Thought on speaker cable length and (coiling the extra length)?

[charlesphoto]

What amp? If it's older Naim gear, 3.5m and right capacitance and inductance is a requirement as it acts as the Zobel and will keep your amp from overheating (and no Litz cable!). Many say the newer amps you can get away with shorter, but I wouldn't go under 2m personally. The longer you go the better it will sound - I think 5-7m is the sweet spot. I have 25' of Chord Rumor 2 with my Naim 160; one side I need all of that in order to go around some French doors, and the other the speaker is literally a foot and half away from the amp. I have the extra all taped up underneath the media cabinet. I think the fold thing is a bit of Naim myth - in fact one very knowledgeable member on the forum says it's bunk, and it's perfectly fine to coil. If going with NACA5 a heat gun or hair dryer is great at getting it to bend. 

[charlesphoto]

1 minute ago, 992Sam said:

 

the one in my signature block... McIntosh mc462..   I had assumed this was an issue with Naim's own amps...  

Oh sorry. Yeah, no idea about Mc's. One piece of advice - you can always make a cable shorter but you can't make it longer! I've run into this before where I got something short and then my setup changes and need longer. Just food for thought. Why NACA5? Is it a known partner to McIntosh? 

[charlesphoto]

2 hours ago, 992Sam said:

 

my dealer is both a Mc and Naim dealer, and must have a ton of it laying around, so when I bought my XR50 speakers, he threw 20 feet of speaker cable into the deal and two spade connections on each end...  I don't argue with free..   Think I'll regret going with that? Should I be looking at a Mc Friendly cable? 

 

No, I'd try the NACA5 first and see what you think. It's a good cable, and not inexpensive new. I would prefer it on my 160, but I needed something in white I could easily run around trim and NACA wasn't it (plus 50' new would have been probably over a grand) and my dealer had a 25' pari of the Rumor 2 for $175 and its always sounded fine to me. Yeah, you might want to poke about on some other forums to find out the minimum length of cable you can get away with on the McIntosh. 

[charlesphoto]

Vintage Naim amps don’t have a Zobel network, so the speaker cable acts as one, so therefore needs to be a certain spec and minimum length. Not so sure if this is an issue with newer amps and integrateds, but most dealers play it safe. At least on vintage amps, the longer the length the better the sound. Anyway, at $25/ft I would take it and try it! Again, best to consult other McIntosh owners in regard to cable choices and length. 

[charlesphoto]

I wouldn't worry about direction. My NACA is so old that there's no arrows, or they all wore off. The dealer put straight bananas on one end and 45 degree ones on the other, so I use the straight into the amp. Looking at the solders though just now, I see a bit of corrosion, so time to redo I guess(picked up used for $125 from my dealer about twelve years ago) . Here are the NACA 5 specs. And modern Naim amps do have a Zobel, but still a good idea to use low cap and low inductance for sound reasons. Again, McIntosh might be a whole different beast. 

 

NACA5 specifications are as follows:

Capacitance: 16pF per metre
Resistance: 9 milliohms per metre
Inductance: 1uH per metre

Minimum length: 3.5 metres per channel
Maximum length: 20 metres per channel (note that longer lengths can be used up to around 25 m but then some small signal loss must be expected)