Musicality is challenging to verify with fast AB testing. It requires you to live with a change for a while. First impression is not always the best atleast in my experience.
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Yes we do but I’m not saying differences emerge from nowhere, I’m saying that when I hear a big difference it is sometimes wise to listen to each setup a prolonged time to make my mind up about which option I prefer.
Sometimes difference appear to be better and long term they might not be better all around, my experience of course
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Anyone who’s been in this hobby for any length of time has changed their opinion of a product over time with experience. You don’t get to know a product by listening to it for five minutes. It’s exactly why I don’t demo products at dealers. If I want something, I buy it and live with it for months. The winner stays and the loser goes.
If we’re going to deem this test worthy of consideration then shouldn’t the following also be considered true?
- the superlumina cable used on the ND555 makes no difference and should be avoided (clearly not worth the money)
- the vodka ethernet cable used on the ND555 makes no difference and should be avoided (clearly not worth the money)
- the off brand power supply is just as good as a 555PS DR (clearly not worth the money)
Who’s signing off on all of those assertions?
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I do agree that you may find over time very small differences that you pick up on, that you didn’t notice first off.
But these are only ever going to be very small differences if any, plus by that time you have easily had enough time for the brain to start making you think all kinds off stuff, plus it’s more in tune to maybe a cable swap or something else like that.
A box swap should give you a nice change you can instantly relate too, especially when that swap is going to cost many thousands and in some cases over £10k
But you don’t buy a ford focus 2.0 L and hope in a few weeks it will turn into an RS
Damn, now you tell me.
DG…
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I agree. Doing a simple switch test like this reveals nothing you can rely on. I trust my dealer - he has many years of experience - and he says that even with a simple power-down it can take days for a system to come back to optimum performance and that’s exactly what I find. In my experience the best performance comes from getting the system to 99% of its capability and this doesn’t come easy. It’s taken me years to learn how to do this. I suspect there are many systems out there that aren’t operating at their full potential. This doesn’t mean the owners aren’t happy it just means they haven’t heard what their system can really do.
Every piece of hifi equipment I have ever bought slightly disappoints me when first plugged in. Within a week I’m often ringing my dealers to tell him I’m bringing it back. He always tells me to wait three weeks for everything to settle before making any rash decisions - and he’s very rarely wrong!
Before I went down the ND555 route I borrowed the shops ND555 three times (over a long holiday weekends) just to see how it faired against my Node/Ndac/555ps. Switching between the two I also thought they were pretty close. On the third occasion the dealer said I needed to keep it for two weeks, which I did. By the end of two weeks there was really no comparison. There wasn’t one single aspect of audio performance where the ND didn’t comprehensively thrash the pants off the Node/Ndac/555 combination (and my CDP555) to the point of where I had to have one.
I’ll be very interested to read Dunc’s post about the ND in a few weeks time once everything has had a chance to settle down a bit.
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This Streamer debate is all good spirited fun and highlights why I have developed an MO on giving credence to forum opinion.
I have found that if say 90% of members, after having done a genuine listening comparison, prefer one product over another I have, as far as I can recall, agreed with the many. If it’s anything like a 50/50 split then it’s obviously anyway. Sometimes we just can’t arrange a lengthy listening test at home although I agree with Smoothfidelity and I prefer to give a new product a 3 day trial to iron out any changes in how I first perceive it.
So I for example bought the farad 3 LPS for the EE8 based on this philosophy and it worked out well. The Urika v Superline creates a more or less even split in opinion so I wanted a serious dem. As it happened an hour was sufficient to know that the former was my preferred choice.
How many members feel that the NDS is “almost” as good as an ND555?
Trust your dealer, it’s always the best thing to do, after all he will obviously only have your best intentions as number one priority, over profit and sales, as he is only doing it for fun.
Obviously, some dealers are much better than others, but all want a sale at the end of the day.
Also, how can you say doing a test like this gives nothing you can rely on ?
So, letting time, memory, and everything else come into play is much better then ?
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Having just come back from a lovely long walk on the beach with the dog’s, I have also come up with another reason why maybe this test had this outcome.
It certainly is going to be the elephant in the room, but it also could be exactly the reason.
It is also going to cause even more upset amongst a few but i feel it’s probably about right.
So here we go, i warn now you might want to stop reading here.
Has the NDS got to the limits off what the 552 is capable off ?
Does it take a better pre like the S1 to show the difference ?
As i have heard the ND555 sounding nicer in a non naim system.
I certainly wouldn’t rule this out, especially with what i found.
But probably after Dan’s news, thinking about this will be a step to far, but remember the ND555 is a lot newer than the 552 design.
Better go and hide now after thinking about this, and posting it.
But it’s just a thought i had, that’s all.
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Good post. I also found that adding Chord music cables to the ND555 2 x P/S (and the ones we can’t discuss) really upped its performance and I mean considerably.
Also in a previous post you mentioned how a Streamer you heard had sounded fantastic. I can believe it. How do you think your turntable in comparison would have sounded in that top system? I don’t know the answer obviously but I guess even better as I stand by my judgment that Steaming has a lower topping out point than vinyl.
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Alternatively I guess it be that the power amp or speakers have reached their limit?!
I do trust my dealer - I’ve known him for 30+ years! He does have my best interest as his number one priority - if he didn’t he wouldn’t be my dealer! My dealer IS doing it for fun, the love of music and a living. He has one of the most prolific album collections that I have ever seen and there’s not much about music that he doesn’t know. However, he has no ‘real’ influence over what I buy. I buy what I like and I only buy it if it’s better. I have enough experience in this hobby to know the difference between ‘different’ and ‘better’. I can say that doing a quick switch test doesn’t give you something you can rely on because I’ve done the test myself and it didn’t give me anything I could rely on, although YMMV.
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Well the 500dr certainly not, i proved that one already.
Can’t say about Dan’s speaker’s but with the 808’s it certainly wasn’t
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Could it be the listening room/acoustic environment?
Well obviously we are never going to agree and that’s fine.
But for me i work far too hard for my money to spend it on hopes, i like to hear what i am getting for my money.
Cheers dunc
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It’s the same conditions for it all.
Plus that’s 3 different rooms now, all the same results.
Plus remember that in both cases the ND555 was given all the best things to work with, so the NDS was already at a disadvantage before we started. This also is worth taking notice to
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Might be the Russian techno.
Am not sure of your upgrade path. Did you audition your DCS against a Naim streamer through a 500 series system when you bought it and you preferred the DCS gear?
I hadn’t even heard off dCS at this point, i was just on the normal naim upgrade path.
I just had all the right kit at my disposal to try both at the same time.
At the dealers it was all 500dr series kit and them tall top of the line pmc speakers
Just making the point that if you could hear the difference between the DCS and another streamer through a 500 series and PmC Fenestria, then the 552 is clearly not acting as a limiting factor. If it was you wouldn’t hear any difference between the two streamers.
Just querying your logic!