I live in the UK but I am not British. However, I definitely consider the way things look. And not just with HiFi, but everything in my home. As a designer and photographer, to me things need to work together visually. Sometimes it does mean that I won’t consider a certain piece of audio equipment. (Especially from Cyrus, why does it all look like a 1990’s car cassette deck 
)
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Your post made me smile. I am a photographer, but not my primary profession, and my daughter a graphics designer, and that is her primary profession. We look at aesthetics in very different ways. I like contrast, juxtaposition, functional simplicity and narrative/interest, she likes resonance, matching and patterns/alignment as well as narrative/interest… our tastes are different… with a tiny overlap we enjoy together.
I like the functionality in the shape of Cyrus components, it’s almost Bauhaus in appearance… my daughter would more likely go for a Muso 2 in appearance. We both think my DAVE looks slightly ridiculous !
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Also a photographer but not primarily.
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Ha… yes the Cyrus components are very much hands on. Come to think of it they also remind me of the BetaMax decks I use to edit on in Film school. Before things moved over to Apple’s Final Cut. Showing my age now.
and even Apple Final Cut is getting little long in the tooth now compared to DaVinci Resolve and others. I now use Resolve - bit of a learning curve coming from Final Cut but end results seem to be worth it.
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Transformer in the NDX2 is 8mm bigger in diameter than the ND5XS2; 130mm vs 122mm by my measurements, give or take 1mm. I can’t quite determine the height but it appears to be similarly scaled in that dimension too.
In my experience - presuming it’s the next model up in a transformer range - this typically amounts to about a 25% increase in VA, but can be as much as 50%. So I would say the NDX2 has categorically got more capacity. But it probably needs it with the screen and significantly expanded DAC.
The power supply boards and components are identical.
Looking at these pictures , even at different scales it is clear that the board of the bottom photo takes up a much higher proportion of the depth of the gas e than is the case with the lower photo ?
They all use the StreamUnlimited boards i believe, and so the only real difference is going to be how they power it, that can make a difference in SQ if anything.
As if just using the streaming board and going straight out to digital out, then nothing else is being used.
Lots use this streaming board, along with dCS, and it what i have in my vivaldi upsampler.
It’s very good, and off the shelf.
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Indeed they use StreamUnlimited transport modules. These are connected to the rest of the sensitive parts of the system via LVDS to reduce EMF and noise and yes power decoupling and EMF decoupling are the differences. The ND555 has shield cage around the transport module (Faraday cage) … the others work on physical separation, which can be helped further with separate DAC.
This transport module was developed by StreamUnlimited to Naim’s customisation requirements and is a specific and unique product for Naim.
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