Hi Guys.
Need some advice on a recently purchased nDac:
The unit is spotless and (obviously) used very little. The owner said it has basically been sitting on his hifi bench and not been used much.
However, upon closer inspection, it does not detect/recognize USB sticks at all.
Any attempts on my part (changing to new USB sticks, changing the file contents, changing file-format type to FAT, FAT32, etc) has been futile.
Have you had any similar experiences?
Any advice would be appreciated.
Iāve got an nDAC and like others on here Iāve found that it is fussy with USB sticks. Some it shuns, some it will talk to. Iāve found no reason for this.
One thing to check is how the music files are captured on the USB. Iāve found that the nDAC needs to see them directly, not through a folder.
Hi MDS and thanx for the reply.
Iāve tried all the USB sticks in my arsenal and it does not recognize them
The main reason I got the nDac was to be able to play HR files through USB.
I tried the USB again as you said: with the files directly on the USB, not through any foldersā¦still nothing.
Is the doc button suppose to light up once the USB stick is inserted into the DAC?
Iāll go to the local computer store tomorrow and try to find some decent USB sticks to try out.
In the mean time: what about file-format type of the USB stick? FAT, FAT32, NTFS?? Does it matter?
Interestingā¦
Thanx Guinnless.
Iāll try to find a cpl of ācheapā chinese ones.
The whole experience has been a little bit of a turn-off actually.
Iāve had a cpl of cheap chinese dacs off ebay that work flawlessly up to 748 kHz and 32 bits with no issues or hick-ups.
Looking at the price, and the internal pics of the unit shows that a lot of work has gone into the design of the dac.
Yet the USB docks have problemsā¦
As for the sound, it sounds very nice.
Compared to some Hi-End Delta Sigma dacs, it sounds a little rolled off on top, but with excellent heft and depth in the lower frequencies. The soundstage is slightly bigger, it conveys more information along the z-axis (in a xyz coordinate system).
ā¦but at the same time, I detect a slight amount of grain in the critical midrange.
This is completely non-existent on my reference Delta Sigma Dac: Forsell Air Reference.
Forsell sounds very liquid, extended and airyā¦ clearly more than the nDac, but it does not have the powerful low end of the Naim.
As far as I know the USB is strictly for connecting an Apple device via its lightning connector. It plays the digital music being played on the device. The streamers play files stored on a USB stick.
Hi Phil and thanx for your response.
I need to connect a USB stick to the nDac in order to update it to the latest firmware/software version.
The thing is that it doesnot recognize/detect USB sticks at all.
I am under the impression that once the USB stick is inserted into the dac, the ādockā button should illuminate. Is this a correct assumption??
It only plays files from Apple devices like the iPod. I canāt find the instructions for the the firmware update, maybe they are in the download file.
This is not so. I have used the usb dock on the nDAC to play files successfully from a stick. It is true, however, that some brands, or at least samples, donāt work. Recently Iāve had good luck with Samsung.
Do you use an Apple product to format and copy the files? The manual reads very Apple oriented. I donāt have a means to use a USB stick with my phone or iPod.
I think it would be highly unlikely for the nDac to only operate with Apple hw.
But what AHT said is interesting. I will try to reformat my USB stick using FAT format and try again.
Does the ādockā button iluminate once a USB is inserted?
