Naim's new power lead - addressing the controversy
Hullabaloos seem to be the flavour of the month, and not long after the ‘AudioWorks affair’ we now have ‘Naimgate’.
At the recent Sound & Vision Manchester hi-fi show, Naim audio, apart from releasing their brand new (and excellent) phono stage, the Superline, which I will be mentioning separately along with the rest of the system they demonstrated when I review the show itself shortly, also had the 'audacity' (yes that’s how some view it!) to release a brand new power cable complete with specially designed 13A mains plug and IEC connector.
Howls of derision are occurring on other forums where dyed-in-the-wool ‘Naimees’, brought up in the true ‘flat-earth’ tradition, are accusing Naim of selling their souls to the devil (although one particular ‘devil’, somewhat uninitiated in matters of hi-fi, seems would no sooner buy the new power cable than he would embrace Creationism). These guys are crying that Naim were once the bastions of non-tweakery – the company never used to believe in ‘fancy’ cables or interconnect leads, as the cables provided were simple, ‘adequate’ for the job, and included with equipment.
The last bit of course is true, although Naim have always been aware of the importance of good quality cables designed to get the most from their equipment - indeed much time and effort is spent testing the cables that customers are supplied with. These are auditioned by ear and hand selected for best performance. The rest of the moaning above by the faithful is merely poor factual awareness clouded in nostalgia.
Well time has moved on – Naim believe they are a progressive minded company and have now taken a step further in their product development. Following on from the success of the Hi-line interconnect lead they have now designed their own brand new power cable. So to the faithful I say dry your eyes and wake up to the new world, this is 2008 not 1998!
Steve and me were both present at one of the closed demo sessions Naim held throughout the Sunday of the show and were treated to a demonstration by Mark from Naim who was most informative and knowledgeable throughout. I’m not going to enter into great detail describing the minutiae of what I heard as that is not particularly relevant to the point I’m making. However suffice to say that substituting the new power cable for the ‘Hydra’ flying lead powering the PSU for the CDS555 CDP brought about a significant and to me easily heard improvement originating I suspect from a perceived reduction in the noise floor of the system demonstrated, which I’m almost certain under the right circumstances could be measured.
So why could this new power lead be better than the old one and thus considered a viable upgrade?
Many will of course say that mains cable is mains cable, and in an electrical sense this is certainly true, however those bleating about Naim ‘selling out’ and embracing the sensibilities of the ‘foo-foo’ merchants are concentrating on one area: the cable itself and forgetting where most of the R&D has been undertaken – in the design of the mains plug and IEC connector. A power cable is not just a length of wire! Having seen both of these items I can confirm that it’s obvious a lot of work has gone into their design, particularly with regard to decoupling, and no doubt some of this would have been expensive to undertake, especially gaining the required safety approval certificate from the authorities. Both items are also quite heavy and made from high quality materials – this is obviously no bog standard mass-produced ‘kettle lead’.
It has long been my opinion that the plugs and connectors are more important on a cable (mains lead or interconnect) than the wire itself. Of particular importance I feel is the integrity of the mechanical connection presented to the equipment or wall socket/power strip and how microphonic is the whole assembly, including that of the sockets on the equipment. I believe that, similar to with equipment supports, vibration, both source-derived at plugs and sockets, and airborne, pollutes the musical signal so therefore must be prevented from entering the chain at source. All this is of course entirely subjective but I feel that it could be measured with the right apparatus. Naim’s solution is to decouple the plugs from their relevant sockets as far as possible and judging purely by listening to the results achieved it seems to be very effective.
If we continue to concentrate on the effect of the plugs and IEC connectors used and the integrity of the mechanical connection on the cable, as well as the (‘harmful’) transferral of vibration described above, as being largely, or almost entirely, responsible for why some power cables might sound different from each other (although I personally think there’s a little bit more to it than that) and Naim have created an effective solution to that problem, then why shouldn’t their new power cable be an upgrade from the bog standard power cables they used before which address none of those issues?
I’m not saying that this is indisputably the case – I’m certainly not in a position to do so – but it seems to me like a reasonable theory and one that should be provable if someone could come up with the right measurements to facilitate meaningful experiments. Certainly in a subjective sense what I heard at the show was significant enough to suggest that the upgrade obtained by changing to the new power lead is indeed very worthwhile.
Looking briefly at the wire itself used, and yes it’s a totally different type to what was used before on the old power cables, it has a woven construction, which is a process known to help remove the effects of RFI and EMI mains-borne interference. It is also of a heavier gauge and amperage rating to the old wire used in the previous power cables, which together in itself could be sufficient reason why the new power cables improve sound quality so significantly. I don’t think this aspect of their design should be overlooked. One last thing to consider is it's a well known fact that lowering the impedance on the mains supply always results in improved sound quality. Poor connections between plugs and sockets has the effect of raising the impedance, so in the case of Naim's new power cable, it could be that the decoupling system used has the simple effect of ensuring a better connection and thus lowers the impedance on the mains 'signal' supplied to the equipment. Again, this effect should be measurable.
And so to the price…
There is of course a big hoo-hah amongst the faithful regarding the cost of these new leads - £395 each, but consider this: what if I said that the improvement gained was as significant and worthwhile as, say, adding a Supercap, and I’ve got plenty of experience of using Naim equipment to know what I’m taking about by making that statement, would it be considered expensive then? I can tell you that the difference the new power cable made for example when added to the CDS555’s PSU was nearly as significant as Mark changing from driving the SL2 speakers passively to actively – and no I’m not kidding. Also £395 for an obviously heavily researched and well-designed and built product is not expensive when compared to similar offerings from established cable specialists such as Siltech, Transparent, Nordost, etc. Indeed in comparison to power cables offered from some of those manufacturers Naim’s new power cable is a veritable bargain!
I suppose if I had to select which upgrade to choose and someone else was paying for it then I would go for the active speaker upgrade demonstrated at the show, but on a sound-per-pound basis the new power cable wins easily. I would go as far to say that if I still used a Naim system I’d spend the money first on upgrading my existing power cables throughout before I considered a component upgrade, such are the fundamental improvements the new power cables bring to the presentation of a Naim system and the more effective way music is communicated and enjoyed.
Some food for thought perhaps for the cynics and old diehards to consider elsewhere…
Other opinions on this appreciated!
Marco.
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Originally Posted by Marco
