Yes, that’s the one. There is also the V1, which Naim designed specifically for use with a computer via USB. It’s not quite in the same league as the NDAC, but it’s still a very capable DAC and includes a headphone amp. Possibly better suited to your requirements.
Note that both if these DACs are now discontinued but there are used ones around if you search for them.
When you say front end, do you mean the source, the CD player or TT?
Whatever is providing the digital input to the DAC.
Thanks, Fatcat.
Another great used option with the USB input is the original Hugo TT. Not as clinical as the newer Chord Dacs.
I’m shocked at how good the Hugo TT is with the PulseMini I have
The Denafrips Enyo/Ares II integrates well with Naim soundwise. It is an R2R-DAC.
There is also the RME ADI-2 DAC fs. Slightly diff sound (delta-sigma DAC) but it has parametric EQ that can be used to filter out room resonances when playing via the DAC.
Both have USB-input, works fine with MacBook, half-size and cost around EUR/UKP 1000-1100.
Perhaps the latest flavor of the year, the Eversolo DMP-A6 (basic or master edition). It is a DAC plus streaming. Worth checking out imo.
Intrested to know why not the dac V1?
The original Naim DAC is a better performer.
I love my V1 but imo it needs a (much) better source than a PC. More current DAC’s may be more agnostic in that regard.
I agree. My V1 sounded pretty good when fed with a very reasonable Antipodes server/streamer/power supply combo. At new prices I think you could do better out of China with usb friendly dacs, but perhaps not at second hand prices.
There are 2 things that made a very noticable difference and improved significantly the sound of my V1, first I swapped the usb cable I was using in the beginning (Vertere) for an optic one, QED Quartz, the usb was very noisy out of my macbook pro, now with the optic connection, which my MB Pro 2015 supports, the noise has entiterely dissapeared. I also changed the power cable, which has IEC and shuko plugs identical to the Naim Powerline, that made a huge difference too.
I don’t entirely agree with some comments that it needs a better source than a pc/mac, V1 was specifiacally designed as a desktop silutuon and as such it is hard to beat, especially with some small tweaks. Certainly it will benefit from a better source, but most dacs will, including the nDac. At current prices V1 is a steal.
Schiit Bifrost 2/64 could be a decent option for a modern DAC with a proprietary USB input included at £800. The “multibit” approach of Schiit is similar to nDAC in some ways, so I would expect a nice sound coming out of it, even though I’ve never had the chance to try one.
Sold mine for 2900 EUR after 6 months for sale with more or less no one interested. Mint condition 2018. I believe those prices is not selling (4800-5000EUR). It’s mostly retail doing their best to get something back… Reality is different. I would make an offer if they as I believe have been for sale for couple of months or more.
Some interesting observations there regarding the optical input. I’m using USB as that’s always been considered the optimal input by Naim, but I’m using what many consider an NDS/NDX level of streamer, the fine Sonore opticalRendu with an opticalModule, and Sonore’s custom built power supply (and a T.P. on the oM), with a Shunyata USB cable. I tried a Shunyata power cable on the V1 and thought it horrible (it’s on the ps for the oR now), and for now I have a Tibia with upgraded plug.
And I agree, the V1 is a steal. I actually bought mine in 2015 barely used for $1700, and that was a steal then.
That’s 2 different levels of streamer.
Exactly this is the reason I went with the usb connection initially, the Audiophilleo usb implementation was considered superior at the time DAC V1 was launched and it was so needed at the time for its ease of use with pc/macs. But it is noisy, I changed 2 usb cables (good ones) and there was noise introduced still into the dac.
Finally I gave up and went for the optical connection just to see whether there was any improvement, and even with a cheap optical cable there was no noise at all, as expected actually, there is no electrical connection via optical. I haven’t noticed any SQ degradation when going from usb to optical, to me sound is identical with both, just with with latter there is no noise.
I would have said that Naim’s preferred digital connection type is Ethernet, followed by electrical SPDIF. The V1 is the only device on which they offer USB, to cater for the Mac&DAC type option that used to be popular. That makes it something of an outlier in the Naim world, albeit it a good one.
Yeah I wouldn’t put Ethernet and SPDIF/TOSLINK in the same buckets … they are quite different and different things.
Ethernet is just a digital transport medium, like CD, DVD or Blu-ray or wifi that transports encoded and structured audio data that has yet to be extracted, recovered and rendered.
SPDIF or TOSLINK for audio is a specific framed data stream format to convey pre rendered PCM or DSD encoded in PCM frames. This is closer to a DAC rather than Streamer input.
Ie you can use Ethernet / wifi → streamer renderer → SPDIF/TOSLINK → DAC.
Now of course Naim streamers give you the opportunity to render directly to internal DAC from Ethernet/wifi, or change to a configuration that renders Ethernet/SPDIF to a SPDIF stream.
Now interestingly USB can act as either… other than for the V1 Naim have used USB as a structured media interface… ie reading usb memory sticks, iOS devices and the like, and with the v1 used USB as a pre rendered pcm stream format.
I agree, and the NDAC is significantly enhanced further with an additional power supply.
For several years I used an NDAC with a none DR 555PS (I realise possibly rare now) … and it was a very enjoyable and musical setup for most types of music.