Newbie question about the Supernait DAC

Posted by: Max Delissen on 19 August 2011

New Member First Post Syndrome strikes...is this a silly question or a smart one, and will I be scorned or greeted with warmth and friendship?

Anyway... This afternoon I set up my new Supernait. It's my first step into the wonderful, musical world of Naim, and I'm a happy camper...

Nevertheless, a question rose about the DAC in the SN. In a brochure I read that it does some internal re-clocking, but there's no mention of that in the manual. My digital source is a ZP90 by Sonos, which is rumoured to have relatively high jitter. Before the SN, I used a jitter killer by Firestone Audio and got some fair results on my home-built Tube DAC, but although it brought a more laidback musical presentation and slightly better focus, it also took some livelyness and spontaneity out of the music.

My question is: would I need it (i.e. do I want it) with the SN as well? Or: how good is the DAC section in the SN really? To be perfectly honest, I could do without the extra length of digital interconnect and the cheap Chinese wall-wart the Firestone came with....

Is there anybody out there who has experience with the Sonos-SN combi in particular, who can also give some insight into what can be said about the use of jitter-killers in general?

Thanks,
Max
Posted on: 20 August 2011 by DT79

HI Max,

 

I using a zp90 into my Supernait.  The internal re-clocking process is enabled by default. There is a way to disable it with a certain combination of button presses on the front panel, but I'm afraid I don't know what that is and it doesn't say it in the manual.  I'm sure someone else on here will know it.

 

As for the supposed high jitter of the ZP90 (i've never seen any actual stats or comparisons on this), if I were you i would plug it straight in to the SN and see how it sounds.  I'm not going to pretend that the odd bought of upgraditis doesn't strike now and again, but in all honesty I'm getting a great sound out of this combo and i'm very happy with it. I'm sure I'd have to spend silly money on an external DAC (i.e. Naim DAC at £2100) to make a worthwhile improvement.

 

It wouldn't do any harm to try it with and without your firestone device - reclocking doesn't have a detrimental effect on the data, at worst one of the 'reclockings' will be unnecessary. Try it and go with whichever sounds best.

 

Cheers - and enjoy

Dan

Posted on: 20 August 2011 by Max Delissen

Thanks Dan! Your answer made me realize that I created some unintentional confusion when I asked "would I need it (i.e. do I want it)?"


What I meant to ask was if I should use the Firestone as a sort of additional pre-reclocking, or would the internal reclocking in the SN be enough? I would not want to shut off the re-clocking in my SN.

 

As soon as my new digital interconnect arrives (which is the same as the one I'm using now - L.A.T. International DI-20mkII) I will give the Firestone a try and report back with my findings. If it doesn't make a difference, I could still use it as a USB interface to play HD tracks from my laptop, or get rid of it altogether.