Ah, the Naim Fraim. Pretty, functional, allegedly effective and far from inexpensive. But hey, if Naim make it, it must be best. This might sound silly, but fresh from having to swallow our pride over cables (see breaking the code) we really wanted to rebel against this one! We would not do this simply on a point of principal, of course, so we did listen.

Not wishing to overdo it (OK I guess that we were not hugely 'liquid' at the time), we ordered just a base and a single level. Our comparison was with the (then) only Naim integrated amplifier, the Nait 5i and with it's most rational partner, the CD5x.

Quite simply, the Something Solid XF rack won hands down. It had less 'hash' timed better, just sounded more natural. Wow. We might make less money not selling Fraims, but we can at least be honest, earnest . . . and earn respect for not simply falling in line.

After borrowing a stack of Fraim for the 500 series kit at that year's hi-fi fetishist's convention, (people would have expected nothing less) we started to pick up on some interesting pieces of synergy, not least with standard Naim cabling.

On further testing we established that the CD 555 really liked the Fraim. It would almost certainly have been designed on it, of course so this makes sense. We finally 'cracked' and bought some more levels, placed a CDX2, NAC202, NAP200 on it and re - ran our earlier experiment. It promptly wiped the floor with the Something Solid stand!

The gains were in the traditional areas of more effortless dynamics, cleaner bass, less glare, more clarity more addictive timing. Amazingly, the very areas where the XR seems to suit the 5 series kit.

Our own demo stack(s) are in maple with black anodised uprights. And it looks cool too.

OK, so it's expensive. If you are using Naim gear above 5 series (or maybe plan on progressing in that direction) it is still a "no brainer".

Sorry and all that, but sometimes it's simpler just to believe.

New arrival of 2011 on the support front was the Naim Fraim Lite.

Hideous name aside, it does exactly what you would expect, performing slightly less well than the ‘full fat’ version of Fraim for quite a lot less money. The ironic sales result has been to sell more of the ‘proper’ stuff!

The most interesting comparison for us was when placing a middling Naim system on a few levels of Isoblue: Results were very good, musical, dynamic and spirited. Transferred to the Fraim Lite and it became cleaner, more refined, definitely more musical and compelling. Then onto the good ‘ole full Fraim and got pretty much the same improvements all over again.

Quite how they have engineered something to inhabit the sonic high-to-middle ground, I have no idea, but this is exactly where it resides. You can upgrade by adding the ball and cups and glass shelves from the full Fraim and, in this respect, it makes tremendous sense.

Results with other electronics brands may vary. As with Fraim, uprights can be black or silver, wood choice is cherry, natural ash or black ash.

The Naim Power-line is Naim Audio's new and first ever high end mains cable. It comes as standard with all 500 series 'reference' components, well, at least with ones that have a mains feed. As with the Hi-Line interconnect that comes as part of the deal with the CD555, it is also intended as an upgrade across the board. It costs £390 per two metre lead.

And here we go with another Naim product that has been in the offing for so long we'd almost given up hope. In this instance, we have had constant reminder's of its abilities on various listening opportunities since March 2008. Saturday 11th October is in my diary because it's the very first time I've been able to hear the effects on home turf of a full set of them. A total of six are in use, one feeding the mains distribution block and one each for the CD555, NAC 552, NAP500, Supercap (for the phono stage) and HDX.

They work too (phew). I mean really work, the improvements are quite dramatic. It's the three 'r's : refinement, resolution, realism. Tonality is improved, with everything sounding just nicer. They present the music with greater scale, imaging and yet maintain, or even improve, on the strengths of timing and dynamics. It's win / win, wallet drain excepted.

Seasoned Signals watchers will know that we've been here before, of course. Adding oodles of even more expensive Nordost mains leads was a party trick demo with the Neat MF7 loudspeakers. With Focal speakers, the high end Music Works are the thing, although you might decide to pass on them when it comes to the NAP500. With Naim's own speakers, in this case the SL2, and some others, Kudos for one, these funky mains strategies can do more harm than good. This is the first 'serious' mains lead that I've heard actually improve this all-Naim system.

Hands-on over the past few months has shown the Power-line to be extremely consistent. In fact it has proved to be very beneficial in some completely non-Naim systems. Weird huh?

And all the 'wobbly' references?. There will be plenty of sceptics out there who find it hard to accept Naims assertion that the key to this cable is de-coupling from micro vibrations and that the expensive custom-designed alloy connectors with suspension, rather akin to the system used on the Hi-Line audio interconnect can do anything remotely worthwhile. If you simply want to listen to the results, give us a call. We are happy to arrange for home trial or even good old-fashioned sale or return.

OK, so putting a £450 lead on a Nait 5i is going too far. Maybe. But it is a no-brainer with a CD5x/122x/150x. Or a NAIT XS. In fact with one of these smaller systems we tried a little experiment. Standard mains fed from the wall through a twin-outlet unswitched Crabtree socket versus two Power-lines. BIG STEP.

Then another single Power-line to a Wireworld block and two more Power-lines to the amp and CD. Even better. Makes no sense. But my goodness it works. Welcome to the parallel universe!

I'll quote a customer:

"In a word - Phenomenal. More than I expected. Initially, one PL in my spare spur socket (on the 555) was a clear upgrade, but .....................  next day - still just one PL on the 555, but from the WireWorld D block - Wow! - lift off. Gobsmacking lifting of veils. So .................. now time for the PLs on the 552 and 500 in one move. Nowhere near as dramatic as the single PL, but about half as much again. So my finding is that the first PL (on whatever) is a great upgrade if you can only afford to buy one at a time.

I'd like to keep the three if I can . . . "

I should add that he ended up with four!