WHAT IS GOING ON WITH THOSE DIN CONNECTIONS? YOU WANT TO
STRESS YOUR INDIVIDUALISM OR WHAT?


Date: September 23, 1998 05:49 AM 
Author: julian vereker 
Subject: DIN/RCA 

Hugues Benoit wrote: "Regarding DIN connectors, why on earth do
all the manufacturers except Naim of course do use RCA connectors?
Are they all wrong?"

I suspect that they are bowing to market pressure from customers
and/or dealers who want to use/sell expensive interconnect cables
- there maybe many other reasons, but none in my experience are
concerned with the quality of music reproduction.

julian 



Date: January 09, 1999 12:59 AM 
Author: Andrej Pershin (s56lub@lea.hamradio.si) 
Subject: Heresy 

Caracteristic impedance? 

That's nonsense! BNC of course, but not DIN !!! DIN is not even
symmetrical. Pin for the left chanel have 4 times higher caracteristical
impedance then pin for the right chanel. So one chanel should sound
better than the other.

What about that????? 

Andrej 

                                         

Date: January 09, 1999 04:26 PM 
Author: julian vereker 
Subject: DIN 

Andrej, So sorry, but you are mistaken. 

The charateristic impedance of a DIN is mostly defined by the
spacing between the pin and the surrounding screen of the plug
body. (and of course the dielectric constant)

julian 




OK, NOW I UNDERSTAND THE REASONS FOR USING DIN CONNECTIONS.
BUT WHY YOU ARE USING THOSE BNCS FOR HOOKING UP A TURNTABLE???
NO ONE ELSE IS USING IT! 


Date: April 22, 1998 03:47 PM 
Author: julian vereker 
Subject: BNCs 

The BNCs are better than RCAs for the phono inputs, and where the
signals and grounds are separate they are as good as DINs, but DINs
are better where the ground is common as it is between most bits
of electronic equipment.

[...]

julian 




HMM, I THINK I'VE FOUND INACCURACY IN YOUR EXPLANATIONS. IF BNC
CONNECTIONS ARE BETTER THAN CLASSIC RCA WHY SOME OF YOUR PRODUCT
LINE (NAIT3 AND NAC92) IS USING RCA???


Date: June 29, 1999 04:37 PM 
Author: julian vereker 
Subject: BNCs v RCAs 

The 92 was originally designed with BNCs on the grounds that they
offer superior performance over RCAs - the prototypes worked
perfectly.

However the sales guys at Naim said that unless we wanted near zero
sales for the 'slimline' range, we had better fit RCA connectors.

We did, but the performance was a serious downgrade and one of the
fixes for the the noise problem was to put a loop on the PCB as a
sort of hum-bucking coil - life's a bit of a compromise.

We get so much adverse stuff written in the mags concerning our
choice of connectors and many potential customers seem to get
frustrated by the fact that they can't use RCA terminated interconnects,
but here is the evidence of the struggle to get the b****** things
to work (in our terms) - and still the BNC version of the board
was better without any artifacts.

julian 

PS No, you can't buy the BNC version. 




I'VE NOTICED THAT SOME OF HI-FI MANUFACTURES USE XLR CONNECTIONS.
I NOTICED ALSO THAT SOME OF NAIM AMPLIFIERS HAVE SUCH SOCKETS.
IS THE XLR BETTER THAN ACCLAIMED DIN?
WHY YOUR MONO 135 HAS TWO XLRS?? THAT LOOKS STRANGE FOR ME.


Date: June 17, 1998 01:37 AM 
Author: julian vereker 
Subject: 135 sockets 

Jawed said "The reason, so far as I can make out, is that Naim was
forced to use a 3-pin socket on the back of the 135 (and the 250)
because European safety regulations prevent the use of a 4-pin DIN
(which the smaller power amps have)."

The reason is more historical than this. Back in the early '70s
when vat was 8% on some things and 25% on others, a pro amp was
defined as over 100 watts and with professional connectors (XLRs)
and was rated at 8% vat. So we fitted XLR input and mains sockets
on the 250 to avoid the higher rate vat. The mains socket got
changed when the higher rate was removed but the XLR remained on
the 250 and was used on the 135 for compatibility.

When the left and right interconnects were introduced, we could
have changed the 135s to a single socket, I can't remember why we
didn't (haven't), but the cost of re-tooling the chassis and label
probably wasn't justified.

julian 




HMM. YOUR DIN CONNECTORS HAVE LOCKING RINGS AND MY FRIEND TOLD ME NOT
TO LOCK THEM - HE SAYS THAT THIS IMPROVE SOUND!


Date: July 04, 1999 03:03 PM
Author: julian vereker
Subject: locking rings

There is a school of thought that holds that loosening the locking
rings on the DIN plugs sounds better - its an easy enough thing to try
for yourself.

I suspect that the results obtained will differ depending on what the
equipment is mounted on.

However some people like the locking rings since they prevent their
children pulling the interconnects out unexpectedly.

julian