ND555 Impressions

The run in period is zero. The upgrade is big and instantaneous. Then it gets better. It will be fully run in when you think the sound has stopped changing.

I couldn’t say for certain. My NDS didn’t seem to take more than a few days. The ND555 was probably flying level after 2.5-3 months, but it was worth every penny from first switch on. The problem with evaluating run in (whatever that actually means), for me at least, was that differences in presentation were more about the recordings than the equipment I played them on.

The ND555 is so natural sounding, transparent and utterly believable, that it’s difficult for me to analyse, because there is so much beautiful music in my ears. And being an inveterate foot tapper, fatigue or cramp tends to set in after a few hours, which distracts further!

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Almost 3 weeks with my new source ND555 I really enjoy the sound coming out,I was never really happy with my previous NDS,always complained on the sound,I think it was never a true top level Naim as is others sources.Cd555 or cd’s,Maybe as a second class in the list,for me it was a failure top source…again Nd555 is a true Naim product.

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i don’t share this with you. I can’t absolutely no complain on the sound of my nds. Just the first month, because my network was a crap and the nds was directly connected to the router, with a cheap ethernet cable. I wonder even how the nd555 can be better now. But i know unfortunately that it’s better and will not resist a very long time.

I also agree the NDS is still a fantastic source, I enjoyed it while I knew more was possible

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The ND 555 has the ability to dig deeper into the music, so that it sounds much more like a bunch of musicians playing together, rather than the “wall of sound” which my NDS gave me.

In particular, I’m quite taken this afternoon with the fact that drums, in particular, the snare, finally sounds like someone behind the drum kit.

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I didn’t mean to say that my NDS was a bad device,I just said,he was not ahead as he mean to be in the top,as cd’s or the better one cd555,in my opinion he was an average player,as CD player like cdx.you always could go for the better one to cd’s,the ND555 did justices as a top player,hopefully you understand me.

i had the cdx2 / xps2 before. The nds/ 555dr with good quality switch and ethernet cables is easily 2 steps better. With hirez, better than the cd555. Just my opinion of course.
With no network treatment, cisco switch…the nds is less punchy and quick vs the cdx2. But with these tweaks, my cdx2 / xps2 is far away now.
The nds is somewhere between cds3 and cd555, but with hirez and tweaking, it’s a bit better vs the cd555.

Having finished mucking around with my comparisons of UPnP servers, I’d recommend anyone else who has the patience to do the same thing because there are substantial differences on a revealing system and they may well have different preferences depending on their system, room and taste in music.

I’d also recommend giving Asset a good try.

I was all primed to prefer Minim because it can handle the management of classical music better, but I ended up finding some sonic limitations I couldn’t put up with, although it has a beguiling midrange, good timing generally and is deft and airy, it’s also a bit bass light. More importantly, under pressure (and this was the crux for me), its somewhat thin treble can become brittle and it losses track of complex passages, muddling the timing and individual voices/instruments/sections of the orchestra etc. It can also sound a little shut in.

Twonky has in my experience a robust bass and seductively massive soundstage, but can sound a bit coarse in tone and texture, and has less air around instruments and breath/body in voices. It is well-supported, contrary to rumour - I got great and very fast tech support.

Asset, which is what was used for most of my pre-purchase auditioning, doesn’t have any easily-pinpointed outstanding strengths or weaknesses and doesn’t really draw attention to itself in comparisons, but is better balanced overall.

Roon RAAT is closest sonically to Asset but can deliver a slightly lower noise floor, greater detail, texture and dynamics together with tighter timing when implemented on a Core run on a dedicated server that’s stripped to the minimum and running ROCK (I’ve posted in more detail on this in the RAAT vs. UPnP thread in the Streaming section of the site for anyone who’s interested).

When doing comparisons, I’d recommend only running one server at a time. Shut down the others and any other NAS Apps you don’t require (careful how you do this: just one at a time so that if anything stops working, you know what to restart immediately). The less processes that are running, the better it will sound, at least in my experience.

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i run no nas, no roon, no asset, minim or twonky. Just my unitserve on high quality linear ps, naim app, nds, some network tweaks, and i am done. I tend to think that the less complications the better the sound.
Has you tried roon nucleus only as simple nas, streaming files from it in upnp mode, without roon? I am curious.

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I tend to agree, but the problem is that streaming is not plug and play like a CD - practically everything upstream has an effect on sound quality, hence your network tweaks.

The Naim Core (replacement for UnitiServe) has, I imagine, its own internal media server. In a direct comparison, Asset on the QNap sounded better in my opinion, as I reported earlier in this thread and on the old forum.

I suspect that having a dedicated minimalist NUC just for the media server could sound better than a comparatively busy and noisy NAS, but there would be no point in doing this on a Nucleus: it would automatically wipe it clean at every update, a choice made to stop tweakers ruining their systems.

wipe it clean at every update: what does it mean ? I know that running the roon nucleus without roon may be not interesting . But as a nas only, it’s certainly more silent and better done than a nas as qnap or synology.
It would be just interesting to see how it sounds in that configuration, in upnp with your nd555.

The Nucleus is designed specifically to run the Roon Core, I very much doubt you could get it to run a UPnP server. Neither should you need to: a UPnP server will run on very basic hardware such as a RPi or a low spec NAS, so I really cannot see why a much more powerful and expensive device like the Nucleus would be needed.

Was running this morning some classical piano with Evgeni Kissin and I was again amazed by the level of natural sound which is coming from my ND555. Every time listening it’s a delight…

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The Nucleus is a standard Intel NUC board with a fancy fanless case. No more, no less.

It is not specifically designed for Roon.
It is Roon Rock that designed around the NUC platform.

You may install install many different operating systems on it : Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, etc.

You can install a Linux distribution on top of which you can run Asset or MinimServer

So yes, it is possible to run an UPnP server on the Nucleus.

Roon claim to have designed the Nucleus in collaboration with Intel. I see no reason to disbelieve them them (especially where the fanless cooling design measures are concerned).

Irrespective of that, each update intentionally wipes any user tinkering.

It is however a dedicated and expensive hardware solution. The only point in buying it would be to optimise Roon performance, though I suspect once could install a Linux Mediaserver on it since ROCK is effectively a cut-down Linux.

Of course they did. The fanless design eliminates the fan’s electrical and mechanical noise. And the case itself is pretty well designed. But the motherboard is, indeed, a NUC board.

The point here was to answer the question raised regarding the possibility of running an UPnP server on a Nucleus. The answer is yes.

is there a possibility to have better sound quality running the nucleus in upnp mode with the nd555 , without roon? or the same sound quality ?

I certainly think it would be interesting to try. I’m not going to do this either on the demo Nucleus (which I don’t consider “mine” to play with in that way) or on my own when it arrives since the idea is simply to use it for what it was intended, running a Roon Core. I couldn’t be bothered to constantly reinstall Asset every time a ROCK update deletes it.

i understand

Of course it’s a NUC board, but which NUC board?

Anway, as you say, the answer is certainly yes if you’re prepared to either install Linux instead of ROCK or are happy to constantly reinstall your preferred media server every time a ROCK update deletes it.

But I can’t see why one would want to treat the Nucleus as a hardware-only solution rather than a complete HW+SW+autoupdate package. One of the fanless NUCs sold as low-cost Nucleus alternatives would make more sense.