I must confess that I have no idea what firmware is? there is an update of some sort signalling on the NDX2 when i use my phone to access but I haven’t figured out how to upload it yet.
Way beyond my current understanding, at the moment I have 5g cable routed round the house into 4 port splitter box, one port for the NDX2 the other my TV.
So I can improve sound by changing the box?
I have been using the same speakers for 10 years so it is about time to look at how things have moved on-like eveything in Hi-Fi the range of choice is bewildering £500 to 10k and beyond.
You have a very good system , I have heard the sn3 and NDX2 and it is a good combo , I have always used Chord and have no issues with them , rather akin to Naim -there is a clear path .
There was a legendary thread of someone who had a big Naim system and had to identify it bit by bit to see the problem ,
I suspect it may be your speakers - good luck
As I said earlier, I looked on the internet but couldn’t find your speakers, and I know nothing about them. Decent speakers are inherently expensive - my first good ones, bought 48 years ago (still going strong, though now in my son’s house), cost the equivalent of about £3k in today’s money and worth every penny at the time, though the nearest equivalent made today is more like double that. (And I have moved up three times since them.) Key to a system’s character, speakers are all so different sounding from one another that you really need to audition quite widely to fond the best for any given budget - it can be redious, but worthwhile. However if the room is the problem it will always be compromised, so you just have to find the best fit.
I had a similar issue with harshness, especially with female vocals, in my old house which had lots of hard surfaces like yours, including glass down one side. I solved it by switching to Sonus Faber speakers which have a lovely warm tone. In my new house, with more softer surfaces, they were too warm so I switched again to Neat. With the description of your room I would definitely try Sonus Faber speakers.
I have since corrected, the speakers are Majik 140’s. I’m now looking at Class A amps or a warmer amp to see if that might help improve the situation.
Can I ask which Faber speakers you had, they have quite a range and I understand they vary considerably.
Thanks for the post it is interesting that you had the same problem in similar circumstances.
I had the Sonetto 2s, which are standmounts. They also do floorstanders in the same range. There is one cheaper range (Lumina) and many much more expensive ones. I’ve only ever heard my own pair, but I think all Sonus Faber speakers are known for the warmth of their tone. I think it would be worth your while to try and get some on home demo if you can.
The problem is most likely the layout of your room, not the HiFi hardware.
(And there is no reason to believe the difference between Class A and Class AB will have any significant influence.)
@Tecumsea , I was disappointed with the sound I was receiving from my 30-year-old speakers and could not afford new speakers. My dealer, to his loss, put me onto an Australian firm, 2,000 kilometres away in Brisbane, that recoiled speakers. Out with the PVC woofer, in with the woven Kevlar woofer, out with the aluminium dome tweeter, and in with the aluminium ribbon tweeter. I still wish for more bass, though this was a great improvement, as well as all the sound-deadening wool perished inside the speakers. Slightly more punch in the bass and beautiful female soloists.
You may only require some speaker maintenance and catch-up with modern speaker technology. He also engineered new cross-overs, as ribbon tweeters can be particularly difficult to match up.
Mitch in regional OZ.
Did you experience a bigger uplift with the preamp or with the xps dr?
I added the XPS DR when I had the SN 2 and thought it was a very nice uplift in the sound. When I add the the NAC 282 to the SN 2 I was happily surprised by how much the music opened up.
When I bought the XPS DR I did not see myself moving beyond the SN 2.
Comments from my May 2021 thread regarding the NAC 282 added to the SN 2.
First comments from wife was it sounds much clearer, which was very nice since she wears hearing aides. Clarity, detail and separation, wider sound stage, better bass are my first impressions from listening to the first album. (Patricia Barber’s ‘Café Blue’).
Over the weeks time I played music quite a bit and found I loved the improvement and kept it in place.
A short time latter I traded in my SN 2 for a one year old NAP 250DR that a customer was trading in. I found that to be another uplift to the music as well.
If you do searches on the site you can find information regarding upgades, Many folks do them in different order. Lot of experiece shared here on the forum. Search can be you friend!
Hoped that helped.
Hi Mitch, I think you have an excellent dealer to make such a recommendation
It helped a lot.
I ve just bought a 332 to be in front of a supernait 3 and I m wishing the same huge uplift you described. Before I added a non naim psu to Ndac but it wasn’t a so huge uplift.
I think that naim streamers are stellar but preamps are the real super superstar
I say the most important part of the system is the speaker/room matching or headphones… then have the amp to drive them properly and well… once you have that… then focus on the sources.
Having great sources driving a poorly matched speaker/room setup can result in tiring audio, glare, edgey forward/hard sound, slow lifeless bass… which can obfuscate a great source.
I think the so called ‘source first’ idea is one of the biggest follies of this hobby, and perhaps a sneaky ruse to drive constant upgrades through disappointment.
Haha, I’ve been 100% source first since I bought my first LP12 in 1978 and it (both the LP12 and source first) has served me well. That and using tune-dem. This was years before Naim showed up here. For a time in the 80s I ran the 135s with EUR 85 speakers until I bought the Sara. It was perfectly fine - no one complained, but then I didnt know any fiddly engineer-type audiophiles
But Naim kept me very well and alive over the Linn bad-years, I still run 135s but I’m looking at class D (either 1ET7040AS or the Nilai). The Nilai tune-dems well, the Purifi 7040 are a bit faster, more PRAT-like. I also have a small Naim office-system. There’s no re-cap service on class-D but you can just buy a new module.
I stopped buying new Naim after surviving their 272 treatment. Still recommend Naim to others.
I’m reading this thread and wondering why Naim didn’t design upgradeable streaming modules for their streamers. They had plug in tuner modules, why not streaming modules. Then you could invest in what would essentially be an upgradeable DAC without the issue of having to change the whole thing as technology moves on? Naim still have the flexibility to maintain three tiers of streamer as they do now and release new improved DACs in future. I’m sure many would still upgrade products for extra features and improved SQ but this approach removes the perceived “forcing” to upgrade which some resent. I’m sure there is a good reason for not doing this
Morning Tecumsea can I ask where you are based?
Hi, I Live in Chesterfield UK.