I think when the nds was launched we all saw streaming as lower down the sq scale than cd and certainly those souls who had invested in a cd555 weren’t going to admit that decent fidelity was available through their telephone lines… cds was way before the nds and sits below cdx in hierarchy, nds is definitely reference level, as stated o naim’s web blurb, and with its power supply-less and brass frame construction it is defiantly five series level of quality. My dream will not be dashed!!
I’m not so sure about that. The NDAC was promoted by Naim as an upgrade option for the 1st gen streamers, and for the CD players before that, which is why they furnished them with digital outputs. Not that a PSU upgrade isn’t a valid option too, but it’s not the only option.
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You can believe what you like, but if Naim thought it was good enough to be considered a 500 series source they would have given it a 500 series name. Not that it really matters, it’s still an excellent source.
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I don’t think i can recall Naim ever building a digital player where the DAC wasn’t ‘very’ close to it’s transport. Look at the CD5si, the signal is analogue before it even leaves the tray.
Re naim wanting to keep transport near dac- not so with the cdx2 retrofit upgrade of S/p connector and later cdx2’s being fitted with digital out, in fact the ndac was sold by naim as a high end digital hub and listed as an upgrade for their CD players and streamers… one can be misled by reading some of naim’s marketing guff as they make u-turns quite often…
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Lol! My ndac is two shelves higher than my cdx2, is that not far away enough for you…
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Yes indeed (full circle) - separate DAC gone.
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I think you may be getting your names mixed up, the latest incarnation, the CDS3, was getting on for double the price of the CDX2 and that was without the power supply.
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I believe that Nds needs an improved network to be on the level of the CD555. Etheregen switch with quality ps or PhoenixNet switch.
Without these adds, I found the Nds less involving and immediate vs my past Cdx2/ Xps2.
Some found, when Nds was launched, that the Cd555 was globally better. However the Nds gave a more open soundstaging and a bit better details. For convenience, some users sold their CD555 to buy an Nds. But not all.
A majority observed than Nds was better vs the Ndac, but a minority however preferred the Ndac sound.
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But not all preferred the Cdx2/ Ndac vs Cdx2/ Xps2 at that time.
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Yes, you are right, like naim I am going full circle back to your first response … so ndac & nd5xs2 should give me nds quality dac plus ndx2 streaming ability, sounds like best and most cost effective solution
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These names and numbers are confusing! Between the NDAC and NDS, to me it’s a case of which style you prefer rather than simply that one is better than the other. Of course you have to consider power supply choices here too. Although the NDS could be used with a choice of 3 different power supplies, you may want to budget for the equivalent power supply for the NDAC if you want it to be in the same league.
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Well, it’s difficult to separate the chip from the implementation, the dac itself from the decoding from external sources.
The ndac is too big to be only one chip.
Lol- you are right thee, there are TWO dac chips!! There is a white paper on the Dac adownloadable from the Naim website- very interesting and gives you an idea just how well thought out the naim dac is
Yes but you can’t feed FLAC, LDAC, or any other encoded data into a DAC, not even WAV files. The DAC consumes the actual PCM samples, after they are decoded from these containers. And this happens within the NDX2 just as much, and it is in separate subsystems before the DAC
You’d think if the nDAC was better than the NDX2, then Naim would be selling the nDAC? Maybe not, but it doesn’t really matter I expect. I have the NDX2 as I wanted the modern streaming, but if it wasn’t for box count, I’d probably live with a ND5XS2 and a nDAC - though I do like having a remote.
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I have the ND5XS2 with nDAC. My dealer has a refurbed NDX2 available so I asked if it would be an upgrade over what I have now. He said it would be marginal if anything and not worth the cost and recommended adding the XPS DR to the nDAC.
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Maybe the best of the best solution is 25 or more boxes, each one specialized in a specific thing, 5 or 6 racks for store all that, and a new house with a very large room dedicated to hifi.
But I think it makes sense to integrate functions in the same box, eliminating connections, cables and all the induced problems with them.
Having a music organizer and a streamer transport and a cd transport and a cd ripper/db and a dac and a dac ps and a pre and a pre ps and a power and a power ps … not counting the needed cables
thats too much…
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I remember reading somewhere that it’s impossible to move a digital signal from A to B without losing any time. So i’m guessing this is why Naim like to keep transport and DAC as close as possible in their players.
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Not really what I was asking about but to take your idea to its limit get a mono transistor radio and be done