Having decided on control software (Roon) and server (Audiostore Prestige 3), came the hardest part; what to put between the server’s USB or ethernet outputs and the DIN input of the NAC52.
I must have spent the best part of 4 months reading up on all the different architectures for doing this, including USB versus optical versus ethernet, how to tackle RFI, separating the dac from the renderer versus and all-in-one streamer, the pros & cons of posh cables etc. etc.
Then my brain exploded. I suddenly realised that I don’t want to know all this stuff. It’s the playing music that’s enjoyable. My wife was very happy to leave the researching part to me, wisely preferring to trust her ears instead.
Turning to a dealer for assistance confirmed that dealers who are true vinyl specialists may not necessarily have the interest to understand how to derive the best from streaming, so it was worth talking to several Naim dealers.
Many auditions later, here’s a fairly concise summary of our impressions:
-
Chord Qutest - dear me no. absolutely the worst timing dac we have heard. We prefer the DAC-V1. By far.
-
Chord Qutest + M Scaler - a revelation. All together better than a bare Qutest and almost times right. A little uncouth but reasonable value.
-
Chord DAVE - better still, timing almost there but not quite. Richer, fuller and more satisfying to enjoy than Qutest + M Scaler. You can hear where the extra money has gone. A bit artifical sounding and analytical for our taste.
-
DCS Bartok - the brand new all conquering £10k streamer. Absolutely not. Couldn’t keep time, even with £5,500 of external clock strapped to its front. Inoffensive and cultured would be a kinder summary.
-
DCS Rossini with latest V2 firmware upgrade - less bad than the Bartok. Still late though. All the notes, massive resolution, yet sterile and uninvolving.
-
Moon 780D v2 - built like a battleship and a joy to use. Sounds consistently better with the Moon Mind app than with Roon. Good but not quite up there musically with the CDS3/555PSDR, so no.
-
Naim ND555 with 1 555PSDR - at last, a streamer than can tell the time and maintain a rhythm. This one can carry a tune and make it sound like music.
-
MSB Discrete as streamer - ooh, lovely. Smooth, articulate, times well and thoroughly musical. Slightly warmer, smoother and friendlier than the Chord combo but rounds off transients slightly in comparison. If we had speakers with a bright top end (i.e. Kudos), this could well have been our final choice. However, the ART speakers help to tame the Chord combo’s top end a bit.
-
Chord DAVE + M Scaler - Oh, that’s a lot better. Seems to handle the leading edge of transients better than the ND555. Dynamic range, resolution and sense of scale betters the ND555. Imaging, sense of life and vitality in the music both better the ND555. Top end potentially a bit fierce with speakers that highlight high frequencies (Kudos, Focal, perhaps?)
-
DCS Rossini + external clock. Damn but that sounds good. So it takes £5.5k of clock to get the Rossini to tell the time. This combination takes everything that the ND555, Chord Dave & M Scaler do well and equals or betters the best elements of them. The first streaming front end that sounds to us like pure music rather than great hifi. Like being in a place rather than seeing an excellent photograph of the place. But it costs £22k in the UK.
-
MSB Premier with Powerbase. We died and went to heaven whenever we listened to music through this streamer. It’s simply gorgeous to listen to. The only one that bettered the Rossini + clock, which it did by quite some margin. Delicious but with a price to match.
An honorable mention should go to the Dutch & Dutch 8C active speaker system. We think that it is brilliant and is a beacon to highlight the future direction of music in the home. If we only streamed music, this might well have been the one. Its ability to provide the in-room frequency response that you would like is remarkable, as is the quality and quantity of deep bass. At the moment though, it needs a high quality control box to select inputs, control volume and manage a mix of analogue & digital sources. As we love our vinyl when played on the Vertere turntable, the 8C was ruled out.
In the end, it came down to the Chord combo or the MSB Discrete. The more expensive DCS and MSB options were just over our budget, despite sounding tremendously tempting.
There seems to be something about the reconstruction filter method employed by Chord that breathes better timing and dynamic range into transients, in other words, music sounds more alive, dynamic, real and emotionally captivating. It doesn’t seem to matter whether it’s pop, rock, folk or a full orchestral classical piece.
So we are going with DAVE + M Scaler, having separated the Roon end point from the server by means of a Sonore OpticalRendu.
May your journey of discovery be as interesting, educational and enjoyable as ours has been.
Best regards, BF