quite good quality RCA jacks… Just my humble opinions.
I’m confident that Naim had an extensive listen to the various alternatives ans they have chosen these because they simply sound better. What more do you want?
When you see the vast number of comments on this site about alternative fittings and cables it’s difficult to have confidence that Naim has put as much effort into investigating their options as we would expect.
These things are critical for performance and nothing regarding performance with Naim is ever an after-thought. That’s why Naim is one of the few (only?) manufacturers who supplies the right speaker plugs to use with the amp sockets, as alternatives will invariably sound worse.
579-0500 and 579-0100 are the part numbers for solder only nickel plated Deltron plugs if you don’t need screw or crimp.
I imagine they were tested exhaustively with NACA but with other cables they may be less optimal, especially modern cable configurations and materials. I think SL uses silver plated connectors; same marque, different cable, different connectors. Perhaps that’s why some find NACA bright, it needs attenuation provided by the nickel connector - a sort of tone control.
I’m not sure exactly what useful information that table is going to provide, but if you are saying that a thin layer of Nickel on a (Naim) plug is going to be a problem, maybe have a look inside any box full of electronics, and see just how much solder there is in the signal path. The solder of choice for audio gear is made of lead and tin, both of which get a rather low score on your league table, but seem to be able to work quite nicely. None of this stuff will appeal to magpies, of course, but it works.
As for breaking plugs, I believe @JosquinDesPrez was referring to BFA plugs, which are those hollow things that will fit into a 4mm socket that was designed to take a proper banana plug if you give it a good hard shove, thereby stressing the thin tube of metal so that a good thwack with a hoover from your wife, who probably hates your ugly expensive loudspeakers anyway, is all it takes to snap it clean off. The solution? A proper solid banana plug. Better still, a right angled banana plug with no sticky-out bit to get bashed by the hoover/dog/kids, like the ones that Naim provide with their gear, although they are not the only ones to make right angled plugs.
I did qualify BFA bananas before, but I already solved the problem using deltron-style AQ500s on my speaker cables.
My wife loves everything about my speakers and the rest of the system. She’s a participant in buying parts of it and listening to it on a regular basis
With respect I’m going to have to disagree. Nickel is a lousy conductor that’s not an opinion it just is. Also not to be a cynic but Naim supplies those speaker terminations so dealers can fit Naca5 for their customers.
@Richard.Dane. I guess I’m just slow. I don’t understand why use Nickel at all? It’s a lousy conductor. And to @ChrisSU most High End manufacturer’s use Silver solder, like WBT or TRT Wonder Solder , not nickel. And interesting the Naim Statements use WBT Nextgen RCA’s and NextGen binding posts , No Nickel in Sight. If they’re good enough for the Statement why the 500 series?
Use the same as the speaker terminals, so if the speakers have gold plate use gold plated plug etc. Naim plugs for the ovator series were different from the earlier speakers, though I don’t remember how they differed I don’t think the choice was random, nor based on dogma or misapplied DC theory.
Use the Naim plugs on the amp end if your cable will fit and if your amp is getting hot when idling you have the wrong cable.
Signals had a nice little blog on cables and Naim on their site, maybe its still there but it was pre SL so may have been updated or even removed.
Opus, I’m no technical expert, and I can’t speak for Naim on this, but personally I reckon that Nickel is most likely a perfectly adequate conductor here. I would guess that it’s used because the material or plating used is likely less important here than other factors, such as the design, how well the plugs mate with the sockets, and how well they match (both physically, and in similarity of material), and of course compatibility. Of course, once you get to the point where all is as good as it can be mechanically, there might be some benefit to using a different plating or base metal, but in all cases it all boils down to the listening.
As far as Naim using WBT Next Gen’s is concerned, they were originally selected for use on the NAC552, CD555, and on the RCA Hi-Line, and were chosen after lots of listening tests. As RCA Phonos went, they were the best performing of the bunch (which is not always the case with the most expensive components), but they were still not as good as using the standard DINs.
As Naim use the WBT RCAs on their top end kit, it’s logical to use them on the Statement. At such a level I’d imagine there may well be some market resistance to using anything but what is seen to be the very best (i.e. WBT). As for how WBT speaker posts perform compared to the regular plugs and sockets I couldn’t say, as I have not been involved in any comparative tests.
I use two runs of NAC5, as I run a Snaxo Active Crossover. Peter at Cymbiosis soldered all my cables and to me the system sounds great.
I also think that as Naim designed their electronics to use this cable, then this is good for me.
WBT’s silver solder is very good, but the silver content is 4%, the rest being mostly tin and/or lead, so I still think that your assessment of materials based purely on their relative conductivity score is somewhat flawed.
My dealer made me a set of NAIM speaker cables when i bought my STAR and they are wonderful. I believe i get better imaging without stuff between the speakers, so the cable were quite long, about 35 feet each, i think. There is a guy who publishes a book called Better Sound, or something like that and he got me onto space between speakers. It really makes a huge difference in imaging. My former local dealer agreed and i asked him why he didn’t display his products setup that way and he told me that customers liked the look of a mound of kit between their speakers. Go figure. Anyway, try a set of NAIM speaker cables. RD
I guess @ChrisSU I’m just wrong. I think I need to go back to Naim School. I’ve just never been a very good student😞 what a waste of the forty years I’ve spent in the CE industry. I’ve learned so little.
Wasn’t lead banned from solder (in consumer electronics) under an EU RoHS directive some years ago ?
Yes it was banned by the EU. It’s still possible to get hold of it either in regions where such restrictions do not apply, or for use when repairing old electronics that were built with lead solder, as mixing them up is not a good idea. For example, if you resolder a dry or broken solder joint with lead free solder there will be traces of lead solder on it, and mixing the two types doesn’t work well.
Hi Slamdam. How did you find the Van Damme cables different to Naca5 or Chord. Did you find that a big upgrade?