i found some old high tension wires discarded in the forest and dragged them home . they are about an inch and a half in diameter. my amp is a 500, 000 watt unit run by a diesel engine from a ship . the speakers are old fog horns . i did have a lot of difficulty hooking every thing up but the sound is incredible . true story .

I find dipping audiophiles in liquid nitrogen overnight improves the dynamic range by reducing the useless noise they contribute immensely.

Wireless speakers are creating mini black holes all around the world

Hi Paul Here is the reason Naim power amplifiers do not have extra inductance networks in the output. Naim prefer the more elegant solution of allowing the speaker cable to provide the correct inductance and capacitance. To do so, a minimum of 3.5 metres per channel of NACA4 or NACA5 cable is required - although the optimum length is around 5-10 metres with a maximum recommended length of 20 metres Keep safe

If they reach the amp and the speaker then it is the right length

The reason Naim Audio suggest a certain length of speaker cable is because the series inductance and capacitance in the cable replaces what is normally found in the Amplifier output design, which is not used in their output stage design.

Well, I tried 1m of 14 AWG cable on Proac EBTs & while it was had amazing clarity, it just left my nerves frayed after several hours listening. Now I have about 3.5 m of 12 AWG of a different brand. I can't put my finger on why and what sounds different, but now the music just fills my soul. The only change was the speaker cable. I have not theories as to why or what specific sound qualities changed.

If the cables are a significant factor in a given amplifier design, they should provide them with the amplifier.

From Leo: There are numerous things I can measure on my Oscilloscope that no one can hear in a blind listening test. Too many people spending a lot of money for bragging rights, not sound improvement.

I put my NAIM system in complete vacuum to insure best sound possible.

electron travels at speed of light which is 300,000,000 m/s. I don't think 1m vs 10m cables would make any difference to human ears in terms of time it takes to get from one end to another.

Unlike most amplifiers, there is no Zobel network (resistor/inductor/capacitor combo) at the output of Naim amps. Their own cable are specced to do that job. That is why. Consider the Naim cable an extended part of the amplifier.

Cable length can definitely effect the sound, but unless cables are of an extreme length, it's relatively imperceptible. One thing for certain though, both sides should always be of equal length, that's imperative.

Naim for years considered the speaker cables as part of the output circuit, and cautioned people to not use non-Naim speaker cables because they didn’t provide the proper inductance, resistance, and capacitance. I believe they abandoned that approach years ago though.

wow - I sparked a conversation starter there - thank you for answering Paul.

Guitar players have long known that the cords between their guitar and amp have different sound depending the length. This was one of the early complaints with wireless systems for guitar (besides latency). A long cable (20 feet +) has more resistance but also a measurable capacitance (thus the rolling off of highs) that lends to a "darker" tone. Some guitarists use very long coiled cables for this reason. An electric guitar is only really part of the whole instrument. The whole instrument is the guitar, the cable, the amp, and the speaker. They all work together to create a tone that the player conducts. The same goes for any high quality audio system (OK, a guitar and amp is a non-hifi system but it can be a very good non-hifi system). Everything contributes to the tone of the whole system.

Speaker cables change two main factors, first is voltage drop between the amplifier and the speaker. A long thin cable will act as a resistor. Second is the damping factor of the amplifier. Not to be confused with servo, the amplifier still reacts to voltages generated by the voice coil through its negative feedback loop. Add the "resistor" and the damping factor changes. Both will effect the sound. To a lesser extent, any inductance and capacitance introduced by the speaker cables will also throw a wrench in the works. This is why it is not a good idea to coil extra speaker wire, although most inductance is canceled out in two conductor cable by the fact that they are out of phase with each other (heat buildup on high power systems is another good reason.) All this assumes the amplifier directly drives the speaker and does not go through the rats nest, otherwise known as a crossover network. As for 2 feet vs 4 feet of wire, I would like to do some blind A/B tests for those that say they can hear a difference.

As many have suggested it is to do with maintaining amplifier stability. The standard method with the circuit Naim use is to put an inductor in series with the output. However it was discovered that 3.5m of 4mm² wire as a lightly twisted pair eliminated the need for the inductor. As 3.5m is fairly average length it was decided the inductor could be done away with as the combination of inductor AND cable did affect the sound adversely. So Paul is right about the voicing, as with so many things in high end audio decisions are made that balance engineering and sound considerations.

Congrats “I don’t have a good answer.”

It's really simple. Any amplifier that specifies a minimum speaker cable length is unstable. Stay away from it! We have been able to make audio amplifiers that are unconditionally stable for at least the past 35 years. No excuse for such a restriction these days.

Naim has been selling a house brand relatively inexpensive cable for ages. One type to fit all products. In that sense I think they wanted to match the impedance of said cable to their optimum specs for best results.

I have worked in the audio industry for many years and this question never goes away. If the cable reaches the speakers its the right length just make sure the cables are the same length and dont use low grade 'bell' wire or other cheap small diameter cable you should be fine. I have seen ridiculously overpriced cables which claim all sorts of questionable 'improvements'. It just is all smoke and mirrors really. Also MP3 files for audio playback dont get me started lol!!

the wire gauge is more important then the length. longer wire bigger gauge. when working with 2 and 4 ohm loads. high power use 12/10 AWG, no extra wire coiled up. keep wire straight and just long enough to hook it up and right size for audio power. no 22ga on a 250 watt amp.

Because naim amp didnt have output inductor in the circuit, so naim introduce their Nac A5 with higher inductance per metre, the cable is said to be part of the circuit, by using other cable it might cause the amp to oscilate, its not snake oil, its something that fits their amp design, their cable is not recommended to be used with non naim amp. As a naim user, i can assure you that with their speaker cable the rythm do improve significantly Plus their cable is not expensive like the other after market Exposure which emphasize on PRAT in their design also use their version of similar cable, you can see the cable is hard and not flexible, probably due to the high inductance value

if I recall correctly And please correct me if I'm wrong but the answer to the gentleman's question outside of a sound quality perspective really comes from more of a historic perspective. naim back in the day and as I understand it we're talking '80s and the '90s specified a particular speaker length because the output stages on their amplifiers worked best at a particular ohm level or maybe inductance or something, be honest with you I really can't remember when I read a long time ago. suffice it to say the output stage worked best because that particular length of speaker cable created that particular inductance or what have you and so that's what was specified. now the amplifier would still work with other lengths of cable obviously but it would not sound how the company intended the amp to sound. And I think anymore their products and amplifiers aren't designed around the same principle per se however I kind of get the feeling they do it now more as a throwback kind of historical feature of their products.

1 meter or six meters makes absolutely no difference to the sound quality, 2.5mm 4mm and 6mm pure copper stranded cable with a decent outer jacket is all you need when it comes to speaker cable, the rest is pure bling.

A lot has to do with the gauge of the cable, the longer the cable more signal loss you suffer, so bigger the gauge is more important. I also agree never heard of a minimum cable length, but both cables right and left (Pair) must be the same exact length, this as well if you use surround and so on, R-L always same length.

Probably they're counting on the inductance of the cable as part of the protection for their tweeters against destructive ultrasonic spikes. To be even more perfectionistic, they probably also have compensated the inductance-capacitance of the cable and treated them as transmission lines hence the minimum length.

Naim amps don’t have Zobel networks in the output stage. They use specific cables to compensate for this and maintain amplifier stability and cable length is needed, I think, to ensure sufficient resistance again to balance amp/speaker load. Or at least that’s what the aliens told me.

I dont know if it applies to this, but in circuit boards the traces (wires) are meticulously measured and routed so that the signals will arrive at the correct time. If a signal needs to be sent to 2 places on a board at the same exact time, one close and one far away, you kinda need to make the close one have a trace as long as the other one, which is why they tend to route them in zigzags and whatnot.

CHORD SPEAKER COMPANY done quite a bit of testing on speaker cable lengths and what they found was a difference in length of not more than 40% worked pretty well. So a 5m/3m pair, 7m/4m pair and a 10m/6m pair were good. There are a couple of important points here though. Whilst the vast majority of amplifiers will be completely happy with a different length pair of speaker cables, some amplifiers use the speaker cable as part of the circuitry and in this case, cable lengths should be kept the same. Before using different lengths of speaker cable, it is important to check with the manufacturer of the amplifier.

Wires make a huge difference in the sound, but the amount of difference they make is directly related to the quality of your system, mainly your speakers and amps. Just raise the quality of your wires to the quality of your system, it's not that hard to figure out. Formula 1 racing cars can take advantage of very expensive tires but that same tire quality would be a waste on a mini van, that doesn't mean that the racing tires are "snake oil" just because they don't improve the handling of the mini van very much or at all. Get It? Now you can go to Wire World and buy the wires that go with your system and budget, I like the mid priced stuff, just don't use lamp cord or the wires that came with your equipment for free. The latest wire designs can make a huge improvement in your system if you have a "Formula 1" type system. 20,000 bucks and up. Once you get into the area of 50,000 for amps and speakers, upgrading the wires to a thousand bucks for speaker wires and another thousand for the interconnects will completely change your world over spending just 200 bucks for both sets of wires. I've seen the look on faces when the switch is made and each time, it gives me a great feeling to see them freak out at how much better their system sounds. I don't sell them, I just hook them up, incase you were wondering. It's not just the materials like better copper and added silver, it's the design of Wire Worlds cables, it's one guy engineering one product for a long time, he's good. I'm sure lot's of companies can make great stuff, I only use his now if possible.

It is because Naim Amps didn't have coils on the outputs to keep the amp stable, therefore a minimum of 10 feet has enough inductance to keep the amp stable. Best regards, mark from Dorset, England.

Older Naim gear required minimum naca5 cable length because it needed minimum inductance in the cable which is achieved using 3.5 m length. Newer gear has no such strict requirements, Supernait included.

If you increase the length you increase the resistance. However, getting a minimum gauge will allow for losses over distance.

I took waveguide and transmission theory back in school... that certainly doesn't make me an expert though lol. With the "low" frequencies we're talking about I find it difficult to believe that with any reasonable quality wire that any distance under 50-100ft has any practical or noticeable effect. A super short wire might have some effect depending on the impedances (due to reflections being more pronounced). What will probably have the most effect are: gauge, insulator type, insulator thickness, distance to other adjacent wires, conductor material, speaker impedance, amplifier output impedance, and whether there's an output capacitor on the amplifier to help eliminate DC and sub-audible noise.

Audiophile purists are so against in-built tone controls on hi-fi equipment, But then use cables (often expensive) as a form of tone control...

How long a cable should I use for connecting my Naim Uniti to my wireless speakers?

spot on there At last someone from the UK , made some very good speakers back in the day .

Oh please, sound different. If you guys where right about your ideas on speaker cables and wires in general, my 440 MHz Ham radio would not work.

My guess? Maybe to prevent oscillation given the added inductance with increased cable length. Amp output stage may be Unstable other wise. Lots of EMI RFI out there going every which way. Homework: Can you see multiturn air core inductors in your amp at the output transistors? Hmmm. Have fun! -Sandy

1 meter of copper cable 1 mm in diameter is 0,17 Ohms 2 m coppercable 1 mm diameter is 0,34 Ohms 3 m copper cable 3 mm in diameter is 0,17 Ohms

Amplifiers: The controversy over tubes vs solid state presists. When response, modulation distortion and transient intermodulation distortion are below certain levels (< 1%) there should be no audible difference. Speaker wires: It can be solid, stranded, copper, oxygen free copper, silver, etc.--or even "magic" wire--as long as the resistance is kept to be less than 5% of the speaker impedance. There is no listening difference as long as the wire is of adequate size. Bear in mind, a well-designed amplifier will not have a problem with any of these wires. CD players: In the 1980's, people spoke of experiencing "no air" and "aggression" while listening to digital recordings. Today we understand the principles which are fundamental to this phenomenon, we name it Jitter, we test it, calculate it and dress it with numbers, systemize it and describe it entirely. Jitter has always been and still is the worst enemy of the digital audio format. And today it is understood. Fact: Digital audio data is 'just' 0's and 1's. There may be many formats (.wav, .aif, CD-audio) but the information is still digital. There is no loss during format conversion, provided the formats don't utilize compression. Fact: Copying CD's (if they aren't damaged physically) is a lossless procedure. You can extract CD-audio with your computer and generate a file on your hard disk. Compare this file with the file created when you extract the same audio using a $30,000 player, the resulting two files are identical. The question which naturally arises out of this paradox is: why does the $30,000 player sound better? Before we answer that question, let us first understand that at the Digital Out of a $100 CD-player we have the same 1's and 0's as we do in the $30,000 player. The only difference is in the Jitter content. Jitter only means that the data (the 1's and the 0's) is not perfectly time-aligned, but is transmitted either slightly earlier or later than it should be in the ideal case. However, this time flaw is not as great as to cause a digital error (data fallout). Now if you know that, then you must ask: so why does one CD-transport cost much more than another? Ah, Jitter. The cheap ones shake and the expensive ones don't. Well, that's true. The entire audio business of CD transports and DACs is built on the totally backward setup of the CD player containing the Master Clock and the DAC being the Slave. This results in the entire palette of innovations to lessen Jitter, starting from air drives to expensive digital cable technologies with complex math to reduce line-induced Jitter, to very carefully filtered power supplies, to all sorts of very necessary things when you want to achieve the least possible Jitter. So we have the worst possible digital scenario bringing in the most possible amount of money, because it is extremely difficult to annihilate Jitter when the CD player is the Master Clock. If you're looking for quality, this is stupid, to say the least! The whole setup should be different. As is the standard case in any pro-audio studio, it is always the playing device, the DAC, which is the Master Clock. The clock is located right next to the converter chips. That way, no line induced Jitter can appear. This clock signal is then taken from the DAC device and is used as the clock input of the signal source device, say the computer, the DAT player, or the CD player. Yes, in that setup, the CD player is receiving a more jittered clock than the DAC is, but that doesn't matter, because the DAC is doing the audio playing. When the Jittered audio signal arrives at the DAC, it is quantized into place temporally and is then played, in perfect synch with the clock oscillator, which is right next to it. But oh! In that case, you can use a $100 CD-player with a very poor power supply, a digital cable made from your average household extension cord, and still get a better sound than you'd be getting if you spent $30,000 on the best transport and digital cable! Yes, ladies and gentlemen, this is the naked, uncensored, plain truth about CD players and DACs. Their Master/Slave relationship is BACKWARDS and their prices therefore HIGH. If you don't believe this, then all you need to do is record digitally your favorite tune from a $100 CD player into your computer (provided you have a soundcard and software that doesn't add yet more lies into the equation, which is often the case, so beware!) Then borrow the most expensive CD transport you can get your hands on and repeat the experiment. The resulting sound files aren't just similar, they are identical! But the $30,000 player sounds better! How do you get them to sound the same? You only need to slave the transports to a DAC in Digital Master Mode. That's it. Identical sound, guaranteed. The least possible Jitter. The least loss.

Naim olive amps and earlier chrome bumper amps needed long lengths. According to Naim, "early Naim gear doesn't use an inductor at the output stage to prevent oscillations and relies on the speaker cable's inductance to keep the amp stable under load. The olive and chrome bumper era amps req. a minimum of 13 ft pairs of Naim's own NAC A5 cable." see also Naim FAQ. Cable inductance is not needed for the new style XS etc because such has “a different output section and Zobel circuits”, according to Naim tech support, 2024.

I'll take a guess. When you send a signal to the speaker it tries to send one back to the amp as the voice coil moves. The longer the cable the more time it takes for the counter signal to return to the amp. It should be desirable that you want the sent signal to have moved on so it's not simultaneously opposed by the counter emf. OK, I pulled this out of my butt but it seems slightly logical.

Naim recommend NAC A4 or A5 of at least 3.5m in length (both channels should have the same length). If you want to save money though, you can use Linn K20 cable (it's the same and was even made to the same spec by the same manufacturer and rebranded...until Naim found out and terminated their contract). Naim's designs made the speaker and cables an integral part of the out put circuit.

I have a Naim Nait 1 that does not have an inductor on the output and it becomes unstable without enough cable inductance or too much capacitance.

It’s because Naim doesn’t use output inductors to stabilize their amplifiers. It takes a cable that long to provide the necessary inductance. Paul, are you reading before answering?

I had the impression the capacitance and resistance of the cable is treated like a component of the amplifier, and the amplifier is voiced accordingly taking this into account.

The right answer is b) I don't have no idea.

I think somebody has amps and speakers confused with guitars, where the difference actually _can_ matter. But it only matters because you've got a very low signal level source driving a high impedance input at close to 0 current, so the cable's reactive influence on the frequency response is actually relatively significant. Even then, it's subtle. A speaker cable will have resistance, but it's a fraction of a sliver of that of the speaker itself (unless you're using line-level RCA cables on the speaker-level RCA outputs of your low-cost HiFi stack.) Reactance _is_ a thing, but if the difference in TWO METERS of cable is the threshold between a stable amp and one that is oscillating, your amp is defective.

Powered speakers have very short speaker cables running from the internal amps and the speaker drivers.

I'd almost wonder if, in addition to length, they have other specs too. Gauge, capacitance/ft. Two things that I'd suggest. 1) capacitance of the cable - will possibly have an effect as Paul suggests of high frequency roll-off. 2) Resistance - this is so minimal I don't know how much effect it might have. But, if you consider the speaker and cable as one complete system, the resistance of the cables will have an effect on the Qes of the woofers. Additional resistance will increase the Qes, thusly Qts, thusly the optimum box size for that woofer. Perhaps they are accounting for some FR profile, but (I can't recall the formula/relationship for how wire resistance affects Q) I have to imagine such a small amount of additional R of a specific cable length would be almost nothing.

Looking at the schematic for the NAP200 amplifier you'll see that there is no inductor that makes up a part of the usual Zobel network that is found in nearly all solid state amplifiers. Could it be that Naim rely on the length of the loudspeaker cables to provide the inductance of a Zobel network, and that cable needs to be at least nn feet?

Hi Paul, I've been into vinyl and hi fi now for 50+ years and bought my first "real" system at the age of 15. In all these years of buying numerous amplifiers and speakers not once in any user manual did it mention a minimum length or a specification for speaker cables. It may have said use good quality cables, but that's about it. Even hi fi dealers and distributors do not mention these specification issues when buying equipment or cables. I cannot imagine for one minute a 2 metre length will sound different to a 4 metre length (same cable) especially when the signal is travelling at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second). Isn't it a coincidence that these amps that require "specific" speaker cables, and the speaker cables themselves are manufactured/supplied by the same company.

All high end audio manufacturers have their preferred way of doing things, I`m sure some of Naims customers/followers think PS audios equipment such as the power regenerators are ridiculous. To quote Marantz`s Ken Ishiwata - "Trust your own ears"

The reason for the minimum length cable is impedance to reduce oscillation.

“HEY MY AUDIO EQUIPMENT IS NAIM BRAND!” Lol

It was always with regard to the topology of early Naim amps, and in the early years the forums had people blosing Naim amps due to funny cables. Certainly worth the homework. Two in here have already stated the actual reasons. As for lengths, we already have AES engineers with the equipment showing us we cannot hear the differences while we are listening to albums mixed by recording studios that ran hundreds of feet of cable and often no two pairs the same. The fact is in most homes no one can listen to a system with 5m of Mogami in one speaker and 3m of Mogami to the other and measure or percieve any difference at the speaker output, can they? One of my biggest regrets was years of buying matched 5m or 6m pairs of cables so half of it could double back or be folded up out of view. Just to later find out we were being conned by an industry that was flat out lying about cables and their performance. The placebo that shorter cables sound quicker is rather telling. That fat looking cables have better bass, and hence why we have people with 6 AWG cables 2.5m long talking about bass performance due to 6mm of copper conductor wrapped with various layers of dieletric and plastic mesh with alloy fittings and heatshrinks crimped to two hollow copper 4mm gold plated banana plugs going into a massive pair of gold plated brass terminals that have 2.5mm or less of OFC copper going to the crossovers or drivers. Basically zero reason to run such fat cables in a house. We need more honesty in this industry

It's possible that the crossover was designed with a small resistance in mind between the amplifier and the speaker. The minimum length may take into account an expected gauge of wire, to present this resistance. However, some setups will have longer cable lengths, than others, and it would be expected that you'd use thicker cables for the longer runs.

I also have Naim. When I was going to buy only 2 meter, he said "NO", it must be 3m something.

Some of their amps needed the cable to be part of the circuit for stability reasons. This is common knowledge.

Not sure if it’s related but I know Ethernet cables and many RF signal cables have minimum lengths because if you go under that threshold there is internal reflections that can produce noise and reduce reliability, or even in some circumstances damage equipment. That said, minimum length for the average Ethernet cable is like 3m/10’ but plenty of people use much shorter lengths and there’s no noticeable difference 99% of the time

Paul. Naim amplifiers lack an output inductor and thus rely on the speaker wires to provide the inductance. Ignoring this advice can be detrimental to the amp or speakers. Linn k20 will be an acceptable cable at a lesser price.

I indicated I a previous comment on Kenwood products that I own the complete L-07 line that they were sold originally including speaker cables. In fact these are 3 feet long The interconnect are some 20 feet long. I also have a Linn Naim system from the late 70's and can' recall a minimum lenght. I do recall however of a minimum 4.6 ft for s digital cable. Regard d

Could it be that long cables “sound different” because the speakers are wide apart enough to produce a more intense stereo effect?

Longer cables introduce resistance which will change the impedance. High frequencies need wider cable widths over long distances. velocity factor of the cable

I'm glad I found this vid. I know to avoid a naim amp if they tell me I need 20ft speaker cables

I would have thought it be down to the inductance and capacitance of the cable the greater the length of the cable the greater inductance and capacitance. So when they were making their circuitry they designed it for this type of capacitance and inductance minimum. There is a difference on the output stage as well with MOSFET the way they have them configured can't remember exactly how it's done now. That's not true Paul the length of cable doesn't necessarily if it's good cable affect the frequencies it shouldn't do

Interesting as usual Paul i have a Naim setup with 10 metre cable(,part of the deal) and the length drives me crazy! love the CD though build quality is top notch and just love the solid CD drawer with the disc put in like a record deck

Paul if you don't like B&W tweeters maybe you should test the tweeters against the ones you do like and show us why they are so bad. I have B&W speakers some with Diamond Tweeters some without. But I hear nothing wrong with my tweeters on any of these speakers. But I would love to see you compare them for us. I'm always looking to be educated on these topics.

All cables, of any length and gauge, will have LCR impacts (inductance, capacitance and resistance) on the load it is carrying... it is the fundamental laws of electronics in general and electricity in particular. Will the average person hear or able to determine those impacts? Probably not, as long as the lengths are of reasonable deployments (anything under say 50 feet). Stick with manufacturer's recommendations when possible, but also take any extremes with a grain of salt. ;)

I think an answer to this cable length question just occurred to me. If the cable is 3.3 meters long, it will allow the speaker to be moved around without damaging connectors. Seems like that is a good reason.

I knew id seen this somewhere NAIM amp design and speaker cable requirements Naim amps have no Zobel network and therefore, require a speaker cable to provide some inductance. Their own cable will do this and the recommended length is no less than 3.5 mtrs per side. This is not an unusual length and should be complied with for best results with Naim equipment. I think this apllied to older "Olive" Design Amps and using Naim speaker cable I believe NACA5. What I do know having heard many Naim based systems that if PS are sounding half as good they will be great. I heard their statement Monoblocs about a year ago and they really are amazing.

I saw a system in a nightclub designed with the amplifiers on top of the cabinets to reduce the amount of speaker cable and what they did was run a long set of rcas to the amp engineer said degradation through composite RCA cables is less than the loss through speaker cables.

Naim do not have a Zobel on the output which makes the amps very unstable with certain cables and cable length (capacitance and induction issues). This keeps the Naim fan boys buying their crap cable.

It is true, I have used one Kilometer of speaker cables which the sound was much better than using 1 foot cable.

This makes me wonder what Naim Audio think about active speakers; they usually have a short length of decent gauge _equipment_ wire between the amp output and actual drivers which wouldn't even qualify as proper "speaker cable".

Someone who claims (all?) Bowers&Wilkins speakers sound generally horrible(!) has obviously no knowledge about speakers. At best, the sound of those speakers cannot please you. And no, speakers cables must not have a minimal length. That's bullshit. They should simply not be much longer than required.

I think maybe some people prefer drinking from a 100 foot garden hose instead of directly from the faucet. They’re not wrong when they claim “it’s different”

I personaly tried 4mm (kable direkt) found it had very powerful detail, but cold sound and the bass punch wasnt there, pure copper, then tried 2.5mm had more mids but also cold and not musical , bass was better, but not as detailed and not musical also, that was QED 79 strand, went back to a pair of really old wire that I had i think is probably 1.5 mm wire copper and my systems sounds muscial again, voices seems nice, and bass is good too, not always is a better conductor better sound, the wire made such a difference I was thinking of selling my system before. I think with the minimum length, Niam know that the balance of sound will be how they intended it to be , if you ignore the logic of having more power from less resistance from a shorter length, and use the power control from you amp you might find that the ratio of balance of frequencies is effected by the wire, and some sound too harsh, the 4mm wire i tried i could hear distortion in the recording , and sounds that probably didnt need to be heard, only on a good recording it sounded good, but compared to my 1.5 mm wire it was nothing, also too much treble can sound harsh with too much detail, test wires for yourself to see, my system is, Sony FA50es, soundblaster 24bit usb external sound card, and bose 201 series 3 speakers, or sony ss85E, i also noticed where i positioned the speakers made a large difference, but non more than the wire, which i think now is more important in a setup than even the amp as in the long run i couldn't get it to sound good without the 1.5mm copper cable. The ratio and balance of sound and how harsh it is will be affected by the length and thickness of the wire. The soundblaster is better than the asus 24 bit model equivalent.

I prefer balanced interconnects and no more than 3 or 4 inches of solid core 12 awg between the (mono) amp and the speaker . This usually involves putting the amp on some kind of stand or stool to line up the terminals . My current set up uses klipschorns with Volti crossovers sitting on top of the speaker so there s room to back the amp right up to the speaker terminals .

“Im not making fun of wackiness. Just cables.”

When running in new speakers, using longer braided thick cores 3m cables can mellow the heights. Otherwise so painful in a year for the ears, so non musical sounds. When burned in, changed the cables for shorter custom lengths.

This kind of of breaks my brain, but was wonderfully explained. IMO if brand are not saying what the exact cable lengths and specific cabling, that should use to achieve peak performance, there is some voodoo'ing going on.

YOU EXCEEDED YOUR "SO" QUOTA OF THE DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To all guys who have no clue about NAIM amps, including obviously here Paul: Why do you comment on NAIMs system, instead of having a nice cup pf STFU . And thx to the guys who give us good technical explanations of engineering which takes cables and speaker impedance into consideration in their design, to get optimum sound.

it doesn't matter ..it all comes down to your hearing ability..my 84 year old ears have obviously lost some of the high frequencies but I still enjoy my vintage (most) system...

At reasonable lengths and thicknesses, speaker cables will not alter the sound. So it's either the amp or crossover that will change the sound because of the cable, and if that happens, you should return them.

" A longer speaker cable is going to slightly roll off the top end..." If it is an expensive cable, and you are worried it will roll off the top... Just don't place it at the top.

if you have a shorter cable, could you not manually add an inductor in series and capacitor in parallel to get to the same result?

According to our Naim dealer in Sudbury, Naim recommends people to put the electronics in a separate room, so Naim amps are tuned counting on the extra cable capacitance and inductance to mellow out the sound - exactly as Paul suspected.

Of course, this is true, the cable is part of the damping circuit of the system and -more important - part of the feedback circuit of the amp. E.g. A 3.5m cable 4.0mm2 has some 15mOhms. In fact, a shorter cable has less separation (resistance of some mOhms) to the point, where the amp „measures“ its (in 99,9 percent of all amps common) over-all-feedback signal to the amp-input. You might think, this is far to low to be important. You’re wrong! This is the central point of all cable discussion!!!! length, type, microphony, all of this is concerning to the topic. I even had some experience with amps, having the feedback point on the wrong place between the 2x 4 power transistors. With identical circuit and -related on the feedback point- different pcbs, one amp was just lacking of sound quality. So the feedback is more accurate measured amp-side than speaker-side with longer cable. On the speaker side, you have a complex high current RCL-load, frequency dependent and phase-shifting, dependent on moving membrane with settling and decay, which effects the measured signal a lot.

The only criterion for determining speaker cable length is their optimal speaker placement vis-a-vis the amplifier. We are only talking about length here, that's the reason why you would need any certain length.

I have B&W speakers and love them, and use quite long (potentially room spanning) cables. I don't find issues with the bright tweeters; could the longer cables be why??

That's why Naim ate a pain in the proverbial.

The speaker cable wire has capacitance and inductance - and together with the speaker, which itself has inductance and capacitance, form a resonant circuit; and the capacitance and inductance filters out part of the signal.

Great voice and cadence. Love seeing inventory, parts stock and lab setting.

Learned something about Naim amplifiers today, but not from Paul.

Short answer, call NAIM and ask them.