Naim DAC - Why Is This Product Discontinued?

Hi-Fi Corner
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I may be late to notice this. The Naim DAC is not listed on Naim’s website anymore. May I ask why is this DAC discontinued? Will there be a replacement for the discontinued Naim DAC?

The DAC-V1 is the current available DAC offered by Naim. Is this DAC superior in sound quality to the discontinued Naim DAC?

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No

Phil

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Is the DAC in the latest Naim products better than the NDac? I think for example of the ND5XS2 and NDX2?

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I think Naim had no choice really. The Naim DAC had been out for a number of years and so sales were tailing down, and it used the wonderful Burr Brown PCM1704K DAC chips, which have been long out of production. Naim probably felt they had to preserve what their stockpile in order to build ND555s so it made most sense to cease production of the Naim DAC.

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Thanks for all responses. Much appreciated.

Thinking if I should get a used unit and see how it would compare with my current reference Chord QBD76 but the idea of an additional box in the form of XPS DR kills the interest a bit, notwithstanding the fact that even in its full-fledged form I’m afraid the Naim DAC may not dethrone the Chord DAC that I currently have in the system.

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I was a Naim DAC (NDAC) owner for several years, I was very fond of it, especially with a 555PS (nonDR).
Good the NDAC was, I found the Chord Hugo first generation more to my liking for insight and musical enjoyment. To be honest this trait continues for me to some extent with the ND555… in other words the later Chord products and Naim use very different conversion techniques (for example FIR vs IIR reconstruction filters) producing technically somewhat different results… some of these are going to be quite noticeable for some.
If you are interested there were some big threads on the old forum describing the differences from a musical perspective.

To be fair… I have found the Hugo first generation to have this musical sweet spot… the very later Chord DACs like new generation Hugo’s and DAVE don’t quite have it in my opinion.

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How will Naim build more ND555s if the Burr Brown PCM1704K DAC chips are no longer in production?

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They bought up a large stock when the chip was discontinued, I’m not certain as it was a long time ago, but I seem to remember it was the complete stock TI had.

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Rackkit, As Eoin confirms above, Naim stockpiled all the remaining supplies, so they should have enough at leat to cover the lifespan of ND555 production plus any spares requirement (luckily I’m told that the 1704Ks are very reliable).

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Does the preservation of the Burr Brown chip mean that the ND5XS2 and NDX2 DAC conversion is not as good as the NDac? In other words, would these two latest streamers provide an upgrade for DAC over using the NDac?

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Naim dacs sound different than chord

I like both… however chord source and naim amplifier sounds great to my ears so went with chord

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Good question me thinks

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Hi Simon the Hugo got a sweet presentation which sounds great…

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Chris, If we’re talking like for like, i.e. just using them as s/pdif input DACs, then I haven’t compared against the Naim DAC, so couldn’t say for sure how they would stack up performance wise. They both use a more recent Burr Brown DAC chipset. There’s much more though to a DAC than just the conversion chips used. The NDX2 also has a rather nice discrete output stage.

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Hi Ryder, it might be different in your system, but I found the QBD76 to be quite a bit better than the nDAC, even with the 555 power supply on the latter.

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I have the very same problem! Trying to agree with the other half to get an nDac next to the Mojo, but she’s happy with all we have now …

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Thanks, Richard
I wonder if anyone else has tried a direct comparison?

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Hi Tony and Simon. Thanks for the post. I have decided to ditch the plan of trying the ndac as the Chord QBD76 is sounding stellar. Little point to try and fix something that ain’t broken. Secondly, I find the larger case of the ndac to be little intimidating not to mention the additional PSU that will take up even more space. The smaller form and shape of Chord DACs is rather nice,

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Hi Simon. Pardon my ignorance. Although the Chord DACs seem to be offered as headphone amps, can they actually be used as Pre amps for digital sources? - As daft as this question is, where is the volume control in the chassis?

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I am trouble with Simon for doing just this :grinning: The Hugos and Dave have a volume control, but the Qutest does not. I sold my 282 and bought Dave, which I use direct into a 250DR.

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