I’ve owned 2 dcs products and heard many more, and I also find them bland and much worse than Naim at bringing music to life.
Please note, I’ve stated this before on this forum - I’m not having a go at you, just stating a fact about my impression of dcs which is being discussed.
I really tried to like it, why else would I have bought items from them twice.
What did you have?
If its the old gear then i can understand more.
pleeeese no, not again!
Yes one of their old dacs, a Debussy iirc, and a Network Bridge.
The network bridge is a fantastic bit of kit but needs to be used right.
It was designed to bring new life to the older dCS dac’s, but many used it outside of dCS, as it was a very good streamer, and still is.
I’m not saying it’s a bad streamer, I just didn’t like the effect it had on SQ in my all-Naim system.
Buckle up for the ride chaps 
dCS or Naim, which is best? Only one way to find out,
So this thread is being hijacked by dcs fans now 
The fun part of internet forums is we all get to share our opinions and experiences. At the end of the day they are my opinions, based on what I believe is good sound.
I make it a point to hear a much of “the good stuff” as I can. I remember a few years ago Soulution electronics were all the buzz on this forum, so I went to a dealer for a demo. Put me to sleep, so boring. But that’s my experience.
I recently attended hifi show and listened to many systems, several fronted by DCS. I came home and listened to identical tracks on my 500 system and the differences were night and day. My 552/500 are approaching 25 years old and I get the itch to replace them now and then. I’ve yet to hear anything more musical and involving, but I will keep listening and sharing the good, bad & ugly.
You know what that say about opinions. Now where’s my fishing rod. 
…Don’t mention the Lavry, it put the s#@%s up many a Forum member back in the day…
It must have been before my time, I’d usually remember such drama😜, I don’t even know what a Lavry is, unless you mean a toilet?
I remember him, Dan Lavry was the guy everyone hated. He proposed the absurd idea you should go for the optimal rather than the maximum (sampling rates etc.).
I’ve never heard any of his products.
Then there was the original Chord Hugo, the best thing since sliced bread for quite a while.
So, this afternoon I did the dreaded ‘hard re-set’ on my ND555 in the hope that this would sort out this issue with the brightness and and overpowering bass. I have to say this was a complete PITA on a number of fronts. This is because I’m running two power supplies and worried that starting two out of sync could cause issues. In order to avoid this I took one PS out of action, powered everything down (including the router) and waited.
Twenty minutes later I powered everything back up, watched the screen come on and waited, and waited and waited. I had nothing but a blank screen. Eventually, after another twenty minutes, I switched everything off and started again. This time the screen seemed to load properly and my iPad eventually prompted the set-up procedure. After messing around with things for another hour of so I was ready to listen. The result was (unfortunately) exactly the same as before. Very frustrating and very disappointing.
In total despondency I decided to connect up my old Bluesound Node via a DC1 cable into the ND555 (obviously using the ND’s DAC), I powered up the Node, spent 30 seconds installing the new updates and fired it up. The first track I played showed me exactly what’s now missing from my ND’s presentation. Whilst the Node can’t give the timbre accuracy or some nuances of the ND555 it pretty much blew the ND’s streamer section away with its openness, musicality and naturalness. I could now crank the volume levels back up again without over driving everything into distortion.
I really do hope Naim are busy trying rectify whatever is causing this problem as it seems crazy that I’m running a £16,000 streamer/DAC with a substitute £450 streamer front end to get it to sound how I want! However, that said, at least I’m enjoying my music tonight, which is more than I can say for some of us at the moment.
I am also very happy to send out a personal invitation to anyone from Naim who would like to spend an evening with me comparing the the two. I think they would be really surprised by what the Node can do in the musicality department against the ND555 with the new firmware update.
So you now have distortion after the streamer software update? 
Are you sure you didn’t change the grounding or some other crap along the way?
Dude, on a positive side, you can now sell the ND555 and use Bluesound Node and a Chord DAC. Money in the bank
Not so much electronic distortion but where the bass has been boosted and I play at loud volume levels, it almost drives the bass units into distortion. If I then play the same track through the Node at even higher volume levels I don’t get this effect. Go figure!
And yes, I’m already contemplating dropping back to a Node/Ndac/555PS.
Gosh, this isn’t very good, I hope it gets resolved. I haven’t had a chance to really push my ND555 since the update. But I’ll give it a go as soon as I can.
And in some ways still one of the best loafs of bread. I adore my Chord Hugo mk1… it sounds now as good as it did on its first day.
