speaker cable myths and facts

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Scottmoose

Scottmoose

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If you want a precis, it's the usual thorough assessment you'd expect from Gene & Audioholics. In this case basically demonstrating that with the exception of gauge, many claims made by Audioquest about the speaker wire in question are the exact opposite of what is the case.

Happy days. Not that I'm knocking expensive wire itself -it's one of life's less harmful hobbies after all, and I doubt the Heuer Monaco I lust after tells the time more accurately than my £60 Rotary from Argos. It's the lies that surround most of it that really gets my goat.
 
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MITsound

MITsound

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Joined 2013
Scottmoose said:
Don't kid yourself. Naim and NVA in the UK both build / built amplifiers sans output Zobels that more or less mandate the use of low capacitance speaker wire to ensure stability. In the latter's case, they even stress that if you don't use their wire, you will invalidate the equipment's warranty, and users requiring warranty work may even be obliged to provide proof of wire purchase before they will consider whether they are under any obligation to provide such work. As I recall, Naim have softened up their approach in this regard over the last decade or so, although I don't keep close tabs on such things.
Click to expand...

When I bought my NAIT 5 and Flatcap 2 power supply, I was told Naim doesn't use output inductors and gets this from at minimum 10 foot long speaker cable lengths.
Who was joking with themselves?
 
B

Bob Cordell

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Joined 2006
cordellaudio.com
Good point. This just goes to show that "respected" manufacturers don't always know what they are talking about in every regard. Amplifiers DO misbehave under some conditions. In fact, I have often said that many of them sound different because they are misbehaving differently under real-world conditions. Often, these misbehaviors are not picked up by ordinary objective measurements.

Cheers,
Bob
 
Scottmoose

Scottmoose

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Joined 2005
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MITsound said:
When I bought my NAIT 5 and Flatcap 2 power supply, I was told Naim doesn't use output inductors and gets this from at minimum 10 foot long speaker cable lengths.
Who was joking with themselves?
Click to expand...

Nobody at all. Easy extra profit by flogging their own Naca5 speaker wire to 99% of the people who buy their amplifiers, new. Builds up, after a while.
 
Scottmoose

Scottmoose

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Depends how you define 'well designed.' In the case of Naim, NVA et al, they are not DIY: they're commercial hi-fi. And commercially speaking a well designed amplifier is one with market appeal, sells well, achieves the desired margins and, as relevant, keeps buyers in the product fold, so you can sell more products to them. The Naim amplifiers are very well designed in that sense, as they are intended to encourage buyers down the 'brand' route / stay in the company fold, so they can sell additions such as their own 'recommended' wire, external power-supplies &c.
 
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planet10

planet10

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I became particualrily enamoured of NAIM because teh NAIM 250 was the only amplifier we could find that did a really good job of driving Dayton-Wright ESLs. Given that it was playing louder without audiable clipping than amplifiers we tried with over 3x as much power (Phase Linear, Dyna 400, Ampzilla, Maranyz 500), and teh differential became even greater when driving a parallel pair.

I considered it a very good amplfier and likely the best i had heard in the day.

Julian did an amazing job of turning the RCA example circuit into a really good amplifier. And the one time i met and talked with him (and had a bear, Ivor was there too) he left me with some gems that have guided my hifi experience and growth for over 40 years.

dave
 
Pano

Pano

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Interesting about the ESLs. Years ago we did an amp shootout to find an amp suitable for double stacked Quad ESL, which are not an easy load. We tried a number of amps, including the 303 and the 405, along with large SET and Class-A SS. It did feel like power rating didn't make much difference, it was stability of the amp into that difficult load that really separated them. The differences were easy to hear.
 
planet10

planet10

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That is a result of their marketing.

Too much inductance in the output of an amplifier is considered by some to a significant factor in sonics, it would i expect affect the top end if at all. And as we have discovered when discussing fast in loudspeakers that only means that the device can reproduce frequencies high enuff to satisfy your choice of whatever fast is.

The speaker and source are much more likely to limit the “fastness” of the system given that.

But maybe some interaction with the loudspeaker’s impedance, particualrily if highly complex (as in complex numbers, not complicated) responses… ESLs, wild impedances due to XOs.

Given the huge number of statistically diverse “systems”, it gets complicated, many compromises, many choices.

And then add the marketing department.

dave
 
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