ND555 at Olive System

I had a CDS2 and then sold it. Bought a CDS3 later on thinking it would make things better. Sold it for financial reasons. Couldn’t live without CDS2 so bought another and have kept it.

Downside is lack of support for mech if it goes wrong and could be a doorstop.

I love the CDS2. Glorious machine.

ND555 will trounce it for sure. But it’s a legacy machine with great heritage and character!

I have it and am enjoying it.

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Fully understood!
I know that I will love a cds2!
As I love the olive sound so much. Still a bit outlaw here with my olive ears and nd555 in front, who could do more, but who cares. It is so good in front of 52 :o)

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Did you try a second 555PS to ‘know’? I have read that a second 555PS on an NDS caused some to hear a loss of coherence.

G

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I haven’t tried it on NDS. I am sure it would lead to better separation and coherence. How far do you go?

Good point - you got me. Sorry - it was me assuming without knowing. My gut feeling tells me. But no proof. None!
Maybe i will love it.
Have read of more togetherness with nd555 as well. But nd555 is going to peak performance with 2x 555ps. That’s for sure!

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What was it that first drew you to Naim?

We went to buy a belt for the Denon TT of my former girlfriend and we had gone to Phonosophie which were the naim distributor the days back.
It lasted more then 3 hours to buy the belt and we came back totally infected.
I bought 62/90CB and Royd Apex soon :slight_smile: so the story begins…

Next step was …
72/Hicap/250/SBL…

and so on…

We can all relate to that :smile::+1:

My Boxes are on a dedicated 20amp radial with 2 double unswitched sockets. A separate consumer unit would have been better and 10mm cable but I had only just started my Naim journey when I had the work done.

It’s better than having it on the ring main with everything else!

And 20 years later you got a NAC 52.

The daddy of all preamps.

Julian Vereker’s greatest design.

The core of Naim.

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LOL
It was introduced when I first met naim beginning of my 20s - as mentioned above.
When 52 first showed up an the Phonosophie shelf it was like a shrine with a small young guy in front down on his knees :slight_smile:
Many Years later - no small guy anymore (grey headed), but 52 (now win my shelf) still with the same magic as during first contact :slight_smile:
I also think that the 52 is the peak of olive naim sound…

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Oh god! What the last 20 years have done on our body ? Big change from 35 to 55 . :joy:

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Long weekend and time to think…

I am totally fine with my system now, that I even refused to take the powerigel plus again, as it seems to be still for sale.

Currently thinking about getting an used cdx2.2 and connect it to nd555. But hat for? Have some cds - but like app selection more
Will the sound signature with cdx will be different enough?

And again - no rack space left :frowning:

I would say using the ND555 as dac from the cdx2.2, the sound will be very much the same, you may hear a few differences as the cd will have more noise due to moving parts, but then that also depends on how good your ethernet is as well.
But i wouldn’t expect much difference at all, and probably not even worth doing

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@drago I considered this as I have a large CD collection and still buy CDs regularly. I wondered the same as you and spike with someone who had that set up. They streamed for new music via Qobuz but still enjoyed physical media and did not want a server. They said the excitement of the CDX remained, the music was more nuanced and easier to follow. For them it was better than CD555. How much impact a transport has I don’t know but the DAC side will be done by the ND555 but the signature apparently was still quite different. I believe they were using a CD555PS on the CDX. It was converted by Naim to be transport only btw.

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This is a surprising outcome.
Meaning, that cdx.2 (fed by 555ps) into nd555 could be a state of the art cd player.

I do have an olive xps (do not know if it works with cdx 2.2) - also have a spare dc1. Can be interesting to test, but do not know if it worth the invest for cdx2.2. Think it will be different - but better?
Too much to decide (e.g. stream vs local vs vinyl vs rip to hdx vs rip from melco d100) is not good for me :grinning:

The CD players was outperformed when the HDX arrived in -2008 ,a source first thing in my opinion.

@Igel I moved from cdx (olive) to hdx. Found it better the days back.
But I really think that a good transport with excellent DAC (as nd555) has its place

The CD players has to error correct in real time (interpolate), those errors can’t be fixed by a DAC.

You Olive XPS will still work with the CDX2. Whether it’s a worthwhile upgrade when used as a transport only is another matter - only one way to find out.
If you are looking for a CDX2 be sure to check that it is a later one with switchable digital out. The earlier models didn’t have this. They could be modified by Naim but this makes them digital out only, and the mod is not reversible.

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