NACA, 4 was made by BICC, it's identical to Linn K20 and is a low voltage lighting cable for military and similar site use.
Why guilt on speaker cables and such
- Thread starter gregory lynch
- Start date
I know if I use NACA 5 then it's going to be capable of good performance as it's compatible with Naim products. That suit me fine as I have no wish to go down the forever wondering if I have the best cable route.
Mike Reed
pfm Member
I was obv. getting confused with the early Naim I/Cs (Lavender, possibly or their predecessors?) I had NAC A4 for my first ventures into Naim (42.110, 32.5/160/250) but bought long lengths of NAC A5 from a dealer somewhere in Lancashire whilst on my travels, possibly late eighties
Until you reposition your system and then its the wrong length !!
As I said, it’s the most important factor.
onlyconnect
pfm Member
You could try coat hangers?
Do speaker cables make a difference? Reviving the coathanger test (soundguys.com)
Do speaker cables make a difference? Reviving the coathanger test (soundguys.com)
irb
pfm Member
Fixed this for you!
gez
pfm Member
I've only ever made one speaker cable change in my system in 30 years. That was to change from no name 79 strand (definitely wasn't Quad but I think that's irrelevant) to Kimber 4TC. Admittedly I bought the Kimber on the basis of reviews, but that was back in the day when I was into reading all the reviews etc rather than believing the science/engineering. Just so happens by luck that 4TC have good electrical properties that make it a good choice as a speaker cable. That said, today I very likely would not pay what Kimber (Russell what's his face) is asking for 4TC, as I believe for what it is (in terms of it being plastic covered wire), it's way overpriced (as it probably was at the time when I bought it too, but I was a different person back then).
More recently I've messed around with A/B testing a few XLR cables and thought I may have heard some very subtle (and I mean VERY) differences between them, but nothing that I couldn't convince myself wasn't just expectation bias. So I settled on the set that had the best electrical properties, given the impedances of the CD/Amp involved. Subsequently I'm now using a different (integrated) amp with a built in DAC and so I no longer concern myself about "interconnect" cables as all my box connections are digital. (As you've probably guessed, I don't believe cables make any difference in the digital domain - as long as they're well designed/built and not wet bits of string).
More recently I've messed around with A/B testing a few XLR cables and thought I may have heard some very subtle (and I mean VERY) differences between them, but nothing that I couldn't convince myself wasn't just expectation bias. So I settled on the set that had the best electrical properties, given the impedances of the CD/Amp involved. Subsequently I'm now using a different (integrated) amp with a built in DAC and so I no longer concern myself about "interconnect" cables as all my box connections are digital. (As you've probably guessed, I don't believe cables make any difference in the digital domain - as long as they're well designed/built and not wet bits of string).
gez
pfm Member
It's inductance not capacitance that really matters in speaker cables, after resistance of course. Of course you don't want ludicrous amounts of capacitance just to get an extremely low inductance, but you should be prioritising low inductance over low capacitance.
timpy
Speaker Abuser
Well you would, to be fair, wouldn't you?
When I was at University many years ago, when the Wharfedale Diamond IV was current, several people had systems in the flats I was in. One chap came across to my room and said he thought he'd damaged a speaker, (aforementioned Diamond IV) and indeed one of them sounded quite dull and indistinct, and the other fine in comparison. Obvious thing to do was swap them over to see if it was the amp, and when swapped over the dull and miserable sounding speaker perked right up and the previous good was wasn't any more.
Not the the speakers then.
Was it the amp?
Looking down the back, I saw he had about 0.5m of his speaker cable on the "good speaker" and all the rest of the cable on the other one. I went and got my speaker cable and a low and behold both speakers now sounded better than either had before (if a little bright now, I thought), but more importantly they sounded the same.
He hadn't wanted to waste any cable when he bought the system, he'd cut a bit off for the speaker sat next to the amp, about 0.5m and left the rest on the other, that length was at least 8m, probably 9.5m. To add insult to injury he'd coiled it up but uncoiling it brought only a marginal improvement. He only needed about 3 m so cut it down, balanced up the lengths roughly and never worried about it. He was using QED 79 strand. I was running the light blue jacketed and very flexible Supra 4 (if anyone remembers it) in 3 meter lengths.
I learnt that anything over 1.5m was the wrong length for QED 79 strand. Avoided it ever since.
gez
pfm Member
True but then it all depends on how much you're prepared to compromise your system for the chance of not having to buy a different cable again (only counts if your reposition requires longer rather than shorter cable lengths obviously). The single most important thing about any cable, speaker included is: it should be as short as possible*.
Of course I'm ignoring those amps that rely on the cable electrical properties to remain stable. But I'd never buy such an amp.
There is not such thing in cable as ‘the best’ electrical properties. For example impedance in electrical systems is a full analog of a mass in mechanical. Is there such thing as the best mass? Obviously not, it can be huge or small depending on the whole system.
As for digital, they differ significantly but usually this difference exposed when power supply is well managed in the system.
irb
pfm Member
No.
£2,000 for a 3m pair of speaker cables? If I had a spare 2k, I can think of better things to do with it.
But don't you find it a little suspicious that a company which previously said you can't do better than a basic (non-audio sourced) cable suddenly changes their mind, just as a large market for stupidly expensive audio gear develops?
And BICC must have used excellent copper back in the day,the pollution from the BICC factory in Liverpool polluted Lord Derbys land and was blamed as the reason his race horses were suffering from broken legs,the horses were all moved to Epsom,but us stinking peasants still got to eat the carrots,wheat and sugar beet off the land
It sounds like a prejudice
bigfish786
pfm Member
Nothing wrong with trying cables. Better than being close minded.