Or even via wireless! And the ND555 could also stream from attached USB drives since it is also a UPnP server, I understand. Although I guess Naim see the ND555 mainly as a network streamer.
Talking about front-ends to streamers + DACs: the Bryston BDP-3 Digital Player is not mentioned very often in this context. Why so? From the specs, it seems a very sensible device!
I am looking forward to read your findings!
It’s interesting that, after having demoed the most expensive transport + DAC combinations, you have come across a simple way to perceivably improve the sound of your current server + USB streamer setup!
I sometimes feel that this kind of improvements are the most rewarding ones. I have listened to a ND555 in a system worth more than 60k pounds. The ND555 sounded indeed very good in that system and I could afford it but … is that what I really want?
I do not think so and, for the time being, I am looking forwards to the improvements that I might be able to achieve in my modest system. I am finally driving a second hand Naim DAC with a 300$ DigiOne Signature! There should be be some room for improvement, shouldn’t it?
Have fun, nbpf
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Hi FR,
So a brief update on the auditioning front.
I have now heard the ND555/555PS in 3 different Naim-based systems. It has the very rare ability for a streamer to present a wonderfully natural, flowing, almost analogue impression of the music. We take it for granted with Naim these days, but it also times beautifully too, as in rhythms are spot on without any slow or lagging basslines. Very few other companies seem to manage this aspect of music reproduction quite as well. The ND555 also presents a clear and stable image of the musicians, all of whom are placed fairly and squarely in between the speakers.
Resolution is very, very good, yet the ND555 doesn’t encourage a forensic analysis of individual instruments. It made me want to sit back and enjoy the harmonious whole performance, rather than to focus in on specific instruments or musicians. So, does it out-play a CDS3/555PS? Yes it does. There is a clear Naim house sound to it. It betters the CDS3 to me by being incrementally better in every respect rather than step-change better anywhere. I will have to think hard about whether it is worth the cost to change, even with the power supply already in situ.
Meanwhile, a brief foray to the dark side led to the picture below:
The new Moon 780d v2. A fine thing it is too. Built like a battleship and comes with a very good Moon Mind 2 app.
Comparing different music sources, I tried a range of tracks from 3 sources: the Audiostore Prestige 3 server with its 2TB SSD and flac files; the remote Synology DS716+ NAS drive with 2 WD Red+ hard drives and its AIFF codec files; and the same songs on Tidal. There was a clear and consistent preference:
Then, I compared Roon with DSP disabled to Moon’s Mind 2 app. The Moon app is consistently a little bit more natural, dynamic and engaging. This is consistent across all 3 sources and with many tracks. It’s not a big difference but it is always there and is worthwhile.
Finally, I compared the 780D running the Moon app and music from the Prestige 3 server (i.e. the best setup) with the recently serviced Naim CDS3/555PSDR.
The 780D times very well. The CDS3 only just betters it by sounding that bit more “organic”, or smooth and slightly less tiring.
So the ND555 betters the Moon 780d v2 to these ears, which it should given the difference in price. The 780d v2 is a great value streamer but it won’t be finding a home with us.
More to follow…
Now, if we are going to go streaming, why not re-think the architecture of the system from first principles and try to simplify it. Do we really need circa 10 different boxes in order to carry a tune? Is there another way?
Well, it turns out that there is. Please excuse the temporary Heath Robinson lash up of Mogami cables, as there are effectively 2 systems here on the same rack. But one of them is a wee bit disruptive:
One RME ADI-2 Pro FS digital processor plus a pair of very, very clever Dutch & Dutch 8C active 3 way speakers replaces 6 Naim boxes and the ART Alnico speakers.
The speakers are the really clever bit. They are 3 way actives, with the two 8" bass drivers per speaker deliberately firing backwards towards the wall. Finally, another high quality speaker that is intended to be placed 10-50cm from a wall, instead of way out into the room.
Each speaker has its own DAC and analogue to digital converter, plus 3 class D amps inside the box. It accepts either analogue or digital musical input. And it has an excellent little app that allows you to tailor the output of the speaker to your room, evening out the vital 20-300Hz frequency range of which room boom is made. After measuring our room with a microphone and REW software, all we needed to do was to dial in a notch filter at 31.5Hz, the known booming frequency of our living room.
But, but, but it inserts DSP into the signal, which must surely make the system sound worse. Errr, no. We have never, ever had such tuneful and realistic bass in our living room. In fact, I’ve never heard better bass from any hifi in any room. Much more to follow (both positives and negatives) on this voyage of discovery.
Best regards, BF
DSP can help so much in my opinion. I’m using full Roon convolution for room correction in my system with filters created by HAF and its never sounded so good. Made everything sit just right.
Heard good things about the Dutch & Dutch so the Ki 3’s are supposed to be very nice to.
so the nd555 is still on your radar Bluesfan? there’s also the Lumin X1 new flagship. Made in Hong Kong, but have very good reviews.
Very curious to follow your streamers journey.
Absolutely FR.
We have decided to replace CD playing with streaming, though no final decision just yet on which streamer.
Best regards, BF
@frenchrooster,…Have you listened to the French TotalDac’s streamer.
Many of their products have received good reviews.
I have a USB-cable from TotalDac.
/Peder🙂
they seem to sound very nice but on the polite side. A member who has the middle totaldac found it specially slow when he heard the ndx2 recently. But he still prefers his totaldac in general.
I decided to keep my nds for now , but i bought a melco n1a2, and waiting for it.
The rega rp10 gives me also a lot of pleasure with my tubes phono stage.
The next upgrade will be very probably the musicworks powerblock with a kharma power cable.
Enjoy the Kef 202 Peder! 
Excellent - i’ll enjoy reading your impressions. I was hoping to see a pair appear on here.
Are you going t9 use the Melco just as a posh NAS hanging off the side of the Cisco?
Or will you run all internet streamed files through it too?
So, to impressions of the Dutch & Dutch 8C active speakers.
The first impression is that they are so flexible that it is complicated to explain all the combinations that are possible. Set up also takes a while, much longer than for passive speakers, so an instant swap style demo is not really viable for the 8C. Home audition is a must, as indicated below.
I tried them in the following 3 ways:
As we want to stream music from the Prestige 3 server (using Roon) and play records on the turntable, the system has to cope with both digital and analogue inputs. This is a critical consideration and one which would result in a different conclusion if we were only streaming music.
Starting with the speakers in analogue mode, the first step was to set up the speakers in the desired location (30cm from a solid back wall) and then run REW room analyser software to identify any room modes. Our listening room is fairly benign, except for a 12dB mode at 31.5Hz. That one needed dialling out.
This was remarkably easy to do using the www.lanspeaker.com website that you can run from a phone, tablet or laptop, once you have connected the speakers to your home network using standard CAT5e or CAT6 ethernet cables. The ethernet patch cables only need to be in place when setting up or changing the speakers. Once set up, the patch cables can be removed. 12dB is a lot of correction, so we started with -5dB on the left speaker and -3dB on the right.
Then we started to stream music from the Prestige 3 server, with the server acting as both Roon Core and End point, out via a Curious Cables USB cable to the RME and then via Mogami balanced XLR cables to the speakers. In this mode, the RME is acting as source selector and analogue volume control. The 8C converts the analogue to digital, applies room correction and phasing in the digital domain, then internal DACs convert back to analogue for the power amps.
It sounded okay but not great. Bass lines were a little diffuse, woolly, too prominent and slow. High pitch notes were a bit relentless/tiring. Time to re-calibrate.
Another 2dB of correction for each speaker, so -7dB on the left and -5dB on the right. Try again. A considerable improvement but not quite there. Still a bit slow, woolly and diffuse but not as dominant.
Move the speakers closer to the wall, so the rear face of the speakers were 20cm from the back wall. Recalibrate using www.lanspeaker.com to 20cm, as this adapts the time delay between the front drive units and the rear-firing bass drivers - the time delay varies with distance from the back wall. Try again. Better. Bass lines much more solid and better timed. No longer too prominent but clearly deeper and with stronger transient attack than the ARTs can manage with the NAP135s driving them.
We really, really wanted this set up to work, not least because we were effectively streaming without the need to buy an expensive streamer. Just server to RME to speakers. However, basslines were still a bit woolly and the top end too relentless/tiring. All the notes and power but none of the music.
So we switched the 8C from analogue mode to digital mode, despite being assured that both the RME’s and 8C’s converters measured impeccably and that it could not possibly make a difference. Well, it did to us. First, the bass. Holy Mackerel that sounded better. Not just better but awesomely good. True, pistonic, powerful, deep, tuneful bass like we haven’t heard before, even in other active high end systems. Music simply timed better, the speakers started to sound like one coherent system rather than having a separate bass line. Top end still a bit fierce though.
Next, we inserted one of the new Sonore OpticalRendu units in to act as the Roon end point. The Prestige 3 server was then acting only as Roon Core, feeding output via ethernet to the Cisco 2960 switch, out via optical SFP module and OM1 cable to the OpticalRendu, with USB to the RME unit. In this configuration, the RME unit acts as digital volume control and feeds a digital music signal to the speakers, so the whole streaming music chain is digital. The ADCs in both the RME unit and the speakers are bypassed.
And the difference? There should be no difference at all. But there was. Cheshire Cat like grins appeared on listeners’ faces within the first 5 notes of the first song. Oohh, that’s better. Can we leave it like this please? Can we play more and more music? Everything snapped into place and sounded addictively musical. The depth, speed, power and tunefulness of bass lines that underpin all music was phenomenal. So much better than we have ever heard at home. Singers’ voices at last were naturally clear and the top end was now sweet and detailed without being strident or harsh. Spacial imaging was okay but not special, certainly not comparable to that achieved by the ARTs, yet this was outweighed by other aspects of excellence for us. YMMV.
So, on the basis of streamed music, we would replace all the Naim amplifiers (and we are talking serviced NAC52 & NAP135s) and ART speakers, buy the 8Cs, avoid the need to buy a streamer and save a small fortune. That has to give pause for thought for Naim.
More to follow…
With streamed music sounding so good with the 8Cs in digital mode, time to try the turntable. No changes are required in the set up of the 8C speakers, as the RME takes the analogue signal from the phono stage and converts it to digital and sets the desired volume level, before sending it to the speakers in the digital domain.
So a change of input mode on the RME from “USB” to “Pre” and spin a record on the Vertere turntable. It worked straight away, first note. And all the subsequent notes too. Yet it sounded dull, flat and lifeless. Even after trying every tweak that we could think of, music never sprang to life from vinyl. “Matter of fact” was the best we could manage.
After hearing how musical the speakers could sound, I suspect that responsibility lies with the RME unit, despite its exemplary measured performance. This was not going to work for us.
Time for a deep breath and a switch back to streaming while an order was placed for some Supercap to active speaker interconnects.
… A few days later … the 5m long analogue interconnects arrive and the whole system is rewired to bypass the RME unit, revert the speakers to analogue mode, with everything controlled by the NAC52.
Play first record. Better, very much better. Deeper, punchier, more tuneful bass lines than the 135/ART combination can manage. Sheer resolution, life and vitality of music not too far behind the 135/ART combination either.
As we don’t have a posh streamer to play through the NAC52 at this point, it remains an open question as to how well that would sound through the NAC52 with the 8C in analogue mode.
So, to findings at this point:
If we only streamed music, we would sell our treasured Naim amplifiers and fabulous ART Alnico speakers and avoid the need to buy an ND555 streamer. That’s quite a remarkable finding for us.
The RME unit doesn’t work for us. It may measure superbly but our ears tell us something else. It runs really quite warm/hot, so much so that I considered lifting it off the Quadraspire shelf. It also lacks remote control and we couldn’t work out how to turn off that distractingly glaring display.
For replay of vinyl, the NAC52 easily betters the RME unit. And we like our vinyl.
So for now, we are going to keep the current system and decide on a streamer.
If/when Dutch & Dutch bring out their own control unit to replace the RME (or MiniDSP equivalent), and they also launch the software to control each speaker directly over the network via Roon, then we may reconsider. But the bass quality of the 8C is going to haunt us for quite some time to come…
If you have tried the 8C, we would love to learn of your experience with them.
Best regards, BF
Surely the rendu in this case is the streamer?
Hi CrystalGipsy,
When the speakers are in digital mode then the Rendu is the Roon end point which controls the flow of digits to the speakers’ internal dacs. Perhaps that makes it a streamer? I thought a streamer was supposed to have a dac in it, i.e.
streamer = renderer + dac
I’m not 100% clear on all the definitions & boundaries between stages, so you may be able to explain it better.
However, for us, the speakers have to be in analogue mode to sound acceptable with the turntable. So we would need either a dac to go with the Rendu or a separate streamer (e.g. ND555) to go between the server and the NAC52.
I trust that this makes sense, even if my terminology is slightly off.
Best regards, BF
It’s a streamer, it does not necessarily need a DAC in it. Its streaming audio to the DAC or amplifier via network. That’s what a streamer does.
Also perhaps consider PS Audio Nuwave phono stage for the turntable.
