Is this the Naim forum?

Yes, it's still the Naim forum, and huge credit to them for supporting the open dialogue about competing products from Chord.

I remain very satisfied with my NDS, and have no plans to change it as it does what I want. I am looking at a number of other potential upgrades, but all within the Naim camp, or perhaps Focal as well at a stretch, but that's another story.

If you feel dissatisfied with the NDS, then by all means explore alternatives, but don't feel compelled by the chatter here. There are still many very happy NDS users out there.

It would get quite boring if all we talked about was NAim gear, a bit of diversity never hurt anyone 

and also many (most on the forum)  use a Chord DAC with their Naim gear - I think there is a great synergy - wouldn't it be a shame for lovers of Naim if they were at least not aware of that beautiful combination.

Simon

Indeed Simon, but Minh needs to listen, assess and decide rather than follow... Which reminds me of a thread I've been meaning to start...

He's back, but for what purpose ? 

I can sometimes find the constant Chord praising and discussion a little boring.  You'd be hard pushed to find any popular thread here in the last 2 years that doesn't, at some point, spiral off in to Hugo worship.  However, I'm sure it is a great product, all these people can't be wrong.....maybe, and I've never heard one, or been interested in owning one, so can have no counter argument against anything positive, or negative said.  

Despite all of that, I can't wait for Dave to be released, at least it's something new.  Shortly after that, assuming it's any good, I suspect the Hugo will suddenly become a crude and veiled sounding piece of kit.

I am...

Oh, some DAC-type thing.  It's made by some small back-street company by a bloke called Bob, I think.

Here's Dave :

But I'm holding out for Lily :

You sure about that?  You mean "most" or "most vocal"?

The Hugo praise gets quite old.  I generally avoid the threads after they move from useful Naim information & debate and devolve into a Hugo/Qute/Dave praise fest.

I've heard the Hugo - it was good, not great or life-changing as many here would lead you to believe, but in the end I passed and am more than happy with my Naim gear.

I'd forgotten how crazy it looks, like some kind of over engineered computer game controller.  Lily though, that's interesting.  I assume the principle here is complete isolation from surface vibrations.  Should save on the cost of another Fraim.

Yes, the Chord design ethos completely passes me by, but if they sound good...?

Agreed...

Following a home dem of the Hugo, I agree as well. 

Yep. Very happy with my nDAC and the rest of my Naim gear.  

M

Listening is the only sure way to tell... I see this thread has already been promoted to the padded cell 

You'll be much happier with Lily. Dave won't follow you around and isn't waterproof.

For the price of one 555 you could pick up 12 Lilies to follow you. Mmmm, disciples.

I recently added a second 555DR to my NDS and the results, to my ears are simply stunning. Go and have a listen.

This is not The Naim forum. 

Naim can only try in earnest to create a forum in its image.

This particular forum, Padded Cell, is, I think, a forum about absolutely anything, kindly hosted by Naim.  From political things, to comic matters, to art, to science, to, well, anything...

There's a lot of discussion involving Chord products on the streaming forum in particular, and I for one find it endearing of Naim that they accept the sometimes Naim-critical discussion of competitors' products - all in the naim (sic) of sound quality. That after all is, I believe, the ultimate goal for all of us, and it is very grown-up of Naim that they accord respect to serious and successful competition and do not censor the discussions. I guess that they themselves learn from it, which cannot be a bad thing, and surely better than us all moving to a foreign site for open discussion - meanwhile I note that a significant majority of those praising Chord DAC products seem wholly committed to the remainder of their Naim gear, which says something.

As for Dave, it certainly looks great to my eyes, and I'd love to hear it - on the other hand my bank balance would prefer me not to, and as I am content with what I have maybe I won't risk it...

I have heard two 555ps's it's hard to imagine how it could be bettered, while it still is a bit odd to have in total 7 boxes......, and I am still happy with 6........, what all the Hugo owners forget is the visual distortion they put in place by putting a different design box in place.....