ND555 Impressions

I’m interested in how you get on with them. I have the solid core Beldens from Blue Jeans.

I’ve said roughly where I am with them at the moment above - they are good but at present I’m using them in conjunction with the Vodka - that may change or not later.

The big plus for them is that they are relatively inexpensive to try by exotic cable price standards.

I’m also not convinced any single cable, including these, will be the sole solution ‘best’ for all systems and system configurations. Since I use a Melco I have :
switch - cable B - Melco - cable A - ND555
Whereas most other people will have:
NAS - cable B - switch - cable A - ND555

The cables may perform similar or not, I do not know, as in my config the music is not mediated through the switch.

But I found swapping cable B to these Belden types made a big difference for the better in terms of openness and detail; the possible down-side, yet to be bottomed-out, may be a very slight slowness, but that may be gone once they are run-in and may not even be there as it takes me time to get used to the different presentation.

Another thing people may find is that if you have two Naim Apps both simultaneously talking to the ND555 and getting the same track-play data back, then it all works fine, but sounds quite poor by comparison to just using one App instance. Lots of things can impact the optimal running of ND555 and only talking to one App instance is a lot better.

In my case I’m also doing the Beta-testing so on occasion get by mistake the Release and Beta App up and running at the same time on my iPad mini; something that may not impact normal use but sometimes people may be using multiple App instances on different device - it works fine, but does impact SQ.

DB.

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I can’t remember where I read this, possibly not on the AudioQuest site but on some anti-high-end cable site that did a somewhat superficial test of them on relatively low-end gear. They took the cable to pieces and reported that the screening is not connected at both ends. I vaguely recall having read the same thing elsewhere and that this is principally to prevent ground loops. However, my memory is a less than perfect thing! Hope that helps…

I’m away camping for around a month now so my experiments have been suspended and everything is switched off, but I have both the Blue Jeans Belden cables and the Designacable ones for comparison. I had only given the Cat5e Blue Jeans a few days burn-in before leaving and they still seemed somewhat lighter, thinner and less detailed than the stranded Designacable Cat5e, with less bass extension. Part of that could well change with more burn-in. In the past it’s been unusual for me to find that a cable increases in bass extension rather than starting out with lots of flabby bass that then firms up, however that’s precisely what I found with the Sablon Ethernet cables, which are also a solid design. So maybe that will happen here too. Once I have returned I will give the Blue Jeans Cat5e and Cat6 a good run for their money and post my findings here.

This makes sense … which is why the cable is directional … when I made up a set of Vandenhuls yonks ago I got in touch with one of the guys who supplied the cable … he recommend only connecting the screen to one end … and when fitting the cable the source should be the screen connected end…

I found this other site that shows an AudioQuest Vodka disassembled.

The Vodka (and Cinnamon) cables have the screen connected at one end only. This avoids messing up the signal earth. I tested this with a meter and also checked directly with AudioQuest.

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Indeed, that’s copy and paste from the Ars Tecnica site, which I had cunningly forgotten the name of…

I put a pair of Designacable Belden Cat 5e between the Melco N10 and the ND555/Netgear switch half an hour ago, and my jaw is still dropping. This is a remarkable upgrade for so little outlay that it must rank as the best value ever.
I look forward to it ‘burning in’; meantime, I have a new music collection yet again. Midnight oil will be required!

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Designacable do a few. Do you have the full name so I can do a search, please?

Thanks.

is it this one? the site company doesn’t appear on the picture, normally Richard should approve.

Yes, that’s the one. I bought 2*1.5m.

Clarification, this is not exactly the same. It has different connectors at each end, whereas mine has the normal Ethernet connectors at both ends.

This one?

PREMIUM Belden CatSnake Cable. CAT5e RJ45 Ethernet Network Cable. LAN Patch Lead

The one above (both RJ45 connectors) is what I use.

I’m using a 4m run from Melco to my Switch and the Vodka 1.5m on the short run Melco to ND555 at present.

Be prepared that at about one day run-in they sound (in my system to me) confused and awful, but then rapidly improve after two days.

DB.

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As Darkebear says, this is the one.

Hi…R.V.R… how is your Melco N10 as a server to your ND555? I`m thinking to buy the same Melco,as it expensive I need your opinion comparing to Nas or anything else,does it worth the extra money in terms of sound?

Meni, I started a topic called ‘Melco N10’ on this forum shortly after I bought it. If you do a search, you will find it. I am completely satisfied with it.

Okey I looked at your topic,thanks,to day I ordered Melco n10 ,it will arrived about at the end of the month,ordered in black color,in the meantime I will get tomorrow a Melco n1a/2, hope I will be happy

curious to have your feedback on the melco n1a2. I am waiting for mine.