NDS compared to Dave

Did it not mean that Clive etc would be preferable to Dave? 

Chris Dolan posted:

Did it not mean that Clive etc would be preferable to Dave? 

You are right, Chris. I had read it too quickly. Besides, of course Clives would be preferable to Daves; it goes without saying. 

Maybe with Hugo and now Dave we are at the start of a long line of human-named Chord products (like the Met office do with hurricanes), with Clive, Brian and Derek and maybe even Pete or Bob the as yet unannounced but infinitely more impressive DACs of the future.

analogmusic posted:

well Gary Shaw of this forum has compared DAVE to CD555 

He ended up buying the Dave...

He did indeed but he previously used a Hugo and that was better than the 555 too.

Richieroo posted:

Naim are now entering the realm of computer audio .... where things change quite quickly....it won't be long before we see some major updates to naim dac's.... expect to see the Hugo 2 sending ripples through the  hi fi world. As for Dave this is good value considering the pre amp.... I will certainly be checking it out....along with many others probably.....exciting times...

Naim are entering the realm of computer audio. Well, I do hope so, but see little evidence.  What have you learned?

There'll be no Daves in my house!!

David

Stringerbell posted:

hificritic did a very short comparison between nds and dave in its latest issue. Dave was reviewed in it. The reviewer was Rafael Todes; He used Martin Collom's system for the comparison.

And the conclusion was...?

It's DAC to the Future.  You're probably better off getting an LP12 in the end though.

SongStream posted:

It's DAC to the Future.  You're probably better off getting an LP12 in the end though.

Only if you like the vinyl filtering, as I gather not financially in terms of music purchase costs.

Richieroo posted:

Naim are now entering the realm of computer audio ....

Only just now? Where have you been for the past few years?

I think a lot of people don't recognise a hifi-unit-shaped black box without keyboard and monitor screen as a computer.

well Naim sources don't sound like Chord sources. Even compared to the all the latest DAC wizardy of Chord, the CD 555 has this magical ability to make any CD sound musical and involving, not sure how Naim achieve this magic...

I have a strong hunch Naim is working on a ND555 

I just read the HiFi Critic review of DAVE, and the circumstances of the comparison with NDS/555PS are unclear.  The reviewer may have just listened to Martin Colloms's system with the NDS, and compared it mentally to his own very different setup, where Auric Aries feeds the DAVE.  Or, he may have used his DAVE as a DAC connected to MC's NDS.  In any case the NDS was judged a bit "mechanical," while the DAVE had greater "fluency."

that's a bit one sided, because the review also said the NDS was more rhythmic ? Not entirely sure, but that is what I recall..

You're right, NDS was praised for "bigger soundstage" and being "rhythmically slightly tighter."  The conclusion was, both are great, DAVE is a bargain compared to NDS/55PS.  But as others have pointed out, it's apples and oranges, these devices do different things.  Anyway, the entire DAVE review was uncharacteristically short for HiFi Critic, and the paragraph on NDS was just a few sentences.  It would be nice if Martin Colloms would weigh in, as a second opinion.

the issue with Dave isn't Dave actually

It is that million tap Blu 2 upsampler transport which according to one lucky person who heard it as CES 2017 in Vegas "brought the bare Dave to it's knees". i.e. when comparing Dave alone, and then Dave with the up sampling transport.

Unfortunately the Blu2 only works with Dave to give a million taps, but can upsample 500K taps to any other DAC including, lo and behold, NDS and NDAC !

I know this is a Naim forum, and I don't work for Chord, but innovation and competition keeps all the companies on their toes.

Anyway at this elevated level of spending, listen for yourself.

I've never heard the NDS or DAVE. That said, any input/speculation I have on a comparison of the two would be about as relevant as any of the responses I've read in this thread. 

Don't listen to an NDS, you will end up maxing out your credit card soon afterwards 

joerand posted:

I've never heard the NDS or DAVE. That said, any input/speculation I have on a comparison of the two would be about as relevant as any of the responses I've read in this thread. 

well, some things should remain mysterious, and increase your level of curiosity to the point where you make the effort to visit your friendly dealer and hear for yourself .

leave or take your credit card, that you should sort out with your spouse  

Thanks AM,

We now get unsolicited financial and marital advice from you here as well.

now now don't be a party pooper, this is the Dave and NDS thread, exciting products.

I got to compare Dave and CD555 extensively actually, but keen to read what other have to say before I post.

Or maybe I won't post anything, and keep it mysterious 

What I like about naim is there agonising attention to detail as a result of listening carefully to the results....evaluating and implementing changes that get things so fundamentally right. There dac's  may not be the very latest...but the signal handling before and after is very good. So in comparison to Chord .... I would expect the naim system to sound natural ... but with  less absolute detail... I wonder how good DAVE preamp is....

Richieroo posted:

What I like about naim is there agonising attention to detail as a result of listening carefully to the results....evaluating and implementing changes that get things so fundamentally right. There dac's  may not be the very latest...but the signal handling before and after is very good. So in comparison to Chord .... I would expect the naim system to sound natural ... but with  less absolute detail... I wonder how good DAVE preamp is....

From what I gather that agonising attention to detail and listening to results is also displayed by Chord (I don't know about others), but maybe any difference is due to either what each perceives as being right, or what is within the limis of the technology they apply - that latter of course advancing from time to to time. 

I can't comment on other companies power amps but I use my Dave into 282.

when I tried Dave into my 250dr with a flashback cable, the rhythmic flow wasn't the same as when 282 was used even though bass is better and soundstage is bigger without 282

so the preamp in Dave is very good and transparent but naim power amps are designed to work best with a naim preamp

a 172 naim preamp is good enough to hear what Dave is capable of

Richieroo posted:

What I like about naim is there agonising attention to detail as a result of listening carefully to the results....evaluating and implementing changes that get things so fundamentally right.

Agonising attention to detail by Naim?  Sounds painful.

So what then? By comparison the folks at Chord more surficially address the sound of the products they release?