ndac upgrade

Ardbeg10y posted:

Would an nDac + PS (to decide which one) on a Supernait 1 be overkill?

I don't think so at all.

I had the pleasure of demoing the nDAC with my SuperNAIT 1. It sounded glorious. Incredibly engaging, wonderful drive and tons of fun. I wish I had the cash to buy it :/

I've never heard the NDS in my home system, but I've heard it a few times in the local dealer's setup - even with dual 555s into Statement.

I think the NDAC is more fun and the NDS more Hifi, but again - never done the A->B... just not impressed with the NDS. 

nathan_klassen posted:

 

I've never heard the NDS in my home system, but I've heard it a few times in the local dealer's setup - even with dual 555s into Statement.

I think the NDAC is more fun and the NDS more Hifi, but again - never done the A->B... just not impressed with the NDS. 

 

Well.... I think you should demo NDS in your system for some time. It would make your statement a bit more qualified.

nathan_klassen posted:

Ardbeg10y posted:

Would an nDac + PS (to decide which one) on a Supernait 1 be overkill?

 

I think the NDAC is more fun and the NDS more Hifi, 

 

Which only goes to show how vital it is to audition for yourself. I found the opposite. And I did the A-B.

We should each trust our ears only.

Also, there's no such thing as source overkill. How can downstream components put back what a source has failed to pick up?

nathan_klassen posted:

Ardbeg10y posted:

Would an nDac + PS (to decide which one) on a Supernait 1 be overkill?

I don't think so at all.

I had the pleasure of demoing the nDAC with my SuperNAIT 1. It sounded glorious. Incredibly engaging, wonderful drive and tons of fun. I wish I had the cash to buy it :/

I've never heard the NDS in my home system, but I've heard it a few times in the local dealer's setup - even with dual 555s into Statement.

I think the NDAC is more fun and the NDS more Hifi, but again - never done the A->B... just not impressed with the NDS. 

 

Perhaps the Statement would  show up the nDAC's deficiencies even more than it shows up the deficiencies in the NDS?

Adam Zielinski posted:

nathan_klassen posted:

 

I've never heard the NDS in my home system, but I've heard it a few times in the local dealer's setup - even with dual 555s into Statement.

I think the NDAC is more fun and the NDS more Hifi, but again - never done the A->B... just not impressed with the NDS. 

 

Well.... I think you should demo NDS in your system for some time. It would make your statement a bit more qualified.

Hi Adam,

I think I was pretty clear about the context in which I listened in and the limitations of that type of audition.  I don't feel that makes my opinion 'less qualified' but perhaps more limited.  As Harry responded later, and other's have said, everyone really perceives these things differently.  Some people found the NDS more fun. 

While I would love to hear an NDS in my own system someday, it is just too far out of my price range to consider.  So I don't feel it is fair of me to request an in home audition from my dealer.  The NDAC is 'just' out of reach for now, but not forever.  I'm grateful I have a dealer that facilitates these types of demos so I can set my next target   

I think what both of us can agree on is that the most important thing is to audition with your own setup whenever one can.

Hmack posted:

Perhaps the Statement would  show up the nDAC's deficiencies even more than it shows up the deficiencies in the NDS?

Perhaps.  I wonder if anyone has heard that pairing? 

nathan_klassen posted:

  The NDAC is 'just' out of reach for now, but not forever. 

nDAC has been around for a while now. If you start searching a second-hand market some appear every now and then. That's how I picked up mine - at 40% of a new price and it was not even 3 years old. My 555PS that powers it is also a pre-loved one, bought from a reputable UK dealer.

Adam Zielinski posted:

nathan_klassen posted:

  The NDAC is 'just' out of reach for now, but not forever. 

nDAC has been around for a while now. If you start searching a second-hand market some appear every now and then. That's how I picked up mine - at 40% of a new price and it was not even 3 years old. My 555PS that powers it is also a pre-loved one, bought from a reputable UK dealer.

It is a  good suggestion, but hard to find these in Canada at a reasonable second hand price.  Ideally I'd like to buy from my dealer to get the warranty / support, but money first.

jon honeyball posted:

having fun playing with bnc to bnc cables from hdx and other sources...

Naim DC1 is flat and boring

lab grade bncbnc cable is lifelike bouncy and fun

HD-SDI 12G cable is wow

Jon,

Thanks for your post.  

I took a punt on the HD-SDI 12G cable.  It is still early days but for me it has a cleaner, clearer presentation over the DC1.  Good improvement for not much cash.  Alvinscables made it with a phono at one end and to the length I wanted too!

Thanks

  Paul

Harry interesting observations.

Over the years after many experiments and many thousands of hours of listening, I went from speaker first (I knew very little then about Naim back in 2010) to now source first.

To me now it is the source that actaully plays music, i.e that is the musician, not the amplifier or the speakers.

The better the source, the better the musician, is my experience. Nowadays there are many digital sources, yes they can almost all render the file from 20 HZ to 20,000 HZ, but how they play music is the key. There are many factors that need to be considered such as noise floor modulation, digital filters, power supply. distortion, but in the end, much of the burden falls on the source to play music in a way that is engaging, and faithful to the spirit of the original performance.

I now believe there is little point spending lots of money on amps and speakers, if the source is not good enough, which means the musicians on the recording could sound tired and not interested.

You mentioned people used to have fully loaded Lp12 with average amps and speakers (I now think I understand why they built their system this way), could you please tell us more about this, and also if you heard such a rig?

analogmusic posted:

Harry interesting observations.

Over the years after many experiments and many thousands of hours of listening, I went from speaker first (I knew very little then about Naim back in 2010) to now source first.

To me now it is the source that actaully plays music, i.e that is the musician, not the amplifier or the speakers.

The better the source, the better the musician, is my experience. Nowadays there are many digital sources, yes they can almost all render the file from 20 HZ to 20,000 HZ, but how they play music is the key. There are many factors that need to be considered such as noise floor modulation, digital filters, power supply. distortion, but in the end, much of the burden falls on the source to play music in a way that is engaging, and faithful to the spirit of the original performance.

I now believe there is little point spending lots of money on amps and speakers, if the source is not good enough, which means the musicians on the recording could sound tired and not interested.

Interesting view, and good to get away from the "you don't get out what you don't put in" source-first fallacy.

However I struggle with the idea of the source being the musician, as the musician has already done his/her job, as packaged by the recording, and the job of the source is simply (sic!) to get it out of the package and pass into the rest of the system. (Here I'm considering the reconstruction of an analogue signal to be part of that unpacking, as well as converting a file or series of pits to a bitstream, or modulated groove to an electrical signal)

I in no way challenge the importance of that unpacking task, but to my mind it should not be imposing anything on the music, as a musician does, but should be thorough, accurate and entirely neutral, passing on exactly what is in the recording, no more, no less. Perfect source or source components will do that, others will compromise somewhere, and how good or bad a source sounds depends on what is compromised and by how much, with degrees of 'betterness' of sound depending on the subjective response of the listener to the differences in the combined compromises that occur in different sources.

And 'better' does not always or necessarily dictate more expensive, especially given progress in digital processing, complicated further by the subjectivity meaning people don't always agree on which sounds best, there being no measure for what constitutes closeness to perfection.

But, importantly, although the difference might be heard through the system, throwing money at getting the best possible source for which you can stretch to financially does not necessarily relate in absolute terms to greatest enjoyment and satisfaction, which I contend is also dependent on the rest of the system, and indeed on what each individual wants from the music, possibly even on musical taste. Speaking for myself, I have serious doubts that I would find Dave through cheapo speakers anywhere near as satisfying as Hugo through much better speakers - yes, I might hear that Dave brings extra clarity etc, but, for example, that wouldn't make either flabby or absent bass sound good, whereas although Hugo doesn't sound as good as Dave, it is still presents music in an excellent manner and I know from experience with both that I would still be happy and satisfied if I hadn't been able to buy Dave and stayed with Hugo, whereas I have yet to hear low budget speakers that would leave me feeling the same.

But maybe the key point is actually a phrase at the end of Analogmusic's post above: if the source Is not 'good enough', then the system will be limited and so might enjoyment and satisfaction - the challenge for the individual is, what is good enough?

Lucky for us, Naim, Linn have spent years and years doing R&D on this "problem", and have the answers in terms of their products. NDAC/XPS is a very fine source, and so are LP12 and Linn DS streamers. CD555 is magical.

So I would now in hindsight much rather have a Naim/Linn source into an average amplifier (as Harry said) than an average musical source (it doesn't do anything wrong, but doesn't do anything right either) into a Naim amplifier.

The musical damage at source (musicians sounding bored and tired) cannot never be fixed by an amplifier, even if that preamp is a NAC 552.

As for Dave into cheapo speakers, Rob Watts won't say which speakers he uses on his travels, but they will be pretty small and portable, and he says he can still hear what Dave does on those portable speakers. 

I remember having a pretty modest hi-fi system to play cassettes, and it sounded ok, one lucky weekend my friend lent me his Vinyl rig (30 years ago) and about a dozen Vinyls.

My Jaw hit the floor, same amp, same speakers, but what a transformation hearing the Vinyl rig....

For DACs, Chord, from the humble Mojo upwards.

Some even suggest the Audioquest Dragonfly as being respectable enough for serious use  which if true takes cost remarkably low (I haven't heard myself so can't comment)

re Rob Watts, I thought he uses headphones when on his travels - though as I said, it is down to the individual!s preferences, and I for one do not like the bottom octaves to be missing, curtailed, or flabby - others don't even like to hear or feel bass, or are content for curtailment or just hearing the harmonics.

I remember hearing Logitech transporter, into 282/HC/250.2/Proac D28

Then NDAC/XPS2 into same rig, wow, my jaw hit the floor and couldn't stop grinning thinking this trounces the logitech completely and absolutely.

analogmusic posted:

The musical damage at source (musicians sounding bored and tired) cannot never be fixed by an amplifier, even if that preamp is a NAC 552.

As for Dave into cheapo speakers, Rob Watts won't say which speakers he uses on his travels, but they will be pretty small and portable, and he says he can still hear what Dave does on those portable speakers. 

I remember having a pretty modest hi-fi system to play cassettes, and it sounded ok, one lucky weekend my friend lent me his Vinyl rig (30 years ago) and about a dozen Vinyls.

My Jaw hit the floor, same amp, same speakers, but what a transformation hearing the Vinyl rig....

That a better source can be heard to be better, even jaw-droppingly better, through even a very modest system is not surprising, but doesn't necessarily mean it will sound good, just that it sounds better than with the lesser source, though this clearly depends on the system and what the listener would consider to be good.

That brings me to the argument about not getting out what you don't put in, which is trotted out perenially as if by rote by those arguing 'source first' but is a meaningless statement as you also cannot get out what any component doesn't pass through, which includes amp and speakers, the weakest links in the system limiting what you hear, whichever components they may be. Against that the primary argument for a major focus on the speakers is because they most influence the character of the sound - but that is not blindly saying 'speakers first' not least because of course the very behaviour of speakers can be adversely affected by an amp not up to the job. Overall considerations need to take into account the effect of all components, though at any point of choice that may be moderated by any upgrade intent, especially in the short term when limitations might be more acceptable in the promise of realisation of the full potential soon.

Curiously the one valid argument for strong consideration to be had for the source is rarely mentioned, though alluded to by you when you said that musical damage at source can never be fixed by an amplifier, and it relates directly to the description of what a source should do in my earlier post: If any system component modifies the signal in any way rather than simply doing its job of unpacking or amplifying etc., e.g.limiting, enhancing colouring or distorting (whether spectral range, dynamics or timing etc), that modification is carried through by the subsequent components, each then superimposing its own 'signature', however more or less significant that might be: so a bad source will sound bad however good the speakers are.

However, with modern digital sources it seems that even quite low down the cost spectrum sources may not be bad as such, just not as good as others, while as with everything the law of diminishing returns comes into play, and available budget, especially If limited, presents a challenge as to where most benefit arises to the intended listener in choosing how to apportion expenditure.

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you. With digital sources, if a source isn't bad, it falls into that description of doesn't do anything wrong, but it doesn't do anything right.

As Rob Watts said, to get digital sounding musical, you need complexity. 

Linn also use FPGA with the streamers, and Naim (and Linn) disable the filter of the DAC Chip, and use their own. Naim uses a  very fast DSP for the digital filter.

There is too much musical information loss with lesser digital sources, and that it the weak link I keep hearing.

As I mentioned earlier, I have listened to my Hugo (you go) all over place, from my car, on a Yamaha HT system (pretty modest), all the way to 500 series Naim with top Sonus Faber speakers. the weak link is the digital source.

When I added DAC V1 to my Yamaha HT amp, I could instantly hear the uplift of movies and music on Yamaha. What changed? only the source. There is little point in spending more money of a better yamaha amp or better KEF speakers for me when DAC V1 gave such an improvement. The powerful KEF subwoofer finally had some bass to work with, and came to life, and music on movie soundtracks sounded beautiful and melodic. 

I also owned Nait XS, 202/200, 282/250 and tried all kinds of speakers from B&W to PMC, Sonus Faber, Dynaudio, and the same applies, the digital source is key and the weak link.

Common sense also applies, anyone who buys a Chord Dave or NDS/555 isn't going to be daft enough to use 100 GBP speakers or a broken sounding amplifier with them.

Also sorry to ask this question, but why did you then upgrade from Hugo to Dave, instead of upgrading the speakers?

Harry thanks for posting, we all have our own experiences, but after many tests with my friends 552/500, I can't hear 552 adding any musical information. To my ears it lowers the noise floor to allow more detail of the music to come through, but I can easily hear on a 552/500 what CD/555 does, compared to Chord Dave compared to Linn KDS/1 and they all sound different to me, and play music differently. 

Haven't heard a Dave, just a Hugo. But I have spent some hours sitting in front of various Linn stuff and I still do. I agree, they do sound different. In some ways very different. And they're all good.  That's the thing innit? Choice. Got to have choice. 

Here is a post from Richard Dane many years ago. 

"... this evening I decided to try a little experiment. I thought I would try some pieces of music played back from my iPod 80GB through the NAC552 + NAP250 against the same pieces from CD (Meridian 200/DAC/XPS) played back through a cheap(er) amp. So, out of the cupboard I dragged my Ion Obelisk 3x/x-pak, mainly because it was the first piece at hand, but also because I thought it would be interesting to see how it would get on with the SL2s. For those who don't know what the Ion is (are?), it's a little integrated amp in shoe-box style but in this version the power supply has been removed and replaced with a much larger one in a separate shoe-box case. It's a great little amp, with excellent timing and a smooth expansive sound. It's a little soft by Naim standards and against the big Naim combo it lacks a sense of space and adds a layer of fuzz to everything, but it's never anything less than a great listen. It is of course getting on for 20 years old and is much, much cheaper to buy.

So, to the test at hand; Could the brilliance of the NAC552 + NAP250 allow the iPod (playing ALAC files) to match or even exceed CD played back via a superb source into an amplifier costing 1/50th of the price?

Err.... no.

Now, don't get me wrong, the iPod was actually not too bad. Quite listenable in fact. It had a bit of a boost in the upper bass that seemed to make everything sound quite meaty. It was very far from the sort of excrable cacophony that many would have you believe, however it was obvious that the system had taken quite a big step backwards from what I was used to hearing.

Changing over to the Naim front end into the cheapie amp brought instant relief. At last the music became exciting and involving again. No, it wasn't as good as the source into the Naim amps, but the quality of the source still shone through. If ever a test could show the importance of the source this was it.

Anyway, no great shocks I guess, but an interesting and diverting little experiment. Source-first still applies."

Paul Quigley ie posted:

jon honeyball posted:

having fun playing with bnc to bnc cables from hdx and other sources...

Naim DC1 is flat and boring

lab grade bncbnc cable is lifelike bouncy and fun

HD-SDI 12G cable is wow

Jon,

Thanks for your post.  

I took a punt on the HD-SDI 12G cable.  It is still early days but for me it has a cleaner, clearer presentation over the DC1.  Good improvement for not much cash.  Alvinscables made it with a phono at one end and to the length I wanted too!

Thanks

  Paul

 

Interesting findings here. I've actually never compared DC1 to any other BNC-BNC cable. I just found one used years ago and it's been there between my USB bridge and Naim DAC ever since. I checked out the HD-SDI 12G cable in google and found out that BlueaJeansCable sells the new Belden 4794R cable terminated with Belden BNC connectors and the price is extremely affordable compared to DC1. I ordered one in 3ft length to try it out against DC1. I'll report about my findings when it arrives, might take a while from US to Finland. 

analogmusic posted:

I'm afraid I have to disagree with you. With digital sources, if a source isn't bad, it falls into that description of doesn't do anything wrong, but it doesn't do anything right.

As Rob Watts said, to get digital sounding musical, you need complexity. 

Linn also use FPGA with the streamers, and Naim (and Linn) disable the filter of the DAC Chip, and use their own. Naim uses a  very fast DSP for the digital filter.

There is too much musical information loss with lesser digital sources, and that it the weak link I keep hearing.

As I mentioned earlier, I have listened to my Hugo (you go) all over place, from my car, on a Yamaha HT system (pretty modest), all the way to 500 series Naim with top Sonus Faber speakers. the weak link is the digital source.

When I added DAC V1 to my Yamaha HT amp, I could instantly hear the uplift of movies and music on Yamaha. What changed? only the source. There is little point in spending more money of a better yamaha amp or better KEF speakers for me when DAC V1 gave such an improvement. The powerful KEF subwoofer finally had some bass to work with, and came to life, and music on movie soundtracks sounded beautiful and melodic. 

I also owned Nait XS, 202/200, 282/250 and tried all kinds of speakers from B&W to PMC, Sonus Faber, Dynaudio, and the same applies, the digital source is key and the weak link.

Common sense also applies, anyone who buys a Chord Dave or NDS/555 isn't going to be daft enough to use 100 GBP speakers or a broken sounding amplifier with them.

Also sorry to ask this question, but why did you then upgrade from Hugo to Dave, instead of upgrading the speakers?

 

 

Well, it would be boring if we all agreed on everything!

I upgraded from Hugo to Dave because it sounded better - and that doesn't mean I thought Hugo was anything other than excellent. But I already had decent speakers, in particular having a character I like - have had for decades (and present ones have new value more than Dave). I wouldn't have bought Dave if I was suffering on the speaker front, but would have fixed that instead before contemplating Dave.

By the way, when I had said I thought I'd prefer Hugo into my speakers against Dave into low budget speakers I wasn't thinking as low as £100, but maybe 10x that!)

Patu posted:

Paul Quigley ie posted:

jon honeyball posted:

having fun playing with bnc to bnc cables from hdx and other sources...

Naim DC1 is flat and boring

lab grade bncbnc cable is lifelike bouncy and fun

HD-SDI 12G cable is wow

Jon,

Thanks for your post.  

I took a punt on the HD-SDI 12G cable.  It is still early days but for me it has a cleaner, clearer presentation over the DC1.  Good improvement for not much cash.  Alvinscables made it with a phono at one end and to the length I wanted too!

Thanks

  Paul

 

Interesting findings here. I've actually never compared DC1 to any other BNC-BNC cable. I just found one used years ago and it's been there between my USB bridge and Naim DAC ever since. I checked out the HD-SDI 12G cable in google and found out that BlueaJeansCable sells the new Belden 4794R cable terminated with Belden BNC connectors and the price is extremely affordable compared to DC1. I ordered one in 3ft length to try it out against DC1. I'll report about my findings when it arrives, might take a while from US to Finland. 

I've reported my delight with the £22 Canare BNC-BNC on other threads so may as well chip in here too.

G

GraemeH posted:

I've reported my delight with the £22 Canare BNC-BNC on other threads so may as well chip in here too.

G

I'm not surprised - I'm not sure why you need anything more fancy than this to carry a S/PDIF signal. 

Patu posted:

Paul Quigley ie posted:

jon honeyball posted:

having fun playing with bnc to bnc cables from hdx and other sources...

Naim DC1 is flat and boring

lab grade bncbnc cable is lifelike bouncy and fun

HD-SDI 12G cable is wow

Jon,

Thanks for your post.  

I took a punt on the HD-SDI 12G cable.  It is still early days but for me it has a cleaner, clearer presentation over the DC1.  Good improvement for not much cash.  Alvinscables made it with a phono at one end and to the length I wanted too!

Thanks

  Paul

 

Interesting findings here. I've actually never compared DC1 to any other BNC-BNC cable. I just found one used years ago and it's been there between my USB bridge and Naim DAC ever since. I checked out the HD-SDI 12G cable in google and found out that BlueaJeansCable sells the new Belden 4794R cable terminated with Belden BNC connectors and the price is extremely affordable compared to DC1. I ordered one in 3ft length to try it out against DC1. I'll report about my findings when it arrives, might take a while from US to Finland. 

The cable is here and the first impressions are very positive. Somehow more relaxed presentation with slightly deeper reaching bass. Also maybe just a bit livelier presentation than with DC1. It's just first impression after an hour of listening. I'll do some more comparisons on Sunday but for now, I'm very positively surprised. I expected overly detailed and harsh sound but no, it's complete opposite of that. ~30 USD (including shipping from US) compared to the retail price of DC1, which is over 400 euros in Finland nowadays. I might just end up selling the DC1, let's see. 

That's good to hear. I ordered one from the US (Blue Jeans) and it also arrived this morning. Looking forward to trying it when I get home. I have tried a couple of alternatives to Naims' DC1 but usually find myself going back to it!