Which Speakers Cable?

Not the worst I’ve ever seen, but not the best either. I would agree with Stephen’s comments. Also, the wire and solder should not protrude above the top of the pins, so that you can screw the cap on properly and not have it clamping the pins in place.

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Thanks Stephen - that’s useful feedback.
The system does sound great at the moment - but I’ll take your word for it that it might sound even better if this soldering was even better.
I’ll put it on the hifi jobs list.
cheers
Jim

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Yes, this is really important and so often overlooked. The pins should be free to move slightly within the plastic housing - this allows them to be supported yet also able to follow the best contact path down the 4mm socket.

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Given the obvious specifics required with these soldered connectors, I’m curious why Naim themselves don’t offer a NAC termination service or ability to order pre terminated sets at specific lengths?
Maybe it’s just my dealers level of enthusiasm or perhaps confidence but he’s never mandated a soldered connection or in fact recommended it even, which seems to go entirely against what everyone says on here!
I have a certain level of trust and respect for their abilities and willingness to support me as a customer but it seems entirely open to interpretation and based on personal preferences alone.

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You seem to equate price and inverse age as proportional to, or indicators of, sound quality. Whilst one might hope that is so, cost anyway, and with many things is, it is not necessarily so, as some people find. The best way of telling is by blind testing/comparison - not difficult if you have a willing accomplice, but very strangely not a popular thing to do…

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Have you compared the sound of biwired to not (comparing with each of the wires for the not)? I’ve never understood the logic of bi-wiring, and from what Ihave picked up over time many people on this forum eschew it, despite many speakers offering (it was a fad a couple of decades ago).

Arrived here an hour ago, now fitted and fired up nicely on all four :slightly_smiling_face:

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Yes, I have compared with driving my loudspeakers by
a) only through the Nova.
b) using the Nova as a preamp only and driving the loudspeakers fully through the 250dr.
c) driving the mid/highs with the 250dr and the bass with the Nova.
To my ears, and for my listening preferences, alternative “c” sounded by far the best.
I could fully utilize the Nova’s internal amp (2x80W) for the bass and the 250dr’s 2x80W fully for the upper register of the loudspeakers.
The amp in the Nova s very good, but in my opinion not as good as the 250dr. The 250dr really lifted the vocals and increased the soundstage to my ears.
It might be interesting to know that my loudspeakers are rated to have 90db sensitivity, therefore not considered to be difficult to drive.

My apologies I didn’t read your original post properly and thought you were bi-wiring, whereas you are actually passive bi-amping. Unlike biwiring I can see that can make a slight difference. Have you ever thought of changing to active bi-amping by getting an active crossover and disabling the speakers’ internal crossover? That is likely to have quite marked benefits.

By the way, sensitivity and ease of driving are completely different things, and sensitivity only relates to the sound level for a given amp power, not how well the amp can control the speaker!

Interestingly when I had my Nova I found the amp to be the weakest link, particularly in the bass dept

I haven’t been thinking in the direction that you are mentioning as this exceeds my technical competence :smiley:. In addition, I have found “my sound” and I am very happy with the result that I have achieved in putting together my system.

If I would have a dedicated listening room in a free-standing house, I would certainly go a different route however.

In regards to the issue of loudspeaker sensitivity, I believe that there is a consensus that sensitivity is used to determine the amount of power necessary to drive a loudspeaker. With this in mind, I take it that the higher the sensitivity of a loudspeaker, the easier it is to drive.

My Nova provides me with awesome bass. Tight, distortion free and just right to my ears.

I am currently listening to Massive Attack “Unfinished Symphony” via Qobuz HiRes at a modest volume (20).

It feels and sounds like I have a very good subwoofer connected.

Just received these.


Van damme HiFi 4mm and some jumpers too.

Replacing some old Speakerflex which I’d had for many years.

First impressions are good with more detail and lower frequencies.

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Sensitivity relates to power needed to achieve a given average sound level, so you are correct in terms of determining what is needed for a given loudness. But that is nothing to do with whether the speaker is easy or difficult to drive: ease of driving relates to whether any given amplifier can adequately control a particular speaker. I.e. you can have a sensitive speaker that presents a difficult load to an amplifier, and an insensitive one that presents an easy load, and vice versa. E.g if the impedance curve is pretty near linear, presenting an equitable load right across the sound spectrum, the speaker is likely to be easy to drive - even if very insensitive, that just meaning higher power is needed for the same sound level, but otherwise no great demand on the amp.

But if the impedence curve dips quite markedly, presenting a very low impedence at some part of the frequency spectrum (typically in the bass region), it can require a very high current capability from the amplifier. Amplifiers with higher instantaneous current capability may therefore control such speakers better than amps with lesser current capability, or with slow rise time for that current - even if the maximum RMS power output from the higher current capable amp is less, and so not capable of as high average sound levels.

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Traditionally, Naim have expected their dealers to set up your system as part of the service, and this would have included cutting speaker cable off the reel and soldering the plugs. Unfortunately, not all dealers are up to the job, which I suspect is why companies such as QED and Chord have come up with proprietary crimping systems, which are harder for a dealer to mess up.

Thank you for the comprehensive explanation. Do you by any chance know where the Nova’s amp and the 250dr stand in regards to their ability in delivering a stable current throughout the register, so to speak. I take it that if an amp is unable to deliver a stable current, e.g. for the lower bass, as mentioned in your example, the result would be a distortion of the sound?

I get that, but for the less well informed, you end up spinning yourself into a giddy state on the merry-go-round of what is the “recommended” or “preferred” or “optimal” method to connect up your system.
For most consumers buying in to the Naim world, it’s almost always a significant investment in time and money, the dealers are a key part in the delivery of the experience but from what I’ve personally experienced I’ve yet to find an approved Naim dealer (supplying 500/Statement level systems in my case) that will emphatically insist on soldering NAC A5 speaker cables at the amp end.
In recent memory mine have been fitted with crimped banana plugs including QED and Chord as a point of reference, always sounded ok to me, never failed or fell apart, connected to both the amp and the speakers as intended and yet many posts on this forum are quite insistant that soldering the supplied Naim plugs is essentially a mandatory step in NAC A5 speaker cable setup.
Not a personal criticism you understand, merely a reflection and comment, I just find it curious that it appears to be so important, including numerous references to that end by forum admins, and yet as a consumer I’ve not had it positioned in anywhere near the same way by the dealers I’ve dealt with.

That previous shot was an amp end of a NACA5.
Here’s a speaker end photo.
This one looks better, and I think there is a wee bit of wriggle room for the pins within the plastic casing.
But I don’t know what type of solder it is - and clearly there’s a little bit of copper wire showing.

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Is it just me (most likely) or does the Nac5 , and that Van Dam wire all look like either old style Monster Cable or big Lamp Cord?

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No, it’s not just you :wink:

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