It looks like I may be able to move my Naim 500 stack to another room. I have a Linn Klimax on demo which is connected to my 500DR in my living room. The results are good. I would like to move the 552 pre-amp and 555 streamer from my living room to my man cave as I have the Klimax and the 500DR in my living room. In the garden room I have SPL monoblocs in there which I like. I would need to be able to connect the LG Oled TV and the Panasonic Blu Ray player to the 552. The Panasonic, I hope, is not a problem as it has XLR outputs which, I hope, could connect to the 552 by XLR to 5 pin DIN. The TV may be more of a problem: it has HDMI and RCA outlets. Would that connect to the 522, presumably by RCA. I don’t have a remote for the 552. I was told that the RCA would have to be enabled on the 552 and that would be done by a RCOM[?} remote. They cost about £450 and I’m not in for spending that, especially if it may not all work in the end. Additionally, ideally I would like someone who knows what he/she is competent at setting the kit up in the man cave. So far, the only dealer I have communicated with declined to do so as he did not sell and install the kit. Your help would be gratefully received to realise my (and my wife’s!) dream of getting the stack down to size
One thing to note here. I would avoid connecting the TV/Blu-ray to the NAC552 via a direct analogue connection. These TV and Blu-ray players tend to have cheap floating power supplies that just love a nicely grounded Naim system and they will find any route to ground that they can - often through the analogue audio connections with the result of poor performance or even hum or buzzing. Isolate them some way - preferably via an optical toslink connection to a DAC of some kind. That will avoid any potential problems.
Regarding the NAC552 remote - you will need something to change socket assignments at the very least. A Narcom (I’d go for at least a Narcom 2 or 3, although I find the current one the nicest) is best here and shouldn’t cost too much, especially if you can pick one up secondhand.
Easier to feed an optical or digital output from the TV and/or blu-ray through the 555 DAC?
Yes, the ND555 Toslink input would be fine. Just be sure that the digital signals are all set to 2 channel PCM.
I use the optical out into the ND555….works a treat…and is isolated from the TV electronics…
My Panasonic TV box is connected to the NAC 552DR via optical/Toslink and a bog-standard optical to RCA analogue converter, then cable to DIN adapter into the 552. Works very well indeed and as mentioned, no issues with TV impact (via loops) to Naim earthing thanks to the optical isolation.
Sometimes I wonder why there is no HDMI on my ND555. I really love the idea of controlling the volume via my TV remote for example. As my parent find it hard to switch remote back and forth.
I see Linn Klimax to be the only sort of high end streamer DAC to offer one. Not much also for like dCS or MSB. Is there a reason for that? Will HDMI ARC reduce sound quality?
Your connections would go to the ND555 using the digital outputs. If you want full resolution from the Bluray player you would use a HDMI de-embedder to a coaxial or optical output, otherwise use the digital output
See this thread SACD and Bluray hi-res audio
Naim have only ever put HDMI ports on Unitis, which I guess suggests that they don’t want to clutter up higher performing separates with additional digital signals, especially when they come from poorly implemented TV outputs using cheap mass market components.
I gave up on the HDMI input on my Atom as it was just too unreliable. I dabbled with Toslink for a while, but now use Bluetooth. This works well, is reliable, and allows you to use the TV volume control, although I do have to set the Atom volume correctly first.