The great bi-amp test pt 2.

ok,
to recap:
my 2 chanel kit is all naim electronics, cd5 / hicap, nait 5 / flatcap, nap 250 into b&w cdm 7nt speakers.
i'd already got a useful increase in performance from replacing the stock jumpers on my 7's with some odd bits of wire i had lying around.
as the nait is an integrated amp i've always said i'd try out a bi-amp setup but have only jsut got round to giving it a go.

i bought some cheap qed cable and for the past 2 weeks have been listening to the nait on treble and the nap 250 on mid and bass.

first impressions were of a lot more detail however after a week i'd gotten used to the sound and what seemed like detail is in fact harshness. now this may be down to the qed wire - it's astonishingly cheap stuff after all, however i didn't much like what was going on with the bass which seemed very loose and quiet! - almost the exact opposite of what i would have expected, although i suspect a room interaction or 2 to be the real culprit as it worked itself into a booming tizzy on certain bits of music. the midrange however was slightly better than the origional single amp solution. imaging was amazing though a very wide soundstage with a lot of depth too. i sit about 20 feet away from my speakers and sound was coming from all over the room. now this kind of thing isn;t necessarily my cup of tea but it was fun for a while.
overall i think i prefer the origional jumpers and single amping for living with every day.

i was going to try the nait on bass and the nap 250 on treble however the nait on it's own was a bit light and uncontrolled in the bass department, which adding the 250 solved nicely thankyou so i'll probably not try that particular configuration. but who knows if i get bored or curiosity gets the better of me i will.

this afternoon i have chopped up one of the qued cables and made double run jumpers (i.e. 2 runs of cable jumpering 1 terminal kind of bi-wired jumpers) and so far things seem to sound ok but i'll give it another fortnight before reporting on this.

next up is butchering some chord odyssey 2 in a similar manner and seeing what that sounds like. i may also see if i can get some kimber jumpers at the show.

it seems then that the recieved wisdom on naim is correct (at least in the system i tried and with my room etc.) i.e. 1 better amp is better than 2 lesser ones. i know but i have to prove these things to myself.

cheers


julian

 

Always best to test the advised wisdom, at least then you can talk knowlegably on the sunbject
Its good to see some-one experimenting to find out for themselves, instead of spouting what they hear/read as if its gospel.

good call mate

 

Nice review, Julian - thanks.

Slightly off topic but regarding the jumpers you mention - will any sort of speaker lead do and do you just wrap the exposed ends around the binding posts at the rear of the speakers?

Cheers,

Goomer.

 

the binding posts on the rear of the speakers have a screw securing bit on them.
the post itself has a hole in the end (for a banana plug) and a hole across the middle which is where i poked the jumper wire and then tightened up the securing screw.
as to the type of wire i'm not sure yet. the origional jumpers were flat pieces of gold plated brass and sounded crap. i then tried some tandy flat cable which i've had for over a decade which was an improvement over the origional jumpers. the qed was about 3ppm and is quite thin so i thought i'd double it up to see what happens. next to try is the odyssey whcih is silver plated copper. kimber is braided. as to which sounds the best, it's too early to tell but the double qed has detail without harshness. whereas the tandy had less detail without harshness and biamping had harshness and detail.
once i've decided which jumper wire is best to go with i'll get some spade terminations but on it and live with it.
cheers


julian

 

Julian,

Are you using NACA5 or wire with similar capacitance and impedance characteristics on the 250? I don't think that the QED will be doing the stability of your nait any favours at all and is probably responsible for the harshness that you're hearing.

I'm sure you're aware that naim amps need to use NACA5 (or DNM) cable because the output stages do not have a zobel network on them.

reg

 

i use naca 5 on the 250 and the qed on the nait. to be honest i've tried a number of cables on the nait - qed, chord, naim, jvc and tandy and they've all sounded pretty similar the naim stuff is the best i've yet tried but differences are not night and day.
cheers

julian

 

Thanks, Julian, for the info - let us know how it goes and what your final choice is.

All the best

Goomer.