Nap500 with 552

When sorting the boxes to ship to Tasmania, we compared NDX2 and ND5XS2. The latter (without nDAC) was less compelling but the gap was not huge - until we added back the XPSDR to the NDX2. Of course, the ND5XS2 also has no screen.

It seems that an NDX2 may well cost over £3500 while an NDXXS2 may be just under £2K.

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Fast forward a couple of months into the future:
“Dealers saying the new 300 series is better than the 500 series is a matter of debate quite clearly.” :joy:

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I reckon I will leave it as it is for time being. Got used to spotify and with new speakers it sounds awesome. It takes a fair while to load of files from NAS drive. I can live with it. Overall sound is amazing and better on spotify than CDS2.

I have a great system and these are just minor niggles. If screen burn hadnt occurred I wouldn’t say anything. It’s 10 years old so what have I got to complain about really?

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I don’t think there’s that many in the wild. Sales volumes must diminish exponentially as you move up the range.

I didn’t think that 552DR and 500DR was particularly noisy?! With DR tech I thought it was much quieter and sleeky than non DR kit.

With powerlines I thought it was quiet on noise floor. You are making it out to be not very good.

Maybe because you have moved on you are saying this?

You seem vary harsh on 552 and 500DR. And only a few years ago you were saying how great it is.

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That would be a very elegant solution imo, visually and sonically. I’m still streaming audirvana from my laptop but I’ll be a lot happier just controlling everything from my phone when the time comes. No question to my mind, streaming from Audivana sounds better than native Tidal.

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And then later down the line they will say the ultimate in music enjoyment is the Olive series!

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The reality is I’ll probably never change from what I have. Not because I’m wedded to the sound but because I think I’ve arrived with my system and have no desire to invest more.

Nice to hear another NDS user listening to Spotify. I keep telling people it sounds awesome but they just don’t want to believe me. :man_shrugging: I tried Tidal for a month and was underwhelmed. Probably not worth the stress of upgrading your firmware to 4.8.

Yes you’re right on price point. If I got ND5XS2 the NDS would be used as DAC. If I got NDX2 I would sell NDS.

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I did love my 500dr and 552dr for many year’s you are right, and obviously i don’t mind admitting to that. I was at the time blissfully unaware off what the 552dr was doing to my music, and quickly sold it.
But once you hear something that is very quiet, you suddenly realise how noisy something is, the 552 is not very quiet.
The 500dr i could have lived with, but really i wanted true balanced to best make good the rest off my system.

I have obviously moved on but that was the main reason behind it.

Hopefully the new kit, and then the new 500 kit might be good enough to lure some old 500 guy’s back to naim, only time will tell

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Service interval 15 years for 500 series.

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It sounds very good on Spotify. The NDS is an amazing machine. But it is dated. Yes, you can use other things to get it to work with other systems and use Qubuz but I can’t get my head round it. I seem to have internet problems here which meant Tidal didn’t work at all. So do I spend days and days to no avail or plug in new box or accept it as it is. With three sources I have no lack of music so tendency is to leave it be for now.

Blimey! You don’t want to make a lot of friends here :rofl:

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Is your new system really that much better or is it more Hi Fi and less Naim PRAT?

Maybe you will come back to Naim.

Was it as bad as you made out? From what I read I would feel a bit gutted if I had a 552DR and 500DR if you are saying what you have now is infinitely better.

I have listened to a sound system that made mine pale into insignificance! A mate of mine has very expensive tube amps and its like how can that sound so good. But that’s a £500k system.

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Get yourself some Silbatone amps or listen to them. They will blow your system away.

I think personal taste is a huge factor, and more so the further up the ladder you go. I’ve heard quite a few on here say they’ve heard the latest competition and whilst x, y or z might have been better, they were left cold. Every system will have strengths and weaknesses.

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He is getting peoples backs up but I guess he doesn’t care about his fellow forumites. @Dunc maybe you should learn a thing or two about diplomacy. Not impressed.

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I suppose the take away from this is that even the 500 series is not perfect. Certain aspects of its performance may indeed be bettered by the 300 series (200 series as well?) in particular the noise floor.

Perspectives also changes with time/experience. I recall auditioning a little TEAC CD/Radio unit with two small speakers. The dealer demonstrated it with Van Morrison’s ‘Back on top’ album. We loved the sound so much that we bought the TEAC system dashed to the nearest HMV store to buy the CD album.

Years later I auditioned the Myryad 2080i integrated at a dealer in Swindon. He demonstrated the amp with Hans Theesink’s ‘Bridges’ SACD album. Again, I bought the amp and ordered the SACD online the following day!

In reverse, when auditioning NEAT motive 2 speakers at Cymbiosis’ old shop, they were intrigued with my Diana Krall’s ‘The girl in the other room’ SACD.

I suppose that my point is how great it is to buy gear based on listening to/discovering music. Isn’t that what our beloved hobby is all about?

Just remember the posts about 552/500 versus DCS where he had to admit to the big fish the 552/500 was on the carpet😄

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Half a million! Surely you could hire artists for private performances for less money :wink:

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