What will adding a Ndac to an ND5XS2 bring

You could most likely sell on for no loss.

nDACs are in demand!

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Iā€™m not the best at selling and the price asked for is more than Iā€™ve seen several of them go for so Iā€™m not sure. Iā€™d definitely regret it if I had to deal with selling it. I know itā€™s unlikely so I have mixed feelings. So Iā€™m still thinking about it.

@dmu

Understand

FWIW, they are also selling item on eBay.
Therefore, make an offer, (direct) maybe the difference of eBay selling costs, etc. an offer that suits you.

As other suggest, for right buying price, anyone might sell onwards at little or now loss

edit : thinking about this, that one has some marks anyway. So, may find a better condition one, if you wish to be patient. ( Maybe at the more regular price of around Ā£1k ).

Just trying to help. Leave it with you

Good luck

R
p.s Iā€™ll keep an eye for others

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I really do appreciate it. I never see these things. Yeah with it having marks I think Iā€™d struggle as a private seller reselling at that price. So I may decide to wait or if it doesnā€™t seem to be selling an offer is an option I hadnā€™t considered.

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Maybe they have seen this thread :joy:

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The price does seem high for one with a chipped casing.

Whilst you wouldnā€™t see those marks once racked, you are right in that resale could be problematic.

I doubt youā€™d be selling though :laughing:

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I see NDacs being offered for sale on sales platforms in Germany and Switzerland on a fairly regular basis. There are always opportunities here (1k sometimes even less).
Today I updated the firmware from 4.10.6 to the latest version 4.11.8. Thanks to @cwhizz and @Simon-in-Suffolk for the tip. It was quite easy. The firmware can be downloaded from the Naim website (including installation instructions). I was able to save it from the PC to a PC stick. I switched off the NDac, plugged the stick into the USB port on the front of the Ndac. After switching on, the NDac automatically updated the software after a few seconds. If an iPhone or iPad is then connected to the USB input of the NDac, the current software of the NDac can be checked under ā€œSettingsā€. It worked. And the sound is now actually more balanced. The somewhat bloated bass and fundamental range is significantly reduced and the resolution is better. This is definitely worthwhile and costs nothing except half an hourā€™s time.
I also borrowed another VOVOX excelsus power chord with Furutech plugs from my dealer (0.3k) and I am currently trying it out on the NDac. It brings a further increase in clarity and resolution. It is neutral and fast. This helps again in optimizing the performance of the NDac, especially when an additional power supply is out of the question for cost reasons. Perhaps a Furutech NCF power cord would bring a further increase. I havenā€™t tried this yet and it is also considerably more expensive.

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Hi Marcusman, I think source is always chassis and everything else on the chain is floating. In this case nDAC is not the source. We are talking for the ground source, not the analogue signal source. And if you think about it, there is a switch for a reason. nDAC can be the source of the signal ground when there is no device before it, i.e. when it plays from USB flash for example. Then you set it to chassis. Other alternative is you have another digital source, then nDAC is floating and first source to chassis. Otherwise if we do what you suggest we donā€™t need a switch, will be aways chassis option.

Itā€™s the source that makes the analogue signal connection to the pre-amp; itā€™s where it makes the signal to ground connection. If thereā€™s no direct analogue signal connection between the source and the pre-amp then it makes no difference.

@Richard.Dane has it right. The nDAC is my source so itā€™s set for ā€˜Chassisā€™ in my case and the ND5xs2 is only being used as a transport so itā€™s set for ā€˜Floatingā€™

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Are you saying Naim audio engineers put the ground switch for no reason. No DAC, that I know has analogue input.

No, but it does have an analogue output that connects to the pre-amp. Thatā€™s the critical bit.

Naim put the switch in because they thought some owners would use the DAC for some things but might also have a Naim CD player in the system. The CD players have the signal to earth connection by default (unless lifted by Naim service or some dealers where two naim CD players would be used in the same system) and as you donā€™t want to have two sources with a signal to earth connection connected to a pre-amp at the same time, they fitted a switch to make the signal to earth lift easy, and not requiring a return to Naim service dept. The same solution of a switch was also carried over to Naimā€™s network enabled DACs (streamers) for similar reasons.

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Iā€™m confused if your nd5xs2 is connected by BNC to your Ndac surely the analogue connection is from the ndac so the ndac is my analogue source back to the preamp, so ndac to ground nd5xs2 to floating or have I missed something here.

I know I should of payed more attention at school!

Youā€™ve got it right. nDAC set to ā€˜Chassisā€™ and your ND5XS2 set to ā€˜floatingā€™

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Very well, we are slowly making progress. So agreed that if you have CD used as transport it is set to chassis by design and one should switch the nDAC as floating. Right? So what the difference if you replace the CD with another grounded to chassis digital source? One could further argue and say well, why we donā€™t do what Marcusman says. Put the nDAC to chassis and digital source to floating. Interconnects are directional. They have signal wire, power common amd shielding. The shielding is not ground looped, i.e. it is only connected to the power common an the source and the other end is not connected to enywhere. Messing with the ground you deteriorate the SQ. You will not hear a difference if you digital cable is connected the wrong way. Then you can play with the ground chassis/floating swith and see no difference as the cable is wrongly set anyway.

No. The transport does not make the analogue signal connection to the pre-amp, the DAC does, so itā€™s the DAC that should be set to chassis, unless of course you have another source (such as a Naim CD player) also connected to the Naim pre-amp, in which case set the DAC to floating so you only have one source with the signal to ground connection.

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Where did I say the transport makes the analogue signal? Seems we need to go a step back again. If you use your cd as transport and you feed your nDAC to produce the analogue signal how do you set up the ground switch of the nDAC?

Provided you donā€™t have another source such as a Naim CD player already connected via analogue connection to the pre-amp then you would set the DAC to chassis to make the signal to ground connection.

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Then you just created a ground loop, by having both the cd abd the dac to chassis.

When the CD player is being used just as transport then it has no analogue signal connection to the pre-amp.

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