It’s tongue in cheeky joke about the equipment used in Dan’s Santa. 
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Some of us missed the joke around IC families. The LM317 is indeed easily improved upon, the 1704 not.
I can read a profile - hence my comment on ownership.
The consensus across all threads seems to be every naim owner is now very happy with the new FW except a very small number of ND555 owners.
From what I can tell the majority of even ND555 owners are very happy now (forum and various Facebook groups).
Not discounting the opinions of those who are unhappy. We would be very pissed off if the system we’d spent two years building and cabling turned “bad” and stayed that way.
Always thought we’d upgrade at some point. After reading of all the ND555 unhappiness I severely doubt we’d get one now, Still hanker after a 552.
Agree, interesting to see another who shares my view. In my case I use an NDX2 in its digital audio configuration feeding into a DAVE.
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The LM317 and its negative partner LM337 were and still are great variable linear regulator devices that were invented in 1976 by Bob Dobkin and Bob Pease respectively. They provided a cheap and easy option for non ‘standard’ DC powerlines compared to the prevalent fixed voltage regulators.
They are small effective ICs, that have stood the test of time. However they are not specialist tools, so depending on application can be improved upon to suit the application, but that would suggest they weren’t optimum for that use in the first place … they were designed for simplicity and low cost, not for high levels of low noise and regulation performance.
The PCM1704 was I understand relatively expensive to manufacture with a lot of device variability, and were even graded at manufacture assessment time between U, U-J and U-K variants… and as such were obsoleted due to more efficient and performance reliable products. However there was a lot of knowledge built up on using the 1704 in high performance designs so it perpetuated. I think I am also right in understanding it was never intended or specified for 192/24 operation but can be driven that way. It was designed for Fs between 16kHz and 96 kHz… but if you disable its DSP, like Naim do, you can drive harder upto 768kHz.
Regarding 552 … you should scratch that itch… it may be perfect for you or then again….
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You’re right about the 1704, it was only ever marketed as a 24/96 device.
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I vaguely recall a first year lab where two 317s (one as a pre-reg) were used to increase output stability.
Kind of an electronics 101 type lesson, before work moved on to diode or transistor designs (much like what came in DR regs where I think naim used Sanken A1386).
Some of our PSU designs went up in the space shuttle (onboard experiment).
What is Forest doing in space with a custom SBL Crossover?
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And of course before IC regulators, they were all discrete. Isn’t the A1386 designed for audio amplifiers? Perhaps also ideal for discrete regulators. I remember basic discrete regulators with a zener diode of the required voltage +VBE controlling the power / switching transistor. Kind of like
I seem to remember the Naim discrete regulator design focussed on mitigating high frequency regulation noise that existed with their previous off the shelf designs. I think they published a white paper on it.
They did publish a white paper…
317s have their place. Used them on an autonomous vehicle where voltage stability/noise wasn’t critical (big capacitor before the microprocessor).
Reading the A1386 data sheet it is indeed intended for audio amplifiers!
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Do you know how old the ND5XS2 streaming card is compared to the Limetree Bridge’s card made by the same supplier (Stream Unlimited)?
And what other streamer-only products on the market contain the same streaming card as the Limetree Bridge?
I only know the ND5XS2 use the Naim NP800 board as does NDX2, ND555 and I believe the New Classics as well.
Don’t know of other products using Streaming unlimited boards.
New Naim update patch sounds no different from Limetree bridge into ND555. If I did a blind test I couldn’t tell them apart.
I don’t see how your memory can tell the difference betwen current firmware and version 3.8.
The firmware now no longer has the problems with sibliance and shrill. It sounds more natural and is surely an improvement on what was there before.
I think that considering they released it just before Christmas the Naim team have done well to sort things out.
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That’s the spirit, Dan.
Enjoy your music this festive period, everyone.
G
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The NP800 is custom for naim.
Details in this thread, where question was asked about the 810 board (as used in Limetree):
Yes correct 
Indeed and critically for performance uses the Naim streamer clock and is LVDS coupled to the streaming digital board from the NP800 network application protocol transport module. To my mind this is one of the many architect benefits of Naim streamers when either providing digital or analogue audio.
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Another variable is try the JPlay iOS app vs Naim app. I find it slightly more transparent on the 272 than Naims own app, so presume it would be more apparent on a ND555.
I found the JPlay app to be better than any native app apart from… Lindemann Bridge app! The Lindemann app is superior on their own hardware. Again it shows Lindemann are making an effort to extract high performance from those little silver boxes.
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