Well, you’re enjoying Tidal and that’s great.
I have enjoyed Tidal to date, but now switching to Qobuz is clearly the right choice from here for me.
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Have you received the component to connect the Ndac without the ps Jim? And try 272/ 555ps/ Nd5xs/ Ndac vs 272/Nd5xs/ Ndac/ 555ps.
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What were you using as the portable MQA DAC. I have used the AQ Cobalt and that works well without too much excessive battery drain on iPhone and iPad.
‘You do get the deblurring undertaken during MQA encoding’ what do you mean by this?.. I have only seen this in marketing babble, and no technical meaning. No master should be blurred (ie phase / skew errors) or it would loose transient info. I only assume it’s a side effect of the MQA processing which then needs to be mitigated by ‘deblurring’
I have a Ztella DAC, It uses the ESS Sabre DAC technology (9281CPRO for MQA version and 9270C for Standard version)
See https://www.zorloo.com/ztella
I was part of the Kickstarter project
See https://headfonics.com/zorloo-ztella-review/ for reviews
Some is covered here
And more in the AES papers
Thanks, but the AES paper points out about the now well established concept of timing vs frequency bandwidth… Rob Watts focuses this with his DACs and the mscalar for example.
So what the paper appears to show is possibly how the MQA compression process aims to maintain this timing information through the lossy process which otherwise would be there with hidef pcm. But this is not specific to MQA however… use a current Chord DAC with regular PCM and you will appreciate similar timing benefits… assuming your down stream system, speakers/headphones are capable.
Not familiar with the Ztellar DAC… I’ll look it up. I believe the AQ Cobalt also uses ESS Sabre DACs, specifically the ES9038Q2M
Yes, the blanking plug arrived some time ago.
As you expected, Nd5xs2/Ndac/272/555ps is significantly better than Nd5xs2/Ndac/555ps/bare 272.
I’m in the process of getting a dedicated NAC/psu and will then be able to try the 555DR on the nDAC too.
But in the short to medium term I will probably swop the 555DR for a 555non-DR PS, or an XPS2 for an all non-DR system.
But my test of the nDAC/555DR with the bare 272 suggests that it will sound very good when I get a NAC/psu sorted.
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Why do you want to have an all non dr?
If you sell the 555 dr, you can buy an Hicap dr for a future 282 and XPS non dr for the Ndac.
Better have a dr one for the pre, and non dr for the Ndac. But be careful, this non dr 555 on Ndac was advertised by someone influent here. Some blindly followed.
Not sure a non dr is preferable to dr on Ndac. I would test personally before.
It’s a fair point, following forum wisdom should not be a substitute for making your own assessment. At least, for those of us who are lucky enough to have this option.
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Yes, I’m trying to work out a way to test a 555 non-DR and/or an XPS2 on the nDAC with an option to return it if it doesn’t work out.
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My guess is that you’ll want to stick with a 555 of some sort, although when comparing a non-DR you’ll need to be careful to listen to choise one that’s performing well and not in need of a service. A decent dealer should be able to help here.
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You can have your 555PS (nonDR; serviced to original spec so I understand… if you so wish.
Unfortunately I sold my 555PS (nonDR) when I sold my NDAC… there did seem to be some demand a few years back for nonDR variants … possibly because of the synergy with NDAC as found by several (though not universally) on the forum at the time, including me.
I am not aware however of anyone having a DR version converted to original spec, assuming Naim even support the operation.
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