ND555 Impressions

I had my vodka cable well run in in that time. The first seconds I installed the diamond I heard a more nice , fluent and refined sound. The diamond was new. I have no problems of connection with my nds.
I suspect the dealer to have better interest in selling the chord music. However I don’t know how the chord will compare vs the diamond. But the music is 3/4 times more expensive.

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Yeah you could be right that he has more interest in sell8ng something, however I have been so far running well with his musical opinions about what works and what not.

Something I also found out this morning, mconnect Player to went Qobuz directly to your ND555 without the crappy sound of chrome cast. Enables to also stream high res. While I still would appreciate to have Oobus native in the app, which is rumored for 2020…

The last thing which my visit this morning provided was the insight that Ansuz the brand of my cables would soon come out with audiophile switches which will again mean a significant step up in sound quality…, exciting times.

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:small_blue_diamond:BertBird,…Strange that your trader said so.?

But you know of course your trader best,and can value what he says.
Some of our group in Sweden,.that has both Vodka and Diamond,…don’t think the difference is so great.
This if you think about the difference in price,…it is better but not in relation to the price,.is their judgement.

I think the difference is significant,.I share Frenchrooster’s description about Diamond vs. Vodka.
Those in our group that I mention at the beginning of this post,.have both top-notch Naim and Linn system…Active.
And they think Diamond works well in their system.

Therefore,…I was amazed by your trader’s judgement.
In Sweden costs 1,5m…
:black_small_square:Vodka £320:-.
:black_small_square:Diamond £840:-.
:black_small_square:Chord Music £4200:-.

So there is a certain difference in price,.I think you should try even the Diamond.
I believe that Chord Music is better,.but it costs four times more too.

:small_orange_diamond:I was surprised to read that your trader is open on Sundays.
Especially when it’s a midsummer weekend.

Here in Sweden,.our Naim-dealers are always closed on Sundays.

/Peder🌼

What all this, talk of ethernet cables other than blue jeans as an improvement - heresy i say.

Anyway, i tired the AQ Vodka, bass was all over the place, prior to that i tried £5 Amazon Cat5, Supra supposed Cat7, Chord C Stream, then Indigo and then dreamnt of the Chord Music, but ended up going SR which also has a separate ground, which can either be left off, plug to the mains or ground blocks - and that is going nowhere, for sure the ground also helps.

Not open on Sunday but on Saturday. I also have a secularly opinion about what works and what not, let’s see…

I have never heard (and given the price don’t want to), but the Ansuz power cable and accessories are damn good.

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I have the power distribution and power cables of the guys and have to agree…

:small_blue_diamond:BertBird,…Before you bought Anzus.

Did you try something from Shunyata.?
I have a friend who is totally “crazy” in Shunyata’s powercables.

No,.it’s not my friend Mr.Cableoholic :grin:.

/Peder🌼

Some very expensive ethernet components to try, if I had the possibility

Telegärtner M12 switch/ 4k. Gobel Lacorde Statement ethernet cable: 4500 euros/ 1,2 m

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No heard some other cables but not all which is on the market. Ansuz cables are great…

Just picking this up from an earlier post - @Harry I agree with the this setup using C-Stream with Vodka. In my case I found C-Stream from NDX2 to switch, then Vodka from switch to Uniti Core works really well too. I received 2 new Audioquest Vodkas yesterday. When I tried both together I lost a lot of bottom end for some reason. I accept they’re still new and need running in but this shouldn’t be happening. I’ll be sending one Vodka back for a refund

:small_blue_diamond:BertBird,…No,.listening to all the powercables on the market is probably an impossible task.

I have also Ansuz Mainz Ceramic to my Audion Silver Night 300B Single End Mono-block.
A very good cable,.but they do not work in my friend’s Line Magnetic Mono-block.

Powercables is very system dependent,.you have to try in your own system.
In another friend’s system,.see the pictures,.it is he who has Shunyata powercables.
In that system Shunyata worked better for him than Ansuz.
Through another friend of mine,.a now retired Swedish audio journalist,he got in touch with the constructor for Shunyata.

So he got some special designed powercables for his Bladelius mono-blocks you see on the first picture.

But this with powercables,.I think is the last thing to try in its system.
First you shall take time to install the system properly.

But different powercables make different differences,…Definitely.

/Peder🌼

@bongoman, wait, don’t send a Vodka back quite yet. I have Vodka from NAS to switch and another Vodka from switch to NDS and, after some run in, it is the best ethernet combo I have found. I have Cinnamon everywhere else.

Two Vodkas at the sharp end gives the most balance, most transparent sound I have heard from my system.

Be patient!

:small_blue_diamond:Bongoman,…I say as NigelB,…“Be patient”.

Just as Darke Bear also has written so much about,.Vodka takes time to “sit down” in the system.
And another thing,…If you have an optimal installation and make a change.
Then it is not unusual,.that you must make a small speaker tuning to optimize performance.

It usually is about a few millimeters in the movement of the loudspeakers.
So be patient.

/Peder🌼

I’ve really warmed to the Vodka, but it is a fickle beast that can give initial problems with the combination of run-in and set-up.

The Vodka-ND555 combo presents a nicely sculpted 3D solid holographic presentation more and more now as it has settled-in and I’ve learned how to let its deep extended bass properly breath through the rest of my system.

The bass is endless-deep but very fast and solid - but at first it is overblown and all over the place.
The HF-end is presented crisply and cleanly without harshness - but at first it is edgy and harsh.

I’m continually surprised by the Vodka-ND555 combo’s presentation of the music - continually hearing things going on deep into the mix clearly that were just not there before, without in any way detracting from the main performance - just more insight into the musical event.

I was playing The Knack ‘My Sharona’ from a 70s combo CD Rip that has a clean copy (not the crappy compressed lifeless one also now available) yesterday and it was frighteningly real and in the room - the Vodka caught the edge in the performance and the exuberant dynamics and life well - ‘edginess’ is not always a problem when it becomes the ability to replay the edge in music when there.

But I get it that in some systems this will not give what people want, so you can’t generalize without a demo in your own system.

DB.

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Between music-server (NAS :-)) and switch I currently get the best result with fiber. And a linear PS on the music-server. But then I am not great believer in expensive cables so I havent tested the expensive ones.

Between switch and streamer I have an unknown one that sounds best. I bought a number of cheap cables and picked up a number of different cables at work - its one of those I use right now.

SR of 192 will not have better timing than 44.1. Just more bandwidth. Just make sure your system (including speakers) is linear to 90kHz.

Nyquist has not ben broken as far as I know. But of course a given ADC-implementation can sound different depending on SR due to design-decisions.

I’m a scientist at heart - I trained as one and went into engineering and ‘learned’ that lots of things didn’t matter and believed that for a long while, as it is hard not to follow all the cleaver people going one way with their ‘settled science’.
But I had a series of experiences where I was shown these things do have an effect and rather than find refuge within the dogma that I was experiencing as clearly wrong that it did not matter - I found I still have the open-mind of the scientist I still am at heart, although overlaid by thirty of so years of design experience in the field of Electronics.
I can draw an analogue HiFi Amp on a bit of paper, set all the current-flows, determine the phase-stability and loop-bandwidth I want, apply feedback - and it all works fine first time. I know how to do all this stuff and done it for years - I buy and use Naim only because they do it so much better in implementation.
That in the end is what matters - not the design but the implementation. That is also essentially what the Designer of the Naim Statement told me recently.

That is not true. I also many years ago at did the electrical-engineering branch of my physics and learned Nyquist and sample theory before CD was even invented - and they knew all the holes in it even then. There are approximations (in amplitude and time-sample points) that you can time-average improve in the frequency-domain with dither and then you can shape the dither-spectrum … but it does not deal with the non-time-average real-time transient response at all, only more sample-points improve on that - even if they are not in final ‘real’ sample points but cleaver interpolations. Over-sampling allows more points to do better math with to shape the ‘noise’ and lower in-band distortion.

But all I report is what I hear and that anybody can hear if they can suspend what they ‘know’ and be open to that there may be a deeper layer of things going on than the previously held good approximation allowed them to realize before.
Nothing I can hear can’t be explained by electromagnetic propagation and interaction with non-linearity in dielectric materials - complaining it should not be audible when it clearly is there does not fly for me.

DB.

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