What hierarchy exactly? : )
Strictly speaking, Naim even has the same “source” in all of their streamers - from the ND5XS2 to the ND555!
And no, the DAC is not the source.
Time to move on from these outdated marketing hymns. Enjoy your balanced systems and with speakers which also compromise as little as possible.
I think thats the balanced argument that I try and follow. Well explained Richard.
Will do. I shall listen to the tracks again to see whether there have been big changes while these boxes have been running in, and it will then take an effort to convert my thoughts into coherent sentences. Bear with me.
You are correct that it doesn’t make sense if we define a less-capable component as one that ‘lets through’ less than a more-capable component. But there may be components that let through just as much as more-capable components but are inferior as they introduce noise or distortions of their own.
I am currently facing up to the “source first” paradigm. Having done a big upgrade to the 300NC series I find that my Synology NAS is now a constraint to SQ: CD quality tracks played from there are no better, and sometimes worse, than played from Qobuz. While some albums may be substandard rips, it’s too pervasive to explain everything. So I am now exploring stuff that previously I did not give a second thought to - audiophile ethernet cables, switches and music servers. I had never heard of Melco or the EE8 until last week and was blissfully unaware of the Innuos PhoenixNET until last night.
There’s no way I’m voluntarily going back though. The sound quality of my system has gone through the roof and my enjoyment of the music has gone with it.
I think part of the problem for me in accepting the source-first approach is that I haven’t seen a precise definition of what’s meant by ‘source first’. For example, I wonder whether it only applies when starting with a balanced system and the intention is to eventually upgrade the entire system - source first would then make a bit more sense to me.
That’s the place I want to be, and I think I am more or less there with what I now have. One or two more adjustments may come perhaps.
I think the second paragraph of my post describes it reasonably well.
Resist @clog ! I read some of these threads and it opens up a whole new world. I will personally resist unless I discover any shortcomings in SQ.
You obviously have now noticed a difference in SQ - how many albums on your NAS? If measured in the hundreds rather than thousands, you could try adding a USB HDD directly to your 333. I do this and they sound great via the Naim app.
I think I have read somewhere though that the 333 accepts a maximum of 1TB drive but not sure. This may be no good to you but worth me mentioning anyhow.
This could be viewed another way - the NDS333 brings internet streaming up to the level of locally sourced content.
That would be a good thing, no?
We hear differences on some recordings from Tidal compared to rips in our system - but unless you can guarantee the same master was used for both recordings it is comparing chalk with cheese.
Some Tidal Max hi res recordings sound worse than local CD rip, most sound same or slightly better. All depends on the source material.
I’m really not sure.
I’m inclined to ask questions like “how?” and “why?” and in this case the question is how why does it deliver music sourced from across the internet however many hundreds of miles away better than music sourced on the same LAN a matter of feet away?
I bookmarked it!
Yes, that’s a sensible first step which will give insight to a number of matters. As it happens I will need to update my network storage arrangements soon, and considering an audiophile storage solution falls conveniently into the scope of that project.
I doubt that an Nd555 with 2 555 dr is lesser vs NSC333/300. Or many users of the former still find a superiority ( in general) of an expensive Nas/ Server like Melco or Innuos vs common Nas or Uniticore and Qobuz hires. But sometimes the difference is minimal.
Perhaps not for the entry level ones.
That seems odd and makes me wonder about your network and whether it’s optimized. My legacy streamer local streams sounded better than Qobuz which I understand is widely observed. Upgrading to the NC I now have parity between local and Qobuz streaming. Not only that local rips that were previously mediocre sounding are not only more palatable but are an absolute joy to listen to. And my local library is quality hifi rips. I wonder how much this issue has influenced your other observations. It sounds like you’re ready to move on from your synology so may get resolved there. Could an Innuos server be in your future?
This is exactly the point I was making.
This new generation of kit closes the previous gap somewhat, meaning local content and internet streamed content can sound broadly similar. And why shouldn’t they! Both FLAC content delivered via ethernet.
Why wouldn’t naim put some effort into improving internet streaming SQ, after all many purchasers of a 333 nowadays may exclusively stream audio from Tidal etc.
But our recent experience with Tidal Max (via NDX2) has shown that the master used makes a difference.
I’m under the impression this was resolved with the gen 2 streamers. Is that not the case? When I had a NDX2 I didn’t have Qobuz so I wasn’t able to test local v cloud streaming.
There is a poll on this right now
But it seems to very much depend on the kit/setup.
I voted, haven’t read all the responses but I previously/over the years read quite a few responses that the gen 2 streaming platform had parity b/w local and cloud streaming.
I seem to be in the minority, but when I’ve noticed a difference cloud streams sound better than local streams in my system.