ND555 Impressions

They haven’t heard a better streamer. They say it is very revealing of system set up.

That is true - actually quite helpful in allowing you to find and fix system installation things.

Mine is now running smoothly with the bad part of run-in phase over and gradual improvement in smoothness and easy musical detail ongoing.

The ND555 is far more revealing of everything as it disappears and seems less of itself present - and hence lets you hear a lot more previously that was below a threshold previously set by the source resolution and character. The ND555 has a far more self-effacing character and also far higher resolution.

DB.

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I understood this afternoon that Dave was at 91… :nerd_face:

Chag -

the appreciation may depends on the musical tastes of the reviewer.
I remember that Martin Colloms preferred the nds vs the dave. And it was the nds, not nd555.

Recently Bluesfan compared nd555, dave/ mscaler and dcs rossini / master clock. He preferred the last.
The dave/ mscaler had more details, air and separation of instruments vs the nd555. But the nd555 was more articulated and coherent. The rossini / clock was doing both what nd555 and dave/ scaler were doing, but even more.
Bluesfan is still searching a streamer to replace his cds3/ 555dr.
He was also a bit disappointed by the dcs bartok.

Am I right in thinking he has yet to find a streamer that is enough of an upgrade from CDS3/555DR? Interesting. Might have to try a 555DR on my CDS3 then :wink: I have the XPS DR and its lovely but I doubt up to modern standards!

yes it’s that. But he didn’t said if the dcs, nd555…was better or not vs his cds3/555. He will report later.

Really interested to hear his view actually as I still play CDs and enjoy listening to albums this way. Streamers are in the back of my head but I am holding on to CD for as long as is sensible!

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the topic is: music streaming - it’s hard to find the right time. You can ask him Steve.

Having owned a CDS3, CD555 and NDS, the ND555 is in a different league on every musical parameter.

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Whilst respecting everything that has been written on here, I think it’s absurd that a £20K piece of audio equipment can take up to 6 months to sound its best.

Sorry.

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The CDS3 sounds superb with a 555PSU.

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ND 555 Review on Hi-Fi News April

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ND 555 Review for those who interest

ND555 Review

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Yeah, but you can’t really compare. the ND555 uses older DAC technology that can’t ultimately compete in reconstruction resolution, but the ND555 probably is at peak performance on what you can do with the PCM1704K converter… and it does it exceedingly well and it sounds attractive.

Interesting in the article about Roon… they don’t say whether they hard wired Roon to 24 bit or let it default to 32 with the ND555. I found the latter took a smidgen off the performance with Roon. Over ride to 24 bit and and it then, in my experience, sounds identical to UPnP … because actually at that point it is the same.

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I am pleased to see that the review is critical of the omission of a user manual. Reading the review I realise that the unit is capable of much more than I use, but I have no idea how to use such functionality. It would be good if such manual could describe the benefits of Roon, PCM, DSD etc. It is wrong to leave this for the dealer to explain. This really does need to be addressed by Naim Audio.

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Was listening with a friend earlier this week. He hadn’t listened to my system for quite some time. And was starting to praise my speakers and the immense reality. I guess what he didn’t realize is that the ND555 really fires this peak performance of all components…

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At least the article with Charlie Henderson indicates that manuals are coming back in some form, so at least he is listening.

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And need to sort out the software too… the bug with timeouts on digital inputs, bugs on sleep recovery and automation, and the issue that there is no way to stop or pause internet radio as you can with the legacy streamers…