Once you have plunged your nose into the field of Naim Hi-Fi equipment, sooner or later you would find out the huge amount of writing about the infamous Din plugs that Naim uses compared with regular RCA plugs or balanced XLR plugs that most other audio equipment uses. Although the latest Naim products also include a few connections with RCA plugs, Din remains in all of their equipments and every time you purchase a Naim component, a very nice high end Din to Din interconnect cable costing around US$100 is included free of charge.
Sonically speaking, I don’t care about the type of connecters, just the end resulting sound which sounded quite good anyway; so more importantly then, I am tired of forever searching the right interconnect or speaker cables to “match” my Hi-Fi equipment. I get a headache every time I look at the back of my Hi-Fi system or my computer system.
The best thing about Din is that a single run consists of both left and right channels. So there is only one interconnect cable as opposed to two for each component. Immediately you cut the number of cables by 1/2. Moreover, it is free of charge if you purchase all Naim components. For connecting with regular non-Naim components, a Din to RCA cable from Naim is also available at about US$100. The disadvantage with Din-RCA over Din-Din however is that you would lose the common ground in the signal path, but it is also just a single run with the split RCA connecters at the end.
While I had to purchase a few Din to RCA cables with my Nait 5, I am quite willing to do so for now since the Nait 5 blew the doors off my 12 year old Audio Research LS2/Aragon 2004 mkII combo right out of the box at a fraction of what the ARC/Aragon set cost! Switching back from Din-RCA to Din-Din for my Nat 02 FM Tuner improved the sound and suppressed some background noise slightly. I could also sell off some of my more expensive RCA-RCA interconnects to cover the costs of the Din-RCA cables, while future purchase of Naim components would not need to buy more interconnects.
One may argue then one cannot take advantage of some of the “better” interconnects; I wonder though, what on earth for when the original already sounds very good and I wouldn’t have to dish out several hundred US$ or even more only to find out they sounded slightly different and not necessarily better.
I had since also bought the Naim 3.5m-a-side speaker cable to replace my 13 year old US$350 Space and Time TFA Return. Again, at a mere US100 for the 7m terminated run already improved the sound quite a bit.
So, anyone that is tired of matching equipments and cables and just want to sit down and enjoy the music for a change, a full set of Naim with its speaker cable is all one would need.
One other note – the floor standing Naim speakers are designed to be set right off the wall, so one does not need to set them 1/3 the length of the room and destroy the rest of one’s room living settings. Again, with the least expensive model the Intro 2 at a mere US$1400 for a pair of decent floor standing full sonic range speakers it’s much easier on anyone’s wallet. Too bad I don’t have room for floor standing speakers, but the Sonus Faber Minima Amator sounds very good still.
Power cables then you ask? Save your money for a better amp or a Naim external power supply or anything else in life that you or your family may want. The original Naim power cable is already a respectable one, and any more one would need through the powerline, an external power supply takes care of that and do a much better job than just an overpriced cable.
WhaUSay?!