Best Cable Line for Naim

Does it void the warranty if you use other wire besides what they spec out?  Always thought that NACA-5 wire was good?

I've never owned Naim gear but always thought their stuff was pretty inter-dependent?  Kind of like Spectral gear.  I've heard with Spectral gear you have to use certain interconnects and its best to use their amp with their preamp.

"Not interested in Nordost, or Audioquest,  or  some strange home brew, looking for a major established cable company and a company who makes different levels of sound quality and prices."

Is that a typo? AQ is the biggest, most established cable company in high end. Nordost is not far behind.

"Interested in anyone who has used Tara Labs, Synergistic, and anyone other major cable companies."

I've used all 4 brands with Naim, but before I make any specific comments, it would help to know if the above was an error.

We have tested the AQ cables and the Nordost cables vs the Wireworlds  which were far more extended  and generally outperformed the other brands.

Love their sound it is just that their impedance is too low for the Naim gear to be comfortable with. 

What Naim gear did you test cables with? We run a NAC 272/NAP 250.DR, as well as Uniti Products.

The NAC cables are not up to the sound quality of the major companies.

The longer run would mean higher impedance, so a high impedance cable does not seem to make sense.  Isn't Naim gear, like some other brands, sensitive to capacitance, such that you are looking for a low capacitance/high inductance cable?

Meant inductance

To make a long story short, I was at my local dealer demoing some Naim products. I brought a couple pieces I already had for comparison in, along with a bunch of AQ cables just in case I needed them. The dealer asked if he could try my AQ cables, and of course I let him. 5-10 minutes later he came and got me. He had this stuned look on his face and told me the first thing he was going to do Monday morning is become an AQ dealer.

So now I really don't know what to tell you. Needless to say, I was going to recommend AQ. I think your best move would be to contact Cable Co. They have extensive records of every cable lent out and/or sold for the last 20+ years. They will have hundreds of records pertaining to what works on Naim products. Another option would be to call a cable mfg that would have the ability to make custom cables to your specs. The one that first comes to mind is Jena Labs. She makes everything by hand, and uses a type of multi conductor design that should be easy to adapt for Naim gear. If you go to her website and look at designs, you'll see what I mean. There's actually a good chance she's already made some custom Naim cables.

The capacitance element of your current speaker cables may be more of a contributor to the amps running hot than the resistance.

It causes the amp to oscillate - sometimes to the point of distruction. It used to be documented on the NAIM web site as something to avoid. It’s also something that many high current designs suffer from. I’ve encountered it with a friends Ayre amp also

I have a Naim 5i (mkII) and it has never run hotter than room temperature (i.e. cool to the touch) with any of the cables listed below

I’ve used Van den Hul CS-122 and D-352 with great results. The Magnum also looks like a good choice

For even better results i separated the two conductors with a minimum 1-2 inch air gap. The improvements in clarity and imaging were very noticeable

Also try Furez silver plated copper terminations with the VDH cables - they work exceptionally well
http://www.douglasconnection.com/Furez-Products_c20.htm

I now use gZero6 from KLE Innovations, but they have a 5 meter limit on length, but I would give them a call to see if they can do anything - superb cables

Hope that helps

I think Chord cables work well with Naim and there is one dealer who advocates or used to advocate Nordost red dawn.  Although I don't think Naim gear should be running hot with Naim cables.  The only time my 250 ever got warm is when I was trying out a pair of Totem Mani-2 speakers.  Too power hungry for that amp.  

"I think Chord cables work well with Naim and there is one dealer who advocates or used to advocate Nordost red dawn.  Although I don't think Naim gear should be running hot with Naim cables."

Unless something has changed, Chord makes Naim's cables.