Interestingly there’s a noticeable lack of feedback on SQ?
They can’t stop listening.
If I were wanting to judge SQ I’d be waiting a week or more for the units to run in before demoing.
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Yeah, chopping it out quick because the far cheaper 300 series walks all over it!
Well maybe 
or more likely looking to invest in demo kit that will achieve more sales (understandably)? I would’t like to suggest any prior knowledge of 500 update yet , obviously.
I also notice a number of ex demo type 300DR’s becoming more prevalent on the site previously mentioned.
An update to the 500 series seems inevitable in time, but I imagine it’s still a few years away. Naim is still a relatively small company and R&D resources must have been stretched getting the 2 and 300 series over the line. Plus there’s possibly a Statement streamer to come first (possibly) which might then inform the next gen ND555?
I’ll be interested to hear some of the new kit. I wonder how the New Classic/Statement sound will sound to me. Looking forward to people’s impressions coming through.
Apolgies Nigel. My distraction has been wrong here.
I can’t imagine that Naim can do better than Nd555 if they keep the same Nos dac.
It should be something really different I think.
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I agree! That new approach is what I’m expecting from the new Statement streamer. But let me not divert the 300 thread!
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Nope, not me. Tried the 300s, wonderful as it should be, but for me, still hasn’t outperformed my (semi) 500s
Given that the chip being used in ND555 has ceased production, most likely the new product will have different DAC
Is it only me that suspects the DR range is being discontinued?
I think that it ceased production since a long time now. I hope that the new dac chips will still give the Naim signature sound. Probably a difficult task.
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I think we will see an FPGA type (like Chord and Linn) in either a Statement streamer or as ND555 replacement. It would be very difficult to get a conventional dac significantly better than the ND555 imo. They have an almost constant recruitment on the website for FPGA software engineers?
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Maybe they could recruit Ted Smith, who programmed the PS Audio dac?
He seems like an original thinker and experimenter, and he likes HiFi.
IIRC he used to work at a big tech firm for many years before that.
And I think the first test is on how good the NC’s DAC.
I wonder if the design would be outsourced……Rob Watt does the Chord designs, but i think he has his own company, so yes a gun for hire might be the case.
It’s the same dac chip. And same streaming board.