What was your impression of one vs two ps?
Is your ND555 your signal earth? My ND555 was decidedly deminished if it was set to floating because another source was providing it in the system. At least you don’t have to worry about plug order, something I found very important.
It’s set to default since there’s no other front end on the system. Powerigel may make a difference, but so far I’ve never found the time to try it…
My initial impression of adding a second PS was (from the old Forum):
“With 1 555PS the ND555 is more detailed and much more expansive than the CD555 and also has greater bass extension, but with very slightly less control and attack plus a touch of warm bloom. Adding a second PS brings the ND555 substantial strengths in all areas, including timbre and tonal delicacy. It’s a tremendous total package.”
What I didn’t clarify is that adding the second PS removes that sense of “bloom” and brings micro-dynamics and attack that are at least the equal of the CD555. The other areas mentioned, already superior to the CD, gain a further edge. There’s also a slight increase in overall clarity (but not separation).
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I’m feeding from a Core via CAT5e, 1m to a Cisco SG110D-08 unmanaged switch, than another metre of it to a wall socket. There’s a metre plastered into the wall than 3.5m running under the floorboards of a bedroom and another 1.5m plastered in to another socket, from there 1.5m to another similar switch and a further 1.5m to the ND555. The router connects to the upstairs switch. When forst connected like this it killed the music compared to running the Core on the Fraim feeding via 1 switch but after removing a legacy ferrite from the cable between downstairs switch and wall the music came to life again though I couldn’t swear it was better with the Core on the Fraim, there has to be some cost to using the existing plastered in cable.
The downstairs switch is sitting on the carpet and has a Tivo V6 and Panasonic plasma telly connected too so there’s room to experiment there. It could result in a small hole in the corner of the livingroom ceiling if sharing the cable with TV and Tivo proves to be detrimental.
The most important thing that the ND555 brought over my previous digital sources for me is that the music makes more sense, the timbre, impact, microdynamics and tonal delicacy etc may variously help towards that but from the ND555 the music talks to me in a way I’ve never heard from a digital source before and when I heard a second ps on one at a Naim run demo it reduced that element of comunication, that doesn’t necessarily mean it will do the same at home mind but because of space I’d have to sacrifice a supercap on the superline which I’d currently find unacceptable.
Two supplies may also make things more sensitive to revealing possible problems with the system installation if it is not quite right. My impression is that I’m now getting a ridiculously insightful view on everything I frankly did not expect as things stand now with my ND555 with 2x555PS(DR).
But if I mess it up by the usual things being a bit wrong that you get to know about running an Active system and you can more clearly hear it - not in an unkind way but the difference between the top-performance and away from that is larger - it actually makes it easier to tune the system.
The single supply version is in many ways a good all-round product that hides a bit of what the ND555 is capable of when maxed-out and makes it less sensitive to things in the system being not ideal perhaps. I think you can go a very long way with one supply and in most situations it will not really be needed - but I immediately decided in my Dealer shop demo very quickly I preferred by a large margin the two supply version.
We are all different and the things that irritate me in top-end HiFi were removed entirely with the two supplies - no sense of any vagueness or gentle-softening of very low bass or gentle tailoring of extreme-HF - all clearly rendered. It did help that I already had two supplies from my CD555 set-up so it was not a financial concern.
DB.
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Thanks for that. I have compared Minim and Asset for sound quality now, having previously assumed the latter just had the edge on tagging for Classical. Well, I prefer Minim significantly for clarity, detail and ability to capture inflection of voice and instrument, though it’s a subtle difference.
I’ve written to Lynx in the States for a comment on Twonky licensing and support after the closure of the Berlin office and will report back.
You can still obtain Twonky - lack of support does not mean all existing installations cease working.
As I mentioned - I’m more than happy to use Minim when I hear it demoed to be as superior as I generally want to upgrade to things that are better and especially free.
Twonky is presently cleaner and clearer on tone-colors and better dynamics rendering at very low and very high frequencies. The Minim sounded nicer in the mid-band and I liked what it does there, but it was not as exciting on a lot of music as the Twonky. Minim did very well on most modern music whereas music with good dynamic range - usually mastered before year 2000 after which that was gradually removed from music - just was more out-there with better presence with the Twonky.
I was surprised at this as I was conditioned to hear the Minim would be better - in some systems I did hear it was but in my system it was the other way around and I surprisingly preferred the Twonky.
But Minim is still developing and I hope mentioning these things will poke it to further improve as I’d like to use it but it has to be at least as good as my present Twonky server which last time I tried it it was not.
DB.
I own a cd 555, I am between ndx2 and nd555
Maybe I can use the 555ps a week for nd555 a week for cd555:)
Any single PS users with 2 cd and a streamer? Am I the only stingy one?
Is it worth the difference between ndx2 vs nd555
Maybe add a innous zen mk3 to ndx2 vs nd555
Help for a confused guy
‘Worth’ means a lot of things. Financially that is a personal thing - Musically the ND555 is in its own league I think so far.
You need either a good Dealer demo or better a home demo to make that decision IMO.
ND555 is a lot better than CD555 I’m now finding after it has run-in and I’m learning how to install it properly with needed digital-side stuff. At first they were similar but different but I compared a well run-in CD555 vs a brand new ND555 and the latter has really opened-out after several months of use.
At first I just wanted a gateway to streaming with the ND555 that would at least offer what my CD555 did and perhaps a little more - I did not find the NDS really did that for me, but the ND555 did.
But I’m now after months of run-in and optimizations I’m finding it does a lot more and is far better than I’d hoped for - so very pleased with it.
DB.
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Well the message from John driver, CEO of Lynx (Twonky), is:
“Yes we continue to sell and support Twonky Server and all other Lynx products worldwide. “
So I’ll install it with a full license and give it a go tomorrow, assuming there’s a version for Qnap
I’d love to do side by side listening tests with CD VS ND on same album/track. To me the CD just looks better built (exterior).
The CD555 looks beautiful and is a work of art, but the ND555 sounds significantly better. Time passes, things change…
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The CD555 is still an excellent product with great authority and gravitas to presentation that is not really bettered by the ND555, but it comes very close. The ND555 does its own things musically that take it somewhere special - greater fluidity and a different insight and there is a greater access to musical detail.
I never found the CD555 wanting anywhere and anything played on it was totally absorbing and it never sounded bothered by anything no matter how complex or dynamic it handled it in an easy no nonsense way.
The ND555 seems to build on this but skews it differently musically and overall achieves more, but since it is a network device unlike the ‘all in a box’ CD555 it is more open to problems if you don’t chase them down - I’m still on my learning-curve here.
I had been aware that all the Naim and other Manufactures development was going on in the Streamer and it was clear a few years ago - to me - that my home-demo of NDS was close but not really better. The ND555 was 85% better than CD555 to put an estimate on it - meaning I still preferred some of what the CD555 did but that was a new ND555 vs well-run-in CD555 I was very accustomed too.
Over time the ND555 has improved and the same test would probably still surprise me at how good the CD555 is, but the ND555 is sublime in its seamlessly clear rendering of harmonic-structure and on things like piano for example is does a better job at capturing a more real insight than I got before.
DB.
4 Likes
Interesting results.
Not surprised by some of the comparisons and what was preferred.
Certainly on my Melco NAS the Twonky was superior to the Minim - why I do not know but Minim sounded nice and lush but had poor bass and treble quality with poor dynamics when compared to the Twonky which on its down side can tend toward a leaner presentation, but to my ears less colored and doing all the essentials - in that I get far more detail with the Twonky that I got from Minim in my system.
As some point I’ll try both Servers stand-alone without the other installed to check if I had a poor interaction - if so there are three other people who got the same result I did in very different systems.
Well-worth finding out what works best for your system. The Twonky seemed to suit the Melco fluid presentation into my system but I’m always hoping for something better to emerge.
DB.
I’m going to have to revisit your point 4 above, because I’m not experiencing the same disadvantage from Roon. Even if there were some minor disadvantage to Roon, I would still be prepared to use it, but I can hear no reason to doubt. Currently listening to Joni Mitchell ‘Blue’ ,which I first bought on vinyl in 1971 , better than I’ve ever heard it, via 192/24 download, from HdTracks.
It’s really curious that we preferred similar things but in the opposite servers. I found the Twonky smoother, darker and less detailed. There’s obviously something going on with the Melco vs QNap. At the same time, I’m not a fan of fluid presentation so some of it could hinge on that. It was your post that gave me the idea of stopping all the other servers. Many thanks for that.
I really, really wanted to like Roon and in many ways did, but there’s no doubt in my mind about the sound quality problems, especially where the “best” sounding ripped content is concerned. Danm nuisance: it would have been very convenient, but I know that even as a side-by-side it would get on my nerves. The Qobuz via Chromecast obvious doesn’t have any of the slick convenience but does sound better and that was a big surprise.
The fluid presentation thing may be to taste - a lot of my music is live recordings and it really renders these amazingly to me. I find that the very fluid-fast (and in my case detailed) presentation really gels with my Active system. By comparison the Minim was nice but just a bit dull only by comparison.
I really wanted to prefer the Minim and was biased to do so - but it just didn’t achieve the same performance. Minim is a simpler system so should be possible to make it better so I will revisit it sometime ahead to see if I get a better result.
The ‘single server’ option has also just been home tried by another friend tonight with his system and he is amazed at how much better it sounded - he just turned off two other servers on the machine and he seems very happy.
…just bits…
I respect different preferences and also that things interact very differently with different systems - what one system loves will leave another cold.
A bit like interconnects - some find the Naim SL interconnects bright and lacking body - which by comparison to some manufacturers interconnects is true, but I find the latter generally over-full and slow…different things people look for and perhaps expect.
DB.
Words are funny things! I associate “fluid” with smooth, slow and anodyne mellifluousness. I liked the SL interconnect but felt it let down by its timing and tonal integrity.
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Fluid I take as quick and capturing everything as it happens. It is a positive thing as I use the word. But only one aspect I look for in music replay and certainly not the only one.
A lot of esoteric cables I find add too much ‘character’ which I hear as a surround of added harmonic coloration, like the wrong aspect of the old-style Valve sound and not the good aspects those systems can have when done right.
The S1 Pre has a very full-blooded if neutral core sound that the SL interconnects seem to complement. So system-matching is partly in play here IMO. There are many that believe in a ‘best’ cable but in general I don’t but do think there are better and worse ones.
I’ve never heard the SL cables have poor timing but in fact they were better than some silly more-expensive ones managed, that seemed to sit-on everything and cover the presentation with their own sound - but they are very popular and I had to have the demo and decide Naim probably made a better call on works better, for me anyway.
…there is also a ‘full-loom’ effect with any brand of cable that means they tend to inter-work with their own kinds of cables better and sound wrong when a different design-concept of cable is inserted into the mix. This goes both ways with a Naim loom and other Manufacturer loom of cables.
This is just how I hear it. You can insert other cables and get them to work well but it does need testing in the system to verify it complements the presentation desired.
Once you begin to invest it can tie you into that presentation emphasis - no opinion on right or wrong here but there are different presentations that Manufactures seem to chase.
DB.
I suggest trying running Roon on dedicated hardware, vs. running it on the nas. My nas boxes are old enough that I never even tried running Roon on them, although it would probably run. I bought a Nucleus, run Roon on it, and point it to my nas for the music library.
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