Ok but remember the Auralic Altair / Vega have Pre amps with Balanced XLR’s to suit your ATC’s compared to the ND5 . Roon endpoint too .
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Good choice and as Halloween Man mentions the RME DAC is amazing value and recently updated.
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Hi Pete! Halloween man’s RME DAC Pre has jumped to the top of my list! - Thank you guys!
I would LOVE to have the money to splash on the Aurlic - They tick all the boxes… except the fact that they’re streamers themselves…
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Sounds like you’re going in the right direction. I heard the RME into ATC Active 50’s once which was impressive. The RME has some really nice features too , EQ etc .
On a side note as you’re just starting with Active ATC , you don’t have to go crazy with cables and lengths . Just get some decent Pro Audio cables from Canare , Mogami or Van Damme . I’d recommend the ones made by Mark Grant which are Canare with Neutrik XLR Connectors . About £60 for 3m pair .
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this is a very common question on the forums . a chap i know uses a bel canto pre 3 , its a real shame they are no longer made . i use one and find it superb . guy from puresound sells a few puresound L300 with active atc . whether the rme would sound ok i am not sure . i find dacs into amps sterile and not involving personally but we are all so different .
You need the right combination DAC, amp, and speakers 
I’ve also experienced this with some dacs, amps, and speakers. For example I found Hugo 2 into Benchmark AHB2 left me cold.
Original Hugo TT into Marantz amps soft and warm with not enough detail or definition.
Hugo TT into Moon 330A - perfect. Warm and smooth yet losing nothing in clarity and definition. Rich and involving three dimensional sound.
I am far from an unashamed source-first advocate, but your ATC speakers are exceptionally revealing of the rest of your system. If you really are planning to drive them with a sub £1k streamer/pre/dac be prepared to hear the speakers clearly reveal why it’s sub £1k (and read ATC’s advice). I suspect you would be likely to get better sound for your investment by splitting your budget differently.
Staying with the ATCs an alternative might be to get a higher quality Dac/pre and feed it with a separate pure streamer. Then you could simply replace the latter in 3 years if your prognostications of doom prove accurate. (Though I suspect you’re being overly pessimistic.)
Fun fact: the head honcho of Auralic reckons his biggest mistake was to put a streaming board in the Vega. (I disagree.) He views it as fundamentally a DAC/pre and that’s why they make the Aries as well.
Roger
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Hey Mr. PeakMan! thank you for your reply.
Just to clarify, my intention is not to drive a pair of ATC actives with a sub £1K streamer pre, what I want to separate is the streamer from the pre/dac. I do not mind spending £1.5K-2K on a good pre-dac combo (£1.5K-2K used that is, which might equate to twice that amount MSRP - I’ll let someone else swallow the depreciation) what I am clear about is that I am not going to spend thousands on a streamer , and a streamer only, which has a very limited life. My sound system costs more than my car, I want to be 100% happy with it for the next 10-12 years, and not feel I am forced to replace or upgrade because the hardware (of the streamer) does not support X, Y or Z feature or because the manufacturer stopped supporting it. Of course the bundled streamer/dac/pre one-box solutions, sadly, fall in the same category…
“get a higher quality Dac/pre and feed it with a separate pure streamer. Then you could simply replace the latter in 3 years” - this is exactly what I am aiming for.
I am not sure how relevant it is for you, but my NAC552 sounds absolutely incredible into my actives… it makes you realise the compromise with many passive speakers and their cross overs.
I use Canford UNBALs on my NAC552 PS outputs, and then use longer OFC XLR leads…
however I do use a Chord Hugo fed by my NDX2 as one of my sources into my 552.
Anyway end result… reduced box count, annoying box hums mostly eliminated and a sonic performance to die for… I really am an active convert.
One thing I have noticed I now listen a lot louder… but it feels really comfortable and natural…and the 552 is still giving that infectious Naim ‘sound’
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Whats your overall system Simon?
Perhaps don’t extrapolate the Naim experience to all streamers. A 2007 Linn streamer can be brought up to full 2020 functionality with a software update…
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Hi… CDX2, NDX2, Chord Hugo(third party linear PSU), NAC552, Fraim, Canford unbalanced to balanced audio converters, AE1 Active speakers and stands.
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Is that the Acoustic Energy AE1? If so that’s a surprising result. I’d have thought you’d be after the ATC 19 or 20.
You may want to consider the Linn Selekt. It is more expensive than what you indicate but it has the advantage of being modular and so you can expect to be able to upgrade it cost efficiently as technology advances. It is also new now and compatible with Roon (which the 272 isn’t).
Linn have historicaly been good at offering upgrades, I am on my second upgrade of my Linn Klimax DS.
If you find it ro expensive, why not just use what you have until second-hand, or ex-dem units become available.
Best tegards
Hans
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Yeah it is surprising Nigel… but I decided to try a different direction… I am very fond of my passive ATCs, and have been an ATC customer for over twenty years, but these AE1 actives give a different speaker presentation… perhaps not so different from Russell K speakers… and I have decided to enjoy this variation right now … and as they say I am rediscovering all my music again…
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Well, nobody can accuse you of running a mullet.
Nice !
I may well try the same
You’ll be back 