So says Master Yoda
Yadda, maybe.
The NDX2 with 555PSDR is not too shabby either
Harry, are you using Roon? If you are and you’ve set the ND555 to go to sleep after a while, the remote won’t have any effect until you start playing a new track/album et cetera, which wakes things up again. The same thing could happen with the Naim app and a NAS, only I haven’t got one any more so can’t be sure of that…
I had that problem with the original batteries. Although it would work functionally, the buttons didn’t light up. New batteries cured it. I tend to control the ND555 with the iPad and use the plastic remote which came with the 552 for everything else. I do, however, use the ND555 remote to pause play when, say, the phone rings and will occasionally switch it to standby just to turn the screen off at the end of an album.
I haven’t heard one. But if its performance approaches the NDS, particularly at its price point, it must be distinctly shabby - and then some.
I don’t use Roon Michael. The App with my own tags and artwork does me just fine. I have seen Roon in action and it’s not something I need.
I have new batteries in it Clive. We’ll see where it goes. My worry is that I saw a brand new set go into the remote last week.
If I had kept the remote boxed, like I usually do, I’d be none the wiser.
I would have a word with your dealer or Naim , mine have lasted for a year, no problems still on original battery set.
My Dealer and Naim are fully in the loop and are being as supportive and helpful as ever. Naim have supplied two replacements. I’ve told my dealer that I’m not really interested in flogging this particular horse any longer. For all I know, I am somehow breaking them.
Very strange Harry, can,t see how it can be you?
Eh? Don’t follow… NDS was £8K when new. NDX2 is £5K. In any case, I recommend listening to items before offering any preconceptions here (otherwise purely subjective)
You’re in good company. I don’t follow my reply either!
I typed “unshabby” but I think something auto-corrected it.
Sorry.
I was trying to say that the NDX2 is probably the best value for performance Streamer that Nain currently sell.
Let’s see how that comes out when I hit Reply!
That’s better
Discussing the reason why a NDS2 was never launched with the Naim guys at the Bristol Show, they gave me the impression that the NDX2 was such a move forward on the NDX that Naim felt that a new NDS2 would be too close to the NDX2 in performance as to not make it viable.
So they pushed the boat out with the ND555 to give a performance level sufficiently higher than the NDX2 to justify the difference in price. I see the ND555 as the NDS2 with ‘knobs on’. Big knobs too!
While there also a couple of significant engineering changes…, you trigger an interesting thought if you consider that the Nd555 would physically be the NDS2 it would have been a nice marketing trick in coding it ND555, and get a premium price for it.
While I personally belief that the performance of the ND555 is so significantly in another league, that I wouldn’t call it a NDS2.
And yes to your point it will be difficult performance wise and marketing wise to position something in between the NDX2 and the ND555 as the NDX2 was also a significant rise in performance by itself.
I pull the trigger on a very good deal for nd555/555ps… so far so good
Now I have two 555ps at my disposal and someday I will try nd555 with 2 PS
Now that i don’t have a NAS I am using usb with a 2tb hard disk which sounds good…
Will things improve with NAS/Cisco/audioquest diamond vodka setup?
USB hard disk is not a nightmare to use, I wonder if I am getting the best of nd555
I am using SL for nd555 and using highlline for cd555, can not sell it;)
You can see somewhere else in the discussion that if you use a advanced NAS (Melco) that you indeed can expect an improvement. I don’t know if anybody has tested the difference with a regular NAS…
I often compare my UnitiServe to my QNAP NAS (with Asset and Bubble UPnP server software) as servers and I always seem to prefer the QNAP.
So even a basic, well-sorted NAS will give an improvement.
I also have no doubt, a good Melco would take things even further in the right direction.
Yes Melco will take you much more further.
I found a NAS and direct USB connection to sound fairly similar, though with less flexibility from the latter. A NAS also allows you to choose from audio servers that all have slightly different presentations. However, I found the Roon Nucleus sounded better than the NAS, and very much better with the addition of a high-quality regulated power supply. Melco is not the only answer and doesn’t offer Roon, which I find helpful and easy to use by myself and others, while greatly valuing the seamless integration with Qobuz. The Cisco 2960 switch also improves things and benefits from a power cord upgrade.
Worth getting a demo before deciding what you prefer to use. I did have a demo of Roon and it did not take me in the direction I wanted to travel but the opposite direction, whereas the Melco did take me in a positive direction in terms of SQ.
Maybe I had a bad demo or several poor demos of Roon and when I mentioned it before I got a lot of upset people for not liking it, but I really didn’t like what it did - it added an overlay of hardness I didn’t want whereas the Melco added the ‘vinyl-like’ replay quality (a light-touch and immediacy of presentation) to the ND555 I was pleased to hear could be done.
I credit that people have got good results via Roon, but I didn’t want to work so hard to have a good experience - I wanted a good Demo my Dealer sells them and we used the best implementation Roon had and it was good but not exceptional - and the Melco flattened it by comparison.
DB.