I think I must be in Camp 3. Don’t own an NDS, have never owned an NDS, but can appreciate what it is and how it could be a potential bargain for some people at today’s prices.
Can I be in camp 1, 2 ,3,and 4 lol
But seriously the NDS is still a good bit of kit, it’s not the best sounding dac you can get these days and not even close, but as been said for these new low prices it would be very hard to beat I feel.
If I had say a naim cd player, using a xps or 555 power supply, well then, now is a great time to try one and see what streaming is all about, or even dare I say, rip all them CD’s.
If you find you enjoy the streaming thing, then maybe a work around will make you enjoy even more.
Whatever the NDS at these price levels are really a bargain surely
What would you place as best sounding DAC Duncan?
And best sounding at c£2k used?
Something like the Matrix X-Sabre Pro is pretty great as a standalone DAC at around 2K (new).
[edit] To compare a few attributes, measured jitter and linearity of the NDS:
Same for the Matrix X-Sabre:
The Matrix has 7 reconstruction filters that are user selectable, so you can choose the filter that suits your tastes most.
That i haven’t a clue, all i can say is about the ones i have heard and then even that is different for us all, but for sure there are more capable dacs out there.
As tor the £2k used then surely the NDS must be a good shout?
I have an Auralic Aries Femto (into several different DACs) and its a good solid streamer and I’ve listened to the Auralic Vega G1 but it wasn’t particularly great to my ears. This was driving Active ATC SCM40a’s. The sound I heard wasn’t a patch on the Naim NDX2 or ND555 I also heard that day. Interesting product but not for me.
It would be interesting to know this
Earlier you said you had not heard an NDS yet you know declare an nDAC to be better. And this opinion (yours) differs to Naim’s own opinion.
DFTT guys…
Hypothetically if you were to go to a dealers to have a demo and they were to present to you 3 systems to compare.
- NDX2/555DR - £12K
- NDS/555DR - £15K
- ND555/555DR - £20K
I believe you would find that the systems perform as you expect throughout the range. i.e. the X range (CDX2/NDX2), S range (CDS3/NDS) and reference range (CD555/ND555) all perform within their respective price points. By and large an NDS sounds like £3k more than an NDX2 and a ND555 sounds like a source £5k more than the NDS.
You go from very very good to excellent to sublime. Time has not changed these differences. All that has changed is the expectation of features that are included in the product.
If you are happy to live with the limitations of the old platform then you can have a £15k source for far less than that these days. The same goes for the CDS3 CD player, or even the mighty CD555 CD player. Whether you prefer other manufacturers products at these price points is probably a separate debate, some prefer the Chord products, others are not so keen, myself included.
If the features work for the OP then why not exploit this and get a top class source for relatively little money and spend the difference on a holiday (remember those?!) or elsewhere in the system?
What a completely sensible post IMHO.
Bruce
It’s because of logic. I assume the dac is still ok (believing naim (my Nait is still awesome, just auditioning the new XS3, and is basically the same as the old XS2, so older naim is still great)), but the streaming board is hopelessly to of date. The dac alone costs 1K, Bluesoiun 0.5K, it is the better combination. I don’t need to have owned and done stuff to be able to make conclusions based on logic and experience.
I never said anything about ‘owned’.
Your last sentence makes no sense, you can’t have ‘experience’ of something by using your imagination.
Yes. We have never been near a black hole, but yet we understand a lot
News to me.
Bruce
Looking forward to reading your mathematically rigorous general theory of sound perception supported by 100 years of science and rigorous experiments.
(And surely you will follow the example of physicists who readily accept that we also do not understand a lot and have no theory for what happens inside the black hole)
I want to stop talking now. I expressed my opinion. Everyone else os entitled to think whatever they want.
Some amount of humility might help, but that’s me. First, what you now call your opinion was supposedly the only correct one, now you are comparing yourself with Einstein