Keep what you've got now. Let everything burn in and settle down. After a few months - Naim is notorious for taking a while - re-visit the subject.
Even then, its very hard to beat the supplied DINs. You shouldn't use RCAs, as even the best ones degrade the sound. Naim designs the entire system to work as a single circuit, and it gets compromised when DINs aren't used. Part of the formula is star-grounding (or star-earthing as its called in many parts of the world). This in a nutshell means that all earth points are tied together to a single point. In Naim's case, that single point is the CD player. RCAs ruin this. No matter what RCA you'll try, you'll get increased noise in the system due to the nature of an RCAs construction.
Furthermore, Naim won't honor the warantee if you use different cabling other than Naim or Chord.
The Highline is VERY expensive. To my ears, not worth the increase in price over the supplied DINs. But everyone's wallet and ears are different.
If you're looking to replace some cabling, try Naim's NACA5 speaker cable if you don't have it already. Also try out their upgraded power cables if they didn't come with your gear. They cost $25 a piece.
IMO and many other's opinion, nothing beats the DINs.
Nice explanation. I actually more or less came to that conclusion last night too...after listening to AC/DC's "Back in black". I NEVER heard anything like that.... What a wonderful musicality the system produced...
The guitars came fat and smooth, the bass tight and the rhythm and the timing...unbelievable.
Then I listened to classical guitar, Mr. Stegovia, and again I was impressed with the sound...
Also, I spoke with my dealer and he confirmed that the supplied DIN is price/value-wise the best right now.
The Hi-Line can improve the system, but actually is designed for bigger units...
If you read only a little about amplifier circuits, you will soon encounter the term "ground", or "earth". "Ground" means a common reference point or potential voltage, assumed to be "zero volts". Ground is relative. That is, you could choose any point in the circuit to be "ground" and reference all other voltages to that point. For instance, if you decided to make the +400VDC supply "ground", then the connection at the other side of the power supply would be at -400V with respect to "ground". Normally, ground is chosen as the common return point for all power supplies and circuits, and for the "shield" connection of the input and output jacks. There is also a "safety ground", which is the "third" or "green" wire of the AC mains (at least, in the United States, that is). This wire is connected to the chassis for safety reasons. The circuit "ground" is also connected to the chassis, so the entire metal enclosure will be at "ground potential", which offers some shielding from radio-frequency and other electromagnetic interference.
Below are the commonly used schematic symbols for ground. The first symbol is commonly called "earth ground" and is usually used only for the chassis or safety ground connection. The second and third ground symbols are used interchangeably, although sometimes one is used for "analog" ground and the other for "digital" ground, particularly in circuits that have both analog and digital components that must have separate grounds.
You may also encounter the term "ground plane". A ground plane is simply an area of metal under a circuit which is connected to the ground potential. It usually refers to a copper pour area on a circuit board, but may also be a metal chassis area. Ground planes are used to provide low-impedance ground reference points for lowest circuit noise and for shielding purposes.
What is "star grounding"?
One of the best amplifier power supply grounding schemes is a "star" ground system, where all the local grounds for each stage are connected together, and a wire is run from that point to a single ground point on the chassis, back at the power supply ground. Even better is a two-point star, where the power supply grounds (PT center tap, first filter cap ground) and output stage grounds (output tube cathodes for fixed bias, or cathode resistors for cathode biased, and output transformer secondary ground) are connected together and to the chassis at a single point, right at the ground of the first filter capacitor. The ground of the second filter capacitor, after the choke or filter resistor, is the star ground point for the preamp stage grounds. Use a local common point for each preamp stage ground, and run a wire from this common point back to the second star point. If two stages are out of phase with each other, the can share a common local ground, but don't use more than two stages per local common ground. This concept can even be taken further, with multiple star points for various amplifier stages.
Why is it used?
The idea is to keep heavy power supply and output stage ground currents from flowing in the ground return of the low-level input stages. These ground currents can modulate the ground of the sensitive, high-gain preamp stages, and can result in hum or noise injected into the signal path. In particular, a capacitor input power supply filter can draw heavy currents for very short periods of time to recharge the filter caps at the top of each AC cycle. These currents need to be kept out of the preamp stage grounds.
A good analogy is to think of an amplifier power supply distribution as a river. All the small currents from the preamp stage feed into a larger river, which has the heavier currents from the output stage, and the still heavier currents from the power supply. You want each successive stage farther "upstream" from the power supply, so the heavy currents don't influence the smaller ones. In the case of the input jack ground, it is the farthest point upstream from the power supply, so it should be connected directly to the ground point of the first cathode resistor. If you give it an alternate path to ground through the chassis, it will be influenced by ground currents in the chassis. Think of the first stage as amplifying the difference between the signal on the grid and the signal at the ground side of that stage's cathode resistor. If you have a long path back through the chassis to get from the input jack ground to the cathode resistor ground, it can pick up all sorts of stuff along the way. Keep it short, and use quality shielded cable, with the input jack isolated from the chassis, and the shield grounded at the ground side of the cathode resistor for the first stage.
>> Keep what you've got now. Let everything burn in and settle down. After a few months - Naim is notorious for taking a while - re-visit the subject.
Good advice from Stu there.
My dealer flatly refused to sell me cables until my new Naim system (identical to yours) has been run in! He's going to come back in a month and we will test the Naim cable against Chord and see which one I prefer. Fair enough! I want to like the Naim already...
I love the Naim-system already...was just greedy/curious about "the grass greener elsewhere"...lol.
Yesterday, I had such a nice listening time...
I started with Iron Maiden's "Piece of mind". Long time ago, I remember hearing this nicely produced album on a then 2000 Deutschmarks-system called DUAL, but the source was vinyl...and I was spellbound then...
And yesterday again the spell haunted me...what a wonderful warm sound...like that on the vinyl. So nice and musical...I was sitting there mouth open...stunned.
Then I again put in AC/DC's "Back in black". And again, how musical and warm and perfect to my newbie-ears...those fat guitars on the title track...awesome.
Is it normal that the sound improves after listening for one hour?
I continued with Tool's 10.000 days...and I was blown away.
Sound can very much improve in an hour. The gear takes time to warm up. Most Naim owners leave their gear powered on constantly (doesn't mean music is constantly playing). They claim it sounds best after its been on for about 3 days.
Still I am not really sure if it is so good for the units to permantly be under voltage....
I called NAIM-Germany and they confirmed: Only switch it off when a) thunder & lightning (not Thin Lizzy, though, LOL) b) one leaves the house for a longer period of time.
Anyway, if the company itself says "leave it on" and I have 5 years warranty (excluding my stupidity), I guess I just obey and smile fatly....
I have used the Anthem 2 in Naim systems. I prefer the standard Naim so-called lavender interconnect. Really good business - not!
I have used Isotek, Chord, Nordost power cables to replace those useless looking standard mains leads. I prefer the standard Naim mains leads. More really good business - NOT!
Naim's HiLine was not designed just for the higher end stuff and it might be something to consider in the far future. I like what it does but it's a big spend considering the cost of the system and one wonders if there is another way of improving it that is better.
There is a new development coming from Naim that is a direct evolution of the HiLine interconnect. As you know, the HiLine is based on the concept of decoupling the plug from the pins in order to allow them to seat themselves best in a socket. Well, Naim are introducing new mains cables that do the same sort of thing with the IEC plug and the mains plug. It's very expensive of course (£395) so it's not for everyone, but it is a new development which is causing a big shudder in the Naim world. So next I expect to see Naim improve their power supply interconnects and then maybe the NACA5.
The thing is, what you have is such a good sound I don't see the point in making any changes. You should be sitting back with a nice drink and enjoying it rather than looking for ways to improve it.
On the subject of star earthing, Naim is just one of many who use star earthing in their kit. In Naim's case they do one thing extra. When a Naim CD player is used in conjunction with a Naim amplifier, the whole system star earths to the CD player, so in effect, both the amplifier and CD player circuits are star earthed together which should have benefits for noise (although I don't know that this has been quantified).
