Naim NDS - still a good used buy?

I bought a cd555 for almost the same price and I think it is the bargain of the century ( I already own a PS)

In order the get the same level of SQ you need to spend some money…. I am sure there are very good alternatives with better prices but then muso is not too bad as well

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The £2.5k to £3k for a NDS, is probably not such a good way to go, especially if you need to buy a power supply for it, but it looks like them days are gone and the new price range is more £1.5 k and probably £2k max for a very late model.
This is a much better prospect

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That’s exactly where I’m coming from. The NDS did not make sense to me at £3-3.5 (otherwise I would have got one by now) for an old streaming platform but sub-£2k, now we are talking and for the SQ on offer it looks like a no brainer to me :slight_smile:

As long as NDS/XPS offes me a sound improvement over the nDAC/XPS at a low cost to change then it’s good value.

Exactly my point.

Reading all this I’m sort of gutted that I paid almost £3k for mine (with dual burndies) less than a year ago.
Then I go back and listen to some more music and am grateful for the fantastic replay that I get.

It was about £100 to add a Rasberry Pi4 to get Qobuz and I’ve never listened to so much and such a wide variety of music. Could I have done better for the money I’ve spent? Maybe. Do I care? Not so much, I’ve wanted an NDS since I heard the dealer launch demo years ago of ND5XS, then NDX (nicer in a hi-fi way) and finally NDS where I was blown away. It was just a different league.

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I think it would be very hard to better the sound quality of the NDS under £3k. Sure you can get newer DAC chips and newer streaming platforms but overall SQ in the context of an all Naim system?

It depends, if you’re going to use it as a streamer then you will probably need to pay extra attention to the rest of the network environment as well, since the NDS is reportedly sensitive to that. So that will be an extra investment possibly needed.

If you’re only going to use it as a DAC, then it’s uncertain if you will be able to hear a real difference with the nDAC and an external streamer. It might sound ‘a bit’ better subjectively, but would it sound £1K better than the nDAC?

The age of technology argument just does not work.
Imagine trying to explain to someone in 2021 that draging a piece of diamond through a plastic disk was no longer relevant. That technology has not changed much in over 70 years.

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Just try some auralic product, you will be blown away. The altair is just ~2.5k. But lets not use price as a property of the product. The altair is just much more sexy and modern product. Better screen and stuff. The new G2.1 is much better sound wise but also more than 2.5k.

It will be imtresting to compare usability and sq of altair g1 and nds ;), just sain…

Yeah, don‘t let me get started on the vinyl marketing hype :joy:

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When you listened to them both what did you think the major differences were?

The belief you can’t use Tidal or Qobuz with the legacy streamers is inaccurate. You can get lossless integration if you’re whiling to run a renderer on a NAS or similar.

So if you’re willing to do a workaround for Qobuz/Tidal and use it wired in your network legacy streamers are a great buy and some folks prefer the sonics of the legacy streamers to their modern counterparts. If you don’t want to fuss over the workarounds and want to use wireless then you’ll want to spend the extra money and get a current streamer.

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It does work in terms of costs for new technologies ofcourse, technology is rapidly getting cheaper for equal quality. Both DAC’s and streamers have gotten enormously more functional and affordable since the introduction of the NDS 8-9 years ago.

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It will be nice to compare them. I don‘t have access to a nds. But listened to lumin and auralic. Decided for Auralic becaus eit is much better usability-wise. Differences are oft very marginal, this is why I will always choose better usability.

Even the bluesound sounds great. If you combine it with the ndac its much better alternative than a nds (imho). Ofcourse if one insists all to be naim.

You clearly value the features more than the SQ. That’s ok :slight_smile:

All over this forum it’s reported that the NDS sounds better than the nDAC and the cost difference has never been smaller.

I have tried other newer tech DACs like the Hugo2 but didn’t get on with the presentation. Not for me.

I listened to the G1 family compared to the NDX2. Soundstaging was excellent in the Auralics, but I felt that tonally and timing the NDX2 had quite a strong edge, to be honest I really enjoyed the music on the NDX2 and the Auralic set was OK. I’ve separately heard the difference a power supply makes to the NDX2 and it’s significant.
I’ve heard the NDS in real systems as well as demos, but never compared directly to the NDX2/power supply. The consensus in press reviews seemed to be that the NDS had a slight edge.
(Edited to fix autocorrected typo, how often do I type DG1 so that a mistyped “edge” becomes a Vertere record player?)

I always smile when I read these threads! It’s usually made up of two camps.

Camp 1 used to own a NDS but have since upgraded to the ND555 or something else like DCS. They have sold their NDS’ and are enjoying subtlety gloating at the apparent reduction in value that those who own one will be subject to. They got out just in time…

Camp 2 are the current NDS owners who are trying hard to defend the product and counsel themselves that they haven’t actually lost as much as those in Camp 1 say they have.

Of course, with the streaming side of things where the tech moves so fast everyone who jumps in at this level (be it NDS, ND555 or other / DCS) will eventually end up in Camp 2!

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I haven’t seen any of Camp 1, I’m seeing people suggesting that a box they know well is good value (if you have a power supply already) at its current market price.

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Camp 3 are the majority of posters in this thread who are laying out the pros and cons from every angle so that the OP can arrive at an informed answer to their original question. Like I tried to in my very first reply - and I, for one, have no car in this race whatsoever

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Camp 4: Don’t read this thread, stay away from the forum and make your own decision.

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