UnitiServe Vs Memory-stick into nDac

PS. I'm with Stoik regarding the UnitiServe's S/PDIF output. If it's not "audiophile quality" then it must be something better, perhaps "music-lover quality"... mélomane as we say in French

Jan

Hi Stoik,

Not *QUITE* ... the boards that you have circled are actually the "System Services" boards which handle communications with the IR receiver on the units, power up and shutdown sequencing, watchdog timers, fan control (on units with fans) and temperature measurement ...

System Services does quite a lot, however it has absolutely nothing at all to do with the audio path in any way shape or form though.

Phil

LOL

Hi

Thanks Jan-Erik.  Appreciated.  That very much matches my impression in the demo set up at the dealer.  Plus the uServe seemed to have more and more-rounded bass.  A richer sound (in a good way).  Do you have your XPS on your DAC?  Does that make a difference to the memory stick?

Martin

Hi Martin,

My observations were without XPS on the DAC. I'll take the XPS off the CDS 2 tonight and play around. Will report back.

Jan

Try the rear USB port on the Naim DAC - this gives superb results

Well, after repeated A/B, B/A, B/B and A/A comparisons, I can confidently state that... they can be very tough to sort out. I much prefer living with a change and letting an opinion form over time. Much more reliable IMO.

But as I promised to report back, I humbly offer my observations of USB playback vs Serve playback (same files ripped by Serve and copied to LaCie USB key), XPS plugged into DAC. Tracks from Amon Tobin's latest album Isam.

The USB through DAC (front or rear ports) presented a flatter perspective than the Serve and as mentioned before seemed lighter. There was less dynamic shading and a less clear presentation of instruments' harmonic envelopes, and less punch. It still sounded like Naim, but leaned more to the cerebral than the visceral. It was by no means shabby, but didn't draw me into the music as much as the Serve.

But since the Serve has USB inputs on the rear, further comparisons were inevitable. With USB playback through the Serve, differences weren't so clear. On some tracks I marginally preferred USB, as the music seemed to emerge from a quieter background with a slightly clearer presentation. On other tracks, Serve playback engaged me more with the music. But there was something going on with the USB playback through the Serve that makes me want to go back and explore some more...

Please keep in mind that the differences reported are slight. YMMV, etc..

Equipment used : UnitiServe 1TB ; DC1 BNC-BNC ; nDAC ; Bis Audio Maestro RCA-RCA ; Brinkmann integrated ; Bis Audio Maestro speaker cable ; Amphion Argon 3 speakers.

Jan

Thanks Phil,

That's a hard way to learn it for one's self pride (mine), but we're all going to sleep tonight a little more in the know.

IMO, that deserves a second try: 

I can handle it, don't worry.

Bye.

Stoik, not sure about the boards matching - they are slotted vertically now and not clearly seen.

But the new red circles don't look as identical as on the previous pics 

Glad about that - didn't want to come over as seeming to want to squish your efforts to impart information ... I can't always keep an eye on what's on here so it's always good when people try to help each other, just want to make sure that the information on here is right. :-D

Now, what you have circled there is the PCI card that acts as the interface between the audio board and the main processor board - at that point in the hardware chain there's still no concept of S/PDIF or audio data. We don't let the processor anywhere near the actual audio data itself (beyond just moving it from one place to another) when we're playing back ripped CD audio so at that point all the processor is effectively doing is running the user interface and other services and handing data over to the PCI card for passing downstream. The data doesn't get decoded into any sort of audio until it hits our audio boards which are the next step along the chain.

The audio board in the UnitiServe is located directly underneath the System Services board and only generates S/PDIF - there's no analogue audio on that board at all - whereas the HDX audio board (actually "boards" as there are two of them - separated to provide physical isolation for different stages) handles both analogue and S/PDIF audio so they are very different designs.

Cheers

Phil

Which perfectly explains the difference in S/PDIF waveform quality between the two.

Thanks for this clarification, Phil.

Remember also that the audio board on the HDX / NS0x is fed from a separate toroidal transformer whereas the audio board on the UnitiServe is fed from the same switch mode PSU that powers the main processor board and the hard and optical drives...

Cheers

Phil  

Hello Phil, 

To complete the picture, could you explain how the audio board supplying S/PDIF on the UnitiQute is powered ?

Thanks,

Jan

And the NDX as well please.

Thank you Phil!

The UnitiQute is a completely different product and is not relevant in this discussion...

Phil  

...as is the NDX.

This discussion is about the servers and the S/PDIF outputs on the HDX and UnitiServe. The Uniti / UnitiQute and NDX are completely different products and so how the S/PDIF ouputs on those devices are powered is not relevant to this discussion.

Cheers

Phil

I thought it would be appropriate to bring it up in this discussion, because the underlying thread in this... thread... is the purported 'less than optimal' quality of the S/PDIF output from the Serve. I'm interested in using the Serve to stream through the Qute then feed its S/PDIF output to the nDAC. The direct question then is : is the Qute S/PDIF output better than that of the Serve ?

Thanks !

Jan

The two environments are electrically very different - I would *EXPECT* that the output on the Qute would be electrically less noisy than the UnitiServe.

Phil

Jan - would it not be more complex in that if you use the Serve to feed a Naim DAC through S/PDIF then you are using its rendering capability, whereas if you use the UQ or NDX you are using its rendering capability as well as its S/PDIF. Which sounds best could be ascertained by audition - my money would go on the NDX closely followed by UQ, but I've not heard the three side by side by side. 

Advice I got from a Naim rep at show was that the US was not really designed as a transport and this was not the best use of it, but that was a while ago and things change and improvements happen. I guess if enough customers expressed disappointment at this response then Naim has addressed this. 

I, of course, don't believe in all this better rendering stuff and the fact that my Naim UQ using its own rendering sounds better than my Mac just goes to show how stupid I can be. 

All the best, Guy

The more I read those HDX and NDX white papers, the more I understand that the SPDIF interface is a small part at the end of a relatively complex equation that starts as early as the signal input.

For the SPDIF output hardware. As long as you have it buffered, isolated and silently & generously powered, your bases are covered.

Now I think the most sensible part is how and from what this SPDIF signal is generated. This, I think, as more influence on the end result than about everything else. Let's not forget that your WAV, MP3, and FLAC files need to be digitaly processed/converted to end as I2S data (ready for D/A conversion) or SPDIF modulation to be sent to the SPDIF output hardware.

Let's take an example that everyone probably know of: MP3. Do you remember at the emergence of this music format on personal computers (that's a good 13 years ago)? A battle raged about the best player and the best codecs to use for encoding and decoding this digital music format. Players using LAME (it's the real name of it) codecs won hands down. Then, sound cards builders took advantage of it by buiding their hardware specificly to accelerate hardwarely the LAME codecs. The same way a computer processor builder would integrate hardware acceleration for common and repetitive tasks into their latest products.

All this to tell you that hardware and software optimisations, found into the microcontrolers, DSP and small computers you'll find into all Naim servers, clients and network player, will surely have a greater effect on the SPDIF output than anything else.

I invite you to read those two white papers, and ask questions if you need clarifications.

http://www.naimaudio.com/userf...te-paper_oct2010.pdf

http://www.naimaudio.com/userf...hard_disk_player.pdf

BTW, I said it before but it's a very good idea to lauch those white papers. Modern times music lovers are certainly not all Geeks, but are not dumbs either. And going a little deeper in product explanations than a product brochure and a good listening session could do helped me to take my purchase decision for the nDAC last year. So keep those blinds wide opened, it's a refreshing and too rare attitude in this business those days.

Bye.

Curious to hear the effects of inserting the UnitiQute into the playback chain between the UnitiServe and the DAC (thanks Manu for the suggestion), I spent many more hours than planned last night listening to the combination. Well, I don’t know whether it’s better rendering, better powering and isolation of the S/PDIF output or a bit of both, but adding the UnitiQute to the playback chain and taking the S/PDIF output from the Qute into the DAC lifts the performance substantially in musically meaningful ways. Repeated A/B comparisons were not required, the difference was clear, compelling and much more significant than adding an XPS to the DAC, IMHO (I haven’t tried the 555PS).

I’m arriving late at the streaming party, but colour me convinced. So where does that leave those of us who bought into the Serve & DAC approach? It seems a terrible waste to use a Qute solely for its streaming function, but I want that function…  so another vote then for a dedicated Naim streamer. But since that appears unlikely, the NDX is looking very appealing.

If there’s anyone else in the same situation I’m interested to hear your thoughts on the direction you’ve taken or are planning to take.

Thanks,

Jan

.. sorry about the small type. It was fine when I pasted from Word into the popup window ; I can't edit from IE6...

Dang

Jan,

Now you are ready to try an NDX .

Jan,

I join your vote for a high quality stream-client-only component from Naim, which would give us the free choice of DAC to connect. There has been discussions on the forum lately about this, and many members expressed their wish for such a product. I remember even Patrick quoting a price wish: like £1000. Actually, this product exists! There is one condition though: you have to like the dac section of NDX. Let me explain this:

I spent time again last night comparing the DAC section of NDX and nDAC. I had given more detailed descriptions on an earlier post. ...but I can say clearly and short now: I have much more pleasure listening to NDX without the addition of nDAC, even when the nDAC is supported by 555PS. nDAC somehow does not have good synergy with my system. It sounds too much edge emphasized to me, and unnaturally punchy - piano strokes hitting painfully on my head - this happens never on a live piano performance to me. NDX has a better balance and a very layered presentation. This impression is certainly very subjective and has a lot to do with system synergy: I borrowed a different amplifier from a friend - also from Kondo, but with different tubes - which is known to have a more relaxed presentation than mine. With those amps, nDAC balanced out to became more acceptable to me, and especially very good with hi-res. ...so I believe it is possible to tune a system according to both of these DACs (with different cables, amps etc) and have outstanding results.

I thus claim that the DAC section of NDX is as valuable as nDAC, which has a retail price of $3650. If you subtract this from the retail price of NDX, you would be paying around $1600 or £1000 for the beautiful stream-client and rendering sections of NDX, which I think is reasonable. ...so go for NDX and tune your system accordingly. Of course, if you already own a nDAC, I don't know what would be the resale price of nDAC, that may shift the financial picture a little bit.

All roads seem to point to the NDX then. It's too bad about the n-Stream app however. Here's hoping that a new release brings it up to the functionality and speed of the n-Serve app.

Thank you all for your considered replies.

Jan