I’m dipping a toe into the world of streaming. I currently use an Arcam FMJ CD36 with a Naim Nait XS and Neat Petite 2 and Neat Gravitas speakers. As you may appreciate from the age of those, I find spending money quite traumatic, so I’m unlikely to spend a lot on subscription services, but we do have a family Amazon music subscription which it would be useful to access. My main source will be FLAC files from a NAS.
I need a streamer that will give me at least as good sound quality as my CD36. I’ve though about a WiiM Pro, just to get me started, but as I don’t have an external DAC to use with it I suspect it would be disappointing. I’m thinking of an ND5 XS but that seems like very old tech and the screen issues put me off. Should I blow the budget on a ND5 XS2 or would that be wasted on my current system? Are there other used options that I should look at?
The old ND5XS works fine for local streaming, but apart from the screen issue there are other parts that Naim can no longer obtain, so it’s risky. Also when I’ve listened to one I was always rather underwhelmed by the sound quality, whereas the ND5XS2 is a great performer.
The streaming services supported by the ND5XS2 are Tidal, Qobuz and Spotify. If you want the best sound quality these are the ones to use, but Amazon Music should work fine using Airplay, Chromecast or Bluetooth.
The ND5 XS2 is excellent. I’ve had mine 6 years and never thought of changing, even through “firmwaregate”. There should be some bargains available now it is recently discontinued.
Qobuz costs around £130 per year and I think Tidal is similar. So for the cost of a night out at a concert you get a year’s worth of music, typically in excellent quality with a vast range of genres and musicians to choose from.
Get that ND5XS2, take out a subscription to Qobuz or Tidal and enjoy all that music!
Personally I would go for the ND5 XS2, great sound for the price, especially now that it’s mostly s/h.
If you want a DAC, I would suggest you to try the Ideon Ayazi mk2. I find Ideon DACs pretty interesting, I dare say they might even have a better sound than the ND5 XS2. However only your ears can judge.
I pay £10.99 per month for Tidal (only) for the highest resolution. It works really well and sounds great out of my Neat speakers. When I bought there was a 3-month free trial of Tidal on offer. It looks like 30 day free trial is available.