I thought the original streamers were dreadful to be honest. Nothing musical until the NDS and attempts to sell me an NDX to replace my CDX2 foundered completely when I insisted on a side by side demo. The idea they were even remotely comparable went out the window very quickly. My dealers face was a picture.
The new generation are a different beast. I’ve heard all three at demos by Naim and on various peoples homes and via demos at two different dealers. The lower of the three has been, in my view, somewhat over-sold as a great stripped down product. It simply sounds okay to me but nothing more. The top is way out of my league but I can’t say I would rave about it as the last word in anything. It’s a clear step up from the NDX2 (as you would hope) but the NDX2 does a lot of things right and is a nice balance of functions. Having heard it in five different contexts though I have to say that my attention consistently drifted. When my CDX2 was on song that simply never happened. It’s interesting that lots of users praise the lower streamer as a sweet spot but dealers find the NDX2 an easier sell.
The whole screen angle is also over-sold. It’s a non-essential addition for a lot of money. Yes, some people swear by it but so what. From my perspective it’s non-essential in that my vision is not good enough to see it unless I’m right next to it and that will increasingly be the case as users get older. It offers a pretty picture and minimal information but there’s nothing there I can’t better access sat down with my iPad. More to the point, the biggest gain with streaming is to reduce the thing which plays music to the thing in your hand. A screen on the box goes wholly against that. In many ways it would have been ideal but it loses out precisely because you do appear to be paying over the odds for a screen and both the screen less box and the NDX2 lose out in head to head comparisons with Innuos and Chord.
That said if I could have gotten away with a Qutest I would have. Chord products are butt ugly and the Qutest is at least more discreet than a fully lit TT2 in AMP mode. I also use a limited amount of the functionality of the TT2 as I’ve no need for headphone amp so it could not unreasonably be argued that I have over spent on the DAC. Fortunately that’s not what it feels like.
If you want a good reliable valve amp that’s easy to use and set up try icon audio they are brilliant I’ve had the 40 and wish I still had it, if I ever come into money again I’d buy one strait away with out a thought about it
I spent ages fiddling with the volume when I had my 282, found it varied depending on the recording and it drove me mad. It was one of the reasons I asked Doug Brady to audition it straight I to a power amp. Probably the best thing I’ve done in hifi
In my +/- 26 square metres room, with 202-200DR (with Napsc and without hi-cap) and Harbeth speakers (86dB sensitivity) placed on the long side, I usually put the Chord TT2 in amp mode at -12L in order to use the volume pot of 202 between 8 and 9 am (depending of the listening moment of the day/night, music and recording).
Behave. This thread us going to live until my integrated is in place. At least a year away financial;y thanks to other commitments. Only a pandemic would I have gotten away with prioritising a new source ahead of a major bathroom repair.
@frenchrooster I do indeed have a list. @T-elmi it will definitely involve nothing from any of those three. My speakers are 101db/W so fairly efficient On that basis things like Naim are out. Not sure about the other two but they’re not currently on my list.
Of course my list is currently meaningless until dealers open and I have enough money. Happy to share for fun discussion though and, I am really happy to say, music has very much become fun again.
Without sounding nasty or patronising one thing this thread has taught me is to keep things simple
To be honest not just this thread but a fair few to me it looks like the bigger the box count the more leads there are the more power cords the more to go wrong not only box count wise but matching wise from one component to another
It’s taught me a lot reading through it but it’s shame that Mike has had so much frustration and pain just because off some electrical components because that’s all they are
It’s as though they have took over your life and now rule you witch is no fun at all
Just my thoughts and not ment to upset or anything else
In all seriousness I realised that no matter how high the quality of components it remains the case that more boxes means more variables and thus when an issue occurs it becomes painful. Given the quality of integrated amps nowadays I’ve no hesitation in paging a decent 4 figure sum in order to achieve a nice combination of decent sound quality allied to simplicity.
On that basis things like Naim are out. Not sure about the other two but they’re not currently on my list.