How good is the ND555?

I’ve now had the second 555PS in my system for a couple of days, and it’s still giving more and more. I have always known the ND555 is a fantastic source, but I have to say that with a second independent power supply it takes it to a new level. Over the last two days I have listened to a variety of my favourite artists - London Grammar, Sarah Jarosz, Porcupine Tree, Alison Krauss, Infected Mushroom, Alan Parsons, Agnes Obel… just trying some very different musical styles. The ND555 with a pair of PS555s just seems to be able to render everything I throw at it with poise, style, resolution, pace, and or course impeccable timing. I’ve not listened to every streamer at this price point, it I have to say I would find it hard to believe there is better out there.

I’ve not played with any of the more poorly recorded tracks yet, as I know these can sometimes be challenging to listen to in a highly resolving system, but I will explore further over the next few weeks and post an opinion in due course.

So, to answer the original question, the ND555 is very very good indeed.

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Yes, the ND555 + 2xPS555DR is beyond good!

There is an easy test you can do that will show you how much the second PS555DR transforms the ND555.

Use your ND555 for 2-3 months; then, one evening, after a few listens, unplug one of the two PS555DRs.

You will see… Utterly mind-boggling!!!

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I dont agree. The more information your system can deliver the better even a bad recording get. The point is that the extra information must be presented correctly (make musical sense) otherwise it just add to the confusion. As an example I have a recording of Bach-music dating from the early 1930’s which just gets better with better playback.

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Well i wish i couldn’t hear it, but i do on certain tracks and album’s.

The best way i can try and describe it would be this, i have a few cars and will use 2 for this.

I can drive down a country lane in the everyday car and only feel the slight uneven bit of road or bump.
I can then drive down the same road in my porsche gt4 and feel the same as before, but also every ripple, stone, etc, etc.
Its the same road but one car highlights everything on it, the other does not.
The difference in this compared to hifi, is that sometimes getting all this info, highlights all the bad stuff mixed into the recording, whatever it shall be.

As i said before, yes it certainly does sound the dog, you know what, given a good track, but i find some of my music, that i could quite happily listen too before how i struggle with, as like i said once you hear certain things, you cannot un hear them and you are waiting for them to appear when you play that certain track.

I have also found this to be the case with my turntable as that also is very detailed and revealing.

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Porsche is not a good example, I am not surprised! If you want to see how bad a Porshe is, go to an autobahn just outside Zurich one early winder morning when there is a lot of snow, you will a cemetery of Porshe cars, they just don’t drive, a Korean car or any car does it much better.

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Subaru.

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But the point of driving the Porsche is to feel every ripple in the road

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Or risk falling off a mountain pass or hitting an electrical pole on the side of a road. The German are sometimes the victims of their own engineering, remember the Tiger tank?

People who can’t drive Porsches shouldn’t, that’s not a car problem

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I’ve always known which of my albums were the more difficult ones to listen to. Regardless of source component, it’s been the bane of all of us since forever. My expectation was that as the resolving capabilities of a better system came within reach, their faults would be more jarring. This was the case up until the NDS but has not been such a problem for me since.

It’s not that the sound quality has somehow magically improved. It’s more to do with musical communication. I am better able to hear what went in as opposed to being irritated by what came out. I’m so immersed in the playing, harmonising, interplay, mixing etc. that the fact that the end result isn’t top notch is just a known fact, as opposed to being a block to enjoying the performance and the effort which went into it. Mind over ears, if you will, facilitated by the ND555.

The exception to this is brick walled rubbish with no DR or the occasional situation in which the recording clipped. The latter is unsalvageable. The loud stuff usually sounds OK on a Muso or in the car.

What changed more significantly for me with the ND555 was the system’s tendency to show differences in set up. The NDS was such an unflustered thing. It didn’t matter what the NAS was, what HDDs were in it, what server it was running. Everything sounded great and identical. The ND555 is much more sensitive to Ethernet cable type, NAS model, HDDs running and uPnP server. It was unexpected, but it didn’t take me long to fine my perfect combination.

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Indeed Harry, and yours is a better evaluation than my lazy attempt.

Some people got what i ment by using the porsche gt4 and normal car, others it went straight over your heads lol.

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Dunno about that. As long as we trust our own ears all will be well.

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Wow, thats the opposite of my experience with the NDS. Ive changed the nas, cables, server and switch and noticed the difference in sound quality immediately. I imagine the ND555 would be even better but to say things sounded identical on the NDS makes me wonder if there was a problem somewhere.

I don’t know who you count in each group, but to me it wasn’t a particularly clear analogy, because like with the Porsche and the road it is just fine for me to have the great system reveal all the warts of a poor recording.

Well i did think it was a good example.

Just to add i love all the information the gt4 gives you of the road surface and its why you buy such a car, you want to feel it and so understand it, if you can to go faster on track.
My hifi also gives me lots of information, probably a bit too much really as it hinders the enjoyment of certain tracks unlike before.
Some might like this, i love all the slight hidden details that you just can’t get even with a good set up, but as said you also get whats bad andvin some cases that can be horrible

Just saying that if not everyone got what you meant, it’s not necessarily because it “went over their heads”

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Impossible to say. It sure didn’t sound bad.

We were using NDS/555PS with HDX-SSD. Couldn’t have been happier. The HDX lost its boot sector (as they do). It was a simple enough task to put Asset on the NAS as a stop gap until the HDX came back. I’ve read superlative effusions down the years, many in here: jaw hitting floor, bowled over, a curtain lifted, letting light in, lowering the noise floor, inky blackness… you get the drift. All these things happened at once when the HDX was taken out of the chain. It had obviously been holding the music back.

As is often the case, it was the best system we had ever been lucky enough to own and we didn’t think it could get much better - until it did. When the HDX had been repaired we asked the dealer to keep it and give us a px towards a Super Lumina full loom.

I was keen to start fiddling with the source configuration. (which I still do from time to time, just to make sure I’m not missing anything obvious). Cables, Asset, Mininserver, Bubble, different sized NAS HDDs from WD, Seagate, Toshiba, L2 cache, more RAM. Nothing seemed to make a difference, or at least none that we could distinguish. Putting a second 555PS-DR on the NDS made a huge difference.

Possible reasons: It might be that the transformation after removing the HDX was so great that other more subtle serial upgrades were sonically insignificant. The same could be speculated about the second PS. Both these changes were transformational and not small. Then there’s the more obvious mixture of variables and intangibles. We only listened to WAVs. I tried other formats and preferred uncompressed WAV. This hadn’t changed from our first rips on our first HDX and might be something to do with it. Then there’s everything else - room size shape and furnishings, system, speaker positioning, health of components, rack, interconnects, mains supply, listener taste, brain to ear interface, and so on…

It’s actually comforting that different people have different experiences and perceptions. Who wants to live in The Matrix (assuming we don’t already and are not aware of it)?

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Sometimes it is necessary to state the obvious, as you have.

Then again, if “over my head” means “not remotely interested”, it passed far above.

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Seemed simple enough to me … rotating turntable = rotating wheels of car … pits and grooves in vinyl = pits and grooves in tarmac. Volume of music = volume of exhaust note. Pretty good actually.