I use a Sonore bridge as part of an Audiostore music server and I’m very happy with it. I’ve had it just over 6 months.
I also use a Raspberry Pi with a Hifiberry HAT into a Unitiqute; I’ve not had a problem with it yet. It’s been running about a month.
Since the weekend, I’ve been running LMS 2 UPnP software on another RPi. This has been more problematic. It is temperamental, probably because of my programming skills. One issue was that the ownership of files was mixed up; that was rectified, but now there is an intermittent ‘broken pipe’ error. This means the music just stops. Rerunning the LMS2UPnP software starts things up again. Updating the software may have fixed the issue. Oh well it hasn’t.
To my ears the software solution sounds as Nearly good as the hardware solution on the NDS, if a little ‘bright’. Using Roon it’s very easy to compare the two; the two screen shots below compare the signal paths. The TV room is the NDS fed by Audiostore music server with Sonore Bridge.
I think the RPi with Hifiberry is equivalent to the Sonore option. Each connects to a single endpoint, e.g. NDS or Unitiqute.
The LMS2UPnP on RPi permits multiple endpoints, although only one may be active at any one time.
Been using SonoreUPnP with NDS for over 20 months on the OS2.5 software & later, without glitch or crash. Works flawlessly as part of a Roon environment, with WAV being presented to the NDS for all PCM and native DSD64 for all DSD formats.
I use mine on an UltraRendu with UltraCap PSU (and double front faceplate), which is a little overkill, but it does sound excellent.
The dedicated device from SGC will work just as well.
I also have the LMS 2 UPNP product running on a RPi2 with DietPi, which also runs Asset 6.6 UNnP Server, but this was done recently, and is there as backup (sounds as good as the SonoreUPnP bridge, so this the lowest cost option, but is not an turnkey solution, as the SonoreUPnP bridge is).
So in turns of a NDX2/555PS or NDS/555DR with SonoreUPnP in a Roon environment, with a dedicated Roon Core machine, I would keep the NDS & extend its function with the Bridge.
Good to know that a NDS/555 is still better than a NDX2/555 combination
Ultimately the DAC chips in the NDS are still the same as in the ND555, and there is the suspended brass platform for the analogue output stage, and the separate power feeds for digital and analogue elements of the unit.
So once you have a ‘Roonified’ NDS/555 system, that can play Tidal Masters and provide Qobuz integration, as well as playback from the Roon Core etc. I wonder how that would sound next to a ND555/555 setup, where the Roon integration is being handled ‘onboard’ in the ND555 streamer card, rather than ‘off-board’ by the UPnP Bridge with the same sources?
The difference will be in the “machine” itself, I suppose @simon.pepper
It’s a shame that there’s no a NDS2 with all the updated features.
It’s for me an incredible piece of kit.
I am not sure if this in tongue in cheek, but of course there is a ‘NDS2’, it’s called the ND555…
It takes the NDS and pours all the digital advancements, noise reduction, clock improvements, cross talk mitigation, plus a few analogue advancements as well!, that in true Naim style significantly upgrades the performance of the NDS…
I was never a great fan of the NDS, but I can appreciate the ND555 does so much more better… especially in the SQ musicality stakes.
Yes!
I added a Sonore UPnP Bridge at the end of last year, my Innuos Zen acting as Roon Core feeding my NDS/555PS.
It was easy to set up and get Roon up and running, hasn’t had a hiccup since.
But you could say that, the NDS, as a reference level product (which it is, having been Naim’s Reference level streamer from launch to market withdrawal, at a premium over the NDX both in cost and performance) with a Bridge to incorporate it into a Roon environment, giving it better Tidal integration, Qobuz integration, MQA playback, better Internet Radio, Library Management is a ‘NDS2’ as long used wired as a network player, i.e not requiring any of the additional functions of the updated streamer board and not using it to feed an off-board DAC.
The upgrade from this combination to a ND555 is a ridiculous jump in cost for very little additional ‘real world’ functionality and is frequently made by those with full Naim stack of the 500 components.
But if I recall your path was a NDX with an nDAC/555, so largely the same DAC technology as the NDS, but without the brass isolation platform for the output stage, which is retained in the ND555 before you jumped to the Chord DAC connected by S/PDIF cable, which you personally preferred. You have replaced the NDX with a NDX2. So neither a NDS or ND555.
Sure correct… however the NDAC/555PS sounds very different indeed to the NDS/555PSDR… the DAC converter itself only counts for so much, and even these are/have been graded by Naim. Its the clock implementation, internal power supplies and decoupling, digital reconstruction filter (which is the same on classic streamers), the I2V converter, and analogue low pass filter implementation etc that really adds to the performance and character.
I do also have and still use a CDX2, that also has the same DAC chips (Texas Instruments PCM1704K) as the NDS and ND555, but again sounds very different.
Better or worst?
I’m asking this because, another option that I’m investigating is the DCS Soundbridge with a Naim DAC … But Again, a love my NDS/555PS
Overall I preferred the NDAC/555PS, albeit there were some styles and genres where the NDS significantly improved on… Choral for example…
I moved to the Hugo as I felt it built on both without any drawback… and gave that extra inner feel and insight into the elements of recordings I really enjoy, it’s what I call the ‘Mandelbrot effect’.
If you are interested, search back on the old forum, I wrote a lot about this… and one thread got a little hot and contentious as there seemed frustration or annoyance that a growing, albeit minority, of high end Naim users had a similar view… it regrettably kept Richard Dane more busy than he should have been at the time…