Yep, it sounds nice… but to my ears can be bettered performance wise… it has that distinctive 1704K feel… I do find you quite quickly hit a brick wall when listening into the recording, I believe the 1704K is relatively constrained and holding things back, but the dilemma for Naim is that is where their expertise and familiarity lies. … but the outer layer is beautifully rendered.
Perhaps we will see this performance level increase before too long from Naim… perhaps in the Statement transport/DAC… be interesting to see if they take a risk to get to the next level… or stick with what they know with ageing technology with its inherent limitations, but focus on trying to squeeze even more from it… but they must be approaching its ceiling… Especially when and if they extend into physical decoupling,… as I say a dilemma for them …
If I was Naim… I would consider mitigating this risk in developing a new standalone DAC with a new approach that can be powered by the current streamers when run in transport mode.
Okay so arranged for a loan (sale-or-return) dCS NB and PS Audio DirectStream DAC. This combination is currently top of my list.
dCS dealers are few and far between and that does restrict my DAC choices if I want to purchase both items from the same dealer (which is much more convenient re. arranging loans).
In an interview a while back he conceded that the nd555 is probably the last new product with the 1704 chipset. I followed up with him recently at the Naim event at Signals and he said they have a number of ideas that they are actively pursuing. Which is what we would all expect.
Hi Simon,
You appear to have answered your previous question here. Your phrase “quickly hit a brick wall when listening into the recording” beautifully captures the essence of how the ND555 comes across to us. It replays music wonderfully well and has a very similar sound to our CDS3/555PSDR but other dacs/streamers allowed us to delve deeper into each recording.
Hi… yes I guess I was suggesting that Naim are arguably state of the art with their chosen converters.
A different converter may well yield different results as we hear elsewhere… and perhaps remove that ‘brick wall’ or perhaps a more appropriate metaphor ‘dark curtain’.
In other words I do think the currently chosen PCM1704K converters are the bottle neck.
“Brick Wall”/ “Dark Curtain” what are you on about? Having compared the ND555 to Chord’s best offering there was no loss of resolution or detail. If anything the Naim was more coherent, had more substance and was more believable. Listening to the Chord gave the impression of extracting the most information but slightly artificial so difficult to dissociate the music from the means of reproduction.
Jonn, it’s not about etched detail or resolution or any of those ‘Hi-Fi terms’, at this level we are somewhat beyond those rudimentary things, but it’s what I refer to as the ‘Mandelbrot effect’ that I have written about many tines. Others seem to notice it too… but as you might have read reconstruction is a subjective thing so not every body listens to audio the same way… look at those that enjoy MQA whilst others not…
I don’t recognise the effect you describe about artificial detail… in fact I wrote about the opposite several years back on the earlier forum when comparing NDS and the Hugo mk1/SPDIF/NDX.
But I agree the DAVE, if that is what you were referring to, was too forward for my personal tastes… but it also provided that Mandelbrot effect.
Exactly the opposite of what I hear. I’d say Blu2 DAVE was more coherent, had more substance and was more believable; it is not as in your face.
Naim and Chord digital replay are both superb, but the Chord sounds slightly less forced and more natural to me. With Blu2 DAVE I forget about everything, but the music. I never quite achieved that with a Naim streamer. The Linn Katalyst DAC lies somewhere in between.
I understand what Simon is saying. I think different listeners enjoy different things and this will govern their choice.
Hi Jonn,
Isn’t it hard to translate what we hear so well into the written word? Taking your last sentence in particular, I suspect that we are hearing pretty much the same thing but trying to explain it with different words.
You say that the Chord gave the impression of extracting the most information. I would agree.
You say that the Chord … but slightly artificial… I would agree.
When we auditioned Naim versus Chord versus DCS versus MSB, the Naim was the least resolving, encouraging us to sit back and listen to the performance as a whole (a good thing), partly because it was less resolving (less good) and less capable of portraying crystal clear images (less good).
The Chord combo was remarkably better resolving, the spatial image of the performers was huge (too large, perhaps), transients were the most errr transient which really brought music to life. However, there was always a risk of the music reproduction sounding a bit mechanical or artificial, even with the M Scaler, which is why so many Chord owners have subsequently gone on to wage war with RFI in order to gain a more natural sound. So I appreciate why some would prefer the wonderfully coherent and familiar sound of the ND555. Both options are excellent but different and both can be bettered.
We found that the DCS Rossini + clock combined the coherence of the Naim with almost all of the spatial imaging and resolution of the Chord combo. However, it was the price of the Naim so we chose the Chord combo over DCS for reasons of value for money, not absolute sound quality.
Finally, we listened to the MSB Premier with Powerbase. This was gorgeous, our clear favourite, but too far above budget.
Hope this helps to clarify what we hear with the different systems.
I think they both do an exceptional job, but are skinning the cat in different ways. Even if Naim had the exact same FPGA and software code i would suggest that Naim would tune the analogue side to get their PRAT and sounds that is part of their DNA. Which gives us the consumer a choice…i chose the ND555 and am very happy with it. Perhaps if i was new to hifi and had never heard Naim i might be making a slightly different hifi journey. Appears too late for me.
I look forward to the feedback from the discussions of forum members like Simon in Suffolk at Naim soon. Having spoke to Steve Sells and Rob Watts recently myself i am not sure the sound they are trying to achieve are exactly the same…hence the different outcomes.
This could be why my views are different from Jonn’s. I use Canare cables with Rob Watts’ specified split core ferrites to quell the RFI between Blu2 and DAVE. It definitely makes a difference to my ears. Perhaps, if I used stock cables or audiophile cables then it would not work so well.
There is a Benchmark Media paper explaining and video demonstrating how Canare cables address RFI more effectively than some other highly respected brands.
As I understand it, the Xlinx FPGA generates interference and around 1GHz, so you need specific ferrites to address this. Rob gave a link so I could buy the correct ones (set me back £20). There are comprehensive details on the Head-Fi forum as well as some more far out methods.
Or it could simply be as @Gazza says - the designers aim for different sonic signatures.
Interesting difference in views and I do think that Naim and Chord aim to reproduce a sound that majors on some factors rather than others. Different set of compromises.
I could live with the Chord sound but prefer Naim. However the Linn sound is not at all to my liking.
Before I got the ND555 I had an appointment at a Linn dealers to hear the top of the range Linn system. I took my own music and was there for a couple of hours.
In hi-if terms it was the best I’d ever heard, detailed, pin-point location of musicians, coherent, scale etc. However it was like listening to a holographic musical image, a good copy but artificial so I couldn’t fully engage. Interestingly it sounded slightly better without space optimisation.
Perhaps it’s not coincidence that Mouser is sending us a batch of 10 Wurth Elektronik 74272151 split core ferrites to try on the standard issue M Scaler to DAVE BNC cables. If they work, then next step would be a pair of Wave High Fidelity posh cables.
Dave is a very modern dac , like Dcs rossini. They both don’t have the musicality of the nd555 for me. So the term « bottle neck « , for me at least, is not appropriate. Or can be appropriate if you want to hear the tiniest little details in each recording. It’s not my desire.
The most modern dac with a wonderful musicality is the Linn kdsm for me. It extracts more details and nuances vs the nd555 but lacks a bit the naim grip and involving. However i could have leave with it.
Thanks for the feedback, I am looking forward to see what Naim will come up with! What I personally would like to see are a modular DAC and a modular transport.
Good luck - I’ll be interested to hear whether it makes an audible difference compared to other bridge solutions in your system - if you compare it to anything else.
I am sure that different listeners enjoy different aspects of a reproduction and perhaps even the same listener might have slightly different preferences for different kinds of music, listening time, state of mind …
Still, it should be possible to see the differences between two renditions of the same file by looking at their spectra. This is also the idea behind DeltaWave and Aufio DiffMaker, if I am not mistaken. Has anybody tried these “null testing” tools?