Thanks for the write-up! I have a similar system with the ND5XS2->Chord Qutest and have also thought about comparing it to the NDX2/XPS-DR.
Ultimately i settled for a CDS3 as my main source which gives me the Naim Sound, but i still can’t shake off the thought what an NDX2 would bring to the table. Have you compared the ND5XS2/Qtest to a bare NDX2 without the power supply?
Can you borrow an Mscaler from your local dealer ?
I probably could - but ultimately i am more inclined to substract a device from my system than to add another one.
Hi, @conlegno. In fact, I did. To my ears, there wasn’t much in it; the ND5/Chord is pretty much neck-and-neck SQ-wise with the NDX2 sans XPS-DR, just a different presentation that’ll likely preference-wise have to reside with the listener. I had my suspicions the first go-around that this might be the case, thus I opted for the ND5 XS2, even knowing you cannot upgrade with a PSU, but I did find a great linear power supply such as the Hynes SR4-12 uplifted the Qutest in no small regard here, so in my mind made up for this without much cost comparatively.
Without getting long-winded as I’m apt to do on most occasions, the comparison, IMO, is embarrasingly in favor of the ND5 XS2 and a good DAC. The cost differential of one versus the other just doesn’t square here. If you require a screen for album/Internet Radio art and a PSU upgrade itch, then maybe that cost is worth it to you. As I’ve attempted to illustrate with the post, the revisiting presenataion of the NDX2 with the XPS-DR in my humble dedicated room was a real eye-opener. Add-on the cost and possibility of future-proofing/upgrading within the Naim ecosystem and it became a no-brainer.
If you have no itch to upgrade to the NDX2 bare (and further add a PSU), then I feel comfortable telling you what you have is on-par, easily, to the much costlier streamer solution. In my mind it just is.
To my mind the big advantage of the ND5XS2 + DAC approach is that the NDX2/XPS costs about £9.5k so if you buy an ND5XS2 instead you would have about £7k left for the DAC of your choice, which opens up a huge range of options. For me it gets even better when discovering that I had a DAC that could also act as a preamp, enabling me to sell my 282 but that’s another story. Perhaps one day we’ll see Naim produce another standalone DAC to fill this gap, but in the meantime there are still lots to choose from.
More and more people here who use Chord dac as a preamp had finally bought a Chord amp, preferring it to a Naim amp with Chord pre.
At the end there’s no more Naim sound left. But why not.
Seems to be be evident here the likeliness of one sound preference over the other. Both have their immense strengths. I, personally, have yet to encounter two brands that provide, in different ways, a sound I really enjoy, thus it makes choosing extremely difficult.
I have found personally, Ear and Naim. And Melco and Naim, Rega and Lyra.
ND5XS sounds much better with the power supply upgrade too. Much warmer, better instrument separation. Naim down-rated the ND5XS2 by removing the upgrade option, The less expensive alternative to all this is get an ND5XS second hand and put a power supply on it.
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