ND555 Impressions

:grin: If I would own my BMW it would be an option, however…it’s leased…

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No that’s not the ones.

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LOL…good advice

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his wife will be in heaven🤗

Inspired by this epic thread I have ordered and am now waiting on ND555 delivery this coming week.

Regarding Melco (and while this branch of the discussion should probably be moved over to the Melco Mania thread) for those considering it, my experience is with the N1Z S20 (which has SSD). For me in my system it has been breathtaking - the transparency and clarity that it adds to an NDX2 (excl PS) take it very close to par with ND555 (as you would hope for the investment).
This is the same for streaming tidal as it is with playing hires downloaded files or ripped cd’s.

Am using melco supplied cat 6 from the wall point to melco, then melco optional cat 7 from the melco to NDX2. That cat 7 was a bit frightening straight out of it’s box (heightened glarey hf), but mellowed beautifully over the ensuing 10 days.

I’ve not listened to or compared the Innuos so can’t comment comparatively.
Just that I decided to single-mindedly go down the melco route after consulting two dealers and reading everything I could, with the foundation of SQ being my primary and secondary goals, and much more important than Roon convenience, as highly as many people speak of and are committed to it.
(BTW - Melco says absolutely don’t use roon with it’s current products, as it materially reduces melco sq).

Once my ND555 arrives and settles in I’ll try the AQ ethernet cables that have been discussed at length earlier in this thread and report my experiences.

@BertBird delighted for you, and so great to hear that the 2nd PS is making such an immediate and marked improvement. I was nervous to order the extra PS up front because of the noise that some have enjoyed it less.

On that, is there anyone on the forum who has been less convinced with their addition of second 555PS to ND555, or is this just a rumour?

OG

It will sound wonderful, enjoy👍

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have you already done the conversion of the unitserve files via the app on a mac? Somebody can come with his mac at my dealer place to try to do that.
Are you absolutely sure it can be done?

I bought a 5m one to run from the 2960 to the ND5XS. I was really impressed compared to my current Cat6 cheapo one ( the best of a bunch of cheapos :wink: ). Every track I played from various genres was clearly better; and for just £20 ! Twenty quid upgrades are few and far between!

The quality is very good too plus I paid a quid extra for a label “Naim Streamer” :smiley:

I have tried second supply twice. Once initially when moving from NDS to 555 as I has two already and then again a month or so ago. On both occasions preferred 555 with single supply

Yes, I converted my whole library a few years ago. Since then, I have also converted individual albums between WAV and FLAC several times.
On a Mac:
Download N-Serve from the Mac App Store.
With the Mac and Unitiserve on the same network, the app should find the Unitiserve automatically.
On the L side of the screen, you will see a list. Top of the list will be Albums. Control-click on Albums. (On a Mac, control-click is like right-click on a mouse with a PC.)
A small list will appear, including the option to convert to FLAC. Select this, and the process will start. Then just leave it to complete.

If you want to test that it works OK, find an album, control-click on that, and convert it, just so that you are confident that it will work.

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I do hope that your dealer ends up letting the UnitiServe convert its files to flac, and then transfers the flac files to the Melco. That definitely is a pretty simple way to do it.

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I did it on my UnitiServe – that was about 5 years ago now.

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They work well with Melco and ND555 as a combo - I’d also acquire some of the cheap Cat5e Belden cable discussed over previous weeks as it has qualities that may surprise you with the Melco and ND555 system components.

I’ve for a few weeks been using the AQ Vodka (well run-in now) between Melco and ND555 - and the Belden Cat5e for the 4m run from Melco to switch - and it made an enormous silly upgrade.

I had a friend over today and decided to replace the 1.5m Vodka Ethernet for a 0.75m Cat5e Belden, which I’d previously tried and had to remove after a day as it run-in peaked really awful then. But time to try it again - with the added perspective of my friend who is also an Engineer and suspicious of such things having any effect - but very rarely has an open mind and ‘hears what he hears’.

We swapped-out the Vodka and put-in the short Belden 0.75m link Melco to ND555 and played the same track again (a Suzanne Vega number - good recording) and it was obvious it was very different in a ‘better and worse’ way. The Belden had a little less control but gave a bigger easier more neutral sound - quite beguiling and involving.

After a while and another few tracks and having my captive listener I decided I wanted to swap the direction on the Belden - we did that and the character of the sound changed mostly if not completely for the better - better definition and as my friend said - a ‘bigger room’ acoustic on the recording we heard.

I’m going to run it in a bit more and will at some point swap back the Vodka and decide what I prefer, but already on a live concert recording it has a much larger dynamic range - subjectively double or more what I was used too getting - a big fleshy sound to vocals really giving a 3D impression of the singer as a substantial person.

…my friend did the usual comments that this should not be happening and it should make no effect…and I agreed as by the one way it is looked at it can’t - but it does.

In short - play with the cables and try even some suggested inexpensive ones and you may be able to get the presentation you will want with your system. ND555 is amazing and capable of so much musical information flooding out after what seems small installation tweaks that I still find it pleasantly hard to believe.

DB.

as I have mentioned before, I have had very good results with Belden ethernet wires in my humbler system…

enjoy/ken

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very thanks Chrissu :call_me_hand::call_me_hand::call_me_hand:!!!

@BertBird
A quick word front the Mont Blanc massif.

It’s a pleasure read your first thoughts about your second power supply. I do imagine what an enjoyment it is. :smiley::smiley:

Today is a rest day. Tomorrow we,ll climb the Grand Capucin and the next day the Chandelle du Tacul .

The Grand Capucin is a granit ocean. It’s like a mineral symphony.

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@Darkebear that’s an extremely helpful continuation of the long and winding ethernet cable journey so far.

It’s also just reminded me that my dealer relayed that a senior Naim technician was absolutely adamant with him that the ND555 neither benefits from nor likes ‘expensive’ ethernet cables.
Though they didn’t have a reason why, their listening tests repeatedly and comprehensively showed that basic cables produced superior sound quality.

While it sounds like a couple more weeks of belden break-in are in order, and also that they were likely not testing with a Melco in line, it appears that you may well arrive at the same conclusion.

In the meantime I have ordered some belden cables and a cisco 2960 switch to try after my ND555 arrives and settle in.
I am interested to know whether you believe the switch in your setup improves sq?
Logic would suggest that the ‘data filtering’(?) benefits that a good quality switch deliver, are the Melco’s bread and butter - but I guess it might be able to do an even better job if provided a higher base level of data integrity?

I’m really showing my utter luddite-ness wrt to these data issues - don’t really understand enough at all, but maybe @Simon-in-Suffolk may be able to add some facts/assistance here?

OG

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Well… I didn’t like the Melco n1h,it sound to me more hi-fi (I heard before the N1ZH/2 one above and it was really good) the music files now was not mine,they were inside the server belong to the dealer,I couldn’t put in my files, some problems probably with the settings,needs to learn how to use,also my ethernet cable c-chord is not a big deal,so the audition was short,I still ordered the big one…n10,will be arrived at the middle in next month, hopefully to be surprise on the good side.trust DB opinion.

So are you going to stick with them or return to the Vodka?

I would not like people to over-trust my opinion or anyone’s but ultimately your own is final and correct - for you. I’ve in years past made a few expensive mistakes by assuming what one person found wonderful would for me - it did not work with me - I had different room, musical tastes and perception differences and performance criteria I needed that did not fit an-other’s conclusion that was correct for them.

I post and use this forum to share and gather ideas - and try to do it as forthrightly as I can but there are different tastes and preferences and I do find it continually bemusing there is a blind-spot with many people that there is a ‘best-worse’ linear appraisal scale for everything - I’ve never seen things go that way personally.

I like what I like and want to optimize it having made the outlay for the expensive items, then getting the rest of it all right in terms of relatively less expensive cables, etc, interests me.

DB.

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