ND555 at Olive System

Hi DB

How many Naim boxes do you have?

Jim

Only twelve - I shall have to see if I can get a few more to ‘win’. :wink:
Probably what I have is enough for me.
ND555+2xPS = 3
S1 Pre = 1
Snaxo_SC = 2
3x Nap500DR = 6

If I’d kept the good old 552 I would have another box.
Pleased by that box-reduction though. :bear:

DB.

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It makes my mere 7 seem quite compact.

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More can happen.

DB.

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Lovely sky blue walls.

Your pre looks like (is) a floorstander. :grinning:

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Yes - the S1 thankfully works fine on a floor. I have been told improvements can be had by placing it on extra support-shelves, but happy with it as-is performance-wise now.
The pic here hides the three NAP500 behind the speaker.

DB.

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When spate boxes count…
24 boxes without speaker… :rofl:

Have you considered NAP 500?

Do you have a dedicated ring rather than radial?

Do you ever compare Qobuz to local stream?

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Was this question related to me? Yes I had… but cancelled the idea, as I don’t want to divorce my olive amplification (52/135).
As you know - there is some kind of magic in it

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Do Stageline count as 1/2 a box :confused:

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A 1/4 of a box :wink:

Dedicated Ring works far better than Radial for me.
I installed four radial runs and tried various ways to connect-up mains and radials all sounded worse musically.
Pulling all together into one mains point but making it a dedicated ring circuit for the HiFi sounded best (I essentially reconfigured two radial runs into a ring and made appropriate changes at distribution end).

One radial got reallocated to my house Alarm circuit that saved my HiFi twice from unwanted attention.
That left me one radial left that I found worked well for the PS of the ER switch (just the switch PS) that then feeds the Melco-ND555 Ethernet, so that is the only item not on the HiFi ring circuit but it is also on its own radial alone - it was quite a noticable drop in noise, so that stayed.

So I do try these things - old school empirical scientist in me.
I’d heard what running all radials to every item seperately did - horrible musically. My Dealer also found the same when they tried it with their Statement demo system incidentally and now just use one power board for the lot.

Not yet. I have Tidal running but that is really just to play occasional things I don’t have locally-ripped and to explore things I may want to aquire or not.
Tidal is not as good as local for the same CD - I don’t use HiDef as I have not generally found it better than an early mastered original - but if I were more into Jazz/Classical I may have a different take on that.

Qobuz is said to be better than Tidal by several people who I have generally found align with my take on what is better so that may be ahead as an experiment.

DB.

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Currently listening to pure electronic music (recondite)… sooo good :+1:
ND555 does a tremendous job

How was this achieved?

Did you use 10mm T&A?

When I heard what the D100 was capable of, I re-ripped my entire collection to my N10. At over 2000 cd’s, it was quite a cost in time, but I had just retired and it kept me occupied.
When I ventured to share my experience with the ‘Roon Community’ I was savaged by the ‘digits are digits’ zealots who assured me that any difference could only be in my imagination.
Their loss!

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No - just standard UK mains wire 2.5mm - these are short runs to my consumer unit and there is more to it than just nominal resistance. For very long runs more than the few meters I needed I may have decided on larger guage.

There are a lot of wrong ideas on wiring people have - the main noise comes from the rectifiers in the LPS especially the Power Amps and Digital supplies, whereas the class A stuff is not that noisy.
I want more inductance to stand-off my HiFi mains ‘island’ from elsewhere so using the standard wire does that a bit better anyway and easier to connect-up so that is what I did.

I’m not saying this is right or trying to convince anyone - just what I did and that I have a background in this stuff on how a wiring mesh behaves at high frequencies.

Having the HiFi on its own mains circuit was good and dropped noise - when I used to use Vinyl more it was most noticeable on that. Then connecting all wiring from boxes close so that the area subtended by their mains mesh was small and then all their generated noise (put a scope on it and it is horrendous) comes to a common-point - after a careful sequence to put the Power Amps closest to the wall socket and then sequence the other boxes - Amps - Snaxo - Pre - source (at end).
I tried other connection methods and this worked best and theory said it would too so that was good.

The Radials have a UK spec of how they are to be wired and fuse used at the consumer unit, but otherwise all a ring is is two radial wires connected - they are run side-by-side together so not in an open way; this is to minimise subtended area to reduce RF pick-up. All this was finally done/signed-off by an electician friend once I decided what I wanted to remove me from the equation and get some QA on the final installation. That was all done some 15-20 years ago now.

I know there is a view on using large guage radial(s) and I’m not saying that is wrong for people but just that it was not the way that I decided to go. I get IMO excellent results.

However you do it - a seperate HiFi circuit is the way to go to get some isolation between the HiFi and house items. House items still can be bad - I just chased-down that a PoE switch I had used for my security camera system was spoiling things and another manufacturer unit and slightly different way to connect-up (I used local PoE injectors at the individual cameras instead) works far better.

Any new electrical item plugged-in somewhere and noticing I don’t want to play music usually means it needs to be unplugged. :bear:

DB.

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I’m really surprised that you prefer this sequence,I have always preferred source closest to the wall socket,but now I have a star earthed Powerigel Plus and it is superior to me.

Yes - others have told me that and I respect it may indeed work in some systems the other way, but it did not for me.

I got a rather crude ‘in your face’ sound direct to the wall. My Dealer installed options to have his Statement direct to wall but found a distribution block worked better and gave a more musical presentation.
Essentially I do something similar - the three NAP500 are into the wall direct with a distribution board between two of the NAP500 wall sockets used for S1 Pre then the ND555 Analogue PS and then Digital PS.

Once I found something that delived-up the performance I wanted - no fat-bass and shrill-HF which were possible options I declined, then all was good and I have run it for many years that way without feeling I need an upgrade; this usually means you have got it right.

But this is just what I did and it works well here. Other ways may be better with other systems and presentation preferences. I try what other people suggest and sometimes it is a good idea and sometimes it is awful, but I like the ideas and sharing of experiences.

DB.

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Wait till you see 70!

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