NDS vs DAC

Posted by: frotter16 on 29 April 2012

Any moderator or someone with first hand experience have any exposure to the difference between the stand alone DAC + 555PS vs the NDS with its internal DAC + 555PS? if one has a server and a DAC + 555 PS, would it be a sonic gain or loss to swap out the DAC for the NDS + 555PS and server?

Posted on: 29 April 2012 by Simon-in-Suffolk

I haven't heard the NDS, but given the extra decoupling of the NDS, i can imagine in some applications the NDS has the potential to sound better, ie if you play FLACs (via USB on NDAC) and you have high domestic RFI levels for example. Ie another way of looking at it is that the NDS will probably provide its best performance with less tweaking, whereas the nDAC (and NDX etc) require tweaking to sound thier best - IMO.

I suspect because of this, it will become a very subjective thing which sounds best in a users set up.. It will probably fuel miles of discussion on this forum.

One thing for sure however is the ndac has more digital inputs than the ND boxes.

Simon