sound is not what expected

For heaven's sake people - none of us have heard the system or seen how it is set up nor the room in which it resides.  Hence none of us have a scooby as to whether it is singing like an angel �� or croaking like a croaky thing!

Unless we get in a plane and visit the OP for a listen, next best is hibernate this thread until he dealer has been out and learn what was discovered - whether a fault in system, poor set up, clash in components, or OP hasn't quite got the hearing ability they thought they had.....!

Peter

The frustrating thing though, Peter, is that those who have responded here seem to want it come right more than the OP!

northpole posted:

For heaven's sake people - none of us have heard the system or seen how it is set up nor the room in which it resides.  Hence none of us have a scooby as to whether it is singing like an angel �� or croaking like a croaky thing!

Unless we get in a plane and visit the OP for a listen, next best is hibernate this thread until he dealer has been out and learn what was discovered - whether a fault in system, poor set up, clash in components, or OP hasn't quite got the hearing ability they thought they had.....!

Peter

In the immortal words of Scotty from Star Trek (TNG when he re-appears in one episode, similar opinions occur in the original series):

"Yer canna change the Laws o' Physics!".

Ha ha - I think I know what you mean - could be a bit of a comedy thread if it turns out we're all cheering on Shergar (so to speak)!!

Peter

Oops - should have checked - my reply was to Christopher_M.

Peter

northpole posted:

What a saga this thread is - only wish we could fast forward to the part following the dealer visit/ possible visit to the dealer for compare and contrast and conclusions reached.  If it were my system and I didn't like what I was hearing I'd be down at the dealer's next day, not faffing about on this forum with woolly posts which ultimately aren't going to resolve the issue.

Best of luck to the OP.

Peter

perhaps bought blindly on a used market...

I think it's more due to a lack of understanding of the effects of EQ and of psychoacoustic adaption.

A question: Are your speakers (the Focal 936) the samespealers you used before buying the Naim gear, and if not what were they? If different then of course they will play a part in the different sound.

A suggestion (nothing to do with the above question): As you still have the graphic equaliser: why not insert it in the system temporarily (not sure if best between the nDAC and SN2 or between the pre and power stages of the SN2 - I would guess between pre and power, but you can do the tests both ways.)

Set the EQ to the settings you used to use, and see if it is still very tonally unbalanced to you. If it does still sound completely wrong, then it is something else in the system or the room that is causing the problem, and needs further investigation, but if it then sounds right to you, you know it is your settings (or some other contribution by the graphic equaliser) that you are missing without it.

Then try the EQ flat. Does that sound more or less like the Naim system does without the equaliser? If yes, that is confirmation that it is your settings that are the issue. My suggestion then is to leave it connected for a while, playing music frequently, and every few days adjust the controls very slightly towards flat, hardly enough to notice, until after many weeks you have got them flat, and effectively weaned yourself off it. At that point remove the equaliser and the greater clarity should be obvious without the shock of the sudden loss of EQ.

If after that you still feel you prefer the sound with the EQ, then keep the equaliser in the system - there is nothing wrong with modifying the sound to your personal taste. Your question then would be does it sound better like that with the Naim components, or are the Naim components wasted? And could you perhaps consider a higher quality equaliser that might sound better - maybe a digital signal processor between NDX and nDAC, giving you even greater flexibility over the sound shape...

It seems we are all wasting our time here. The OP seems to speak a different language, literally and metaphorically, to all those who have tried to assist. He has failed to answer the simplest of questions asked of him. I think there is little hope of him understanding some of the longer recent posts. I am now giving up on this thread.

Owning NDX ando SN2 myself, I found the sound signature was up and down for about 3 months from new. Very annoying really, but that's what you get I guess.....if new.

Great one day and just awful the next. (Other kit: unitiserve, pmc 25.25, powerlines and lumina IC). 

And, it kept changing /improving with several tweaks....

1. Used the tuner input on amp after dealer advice. It shouldn't work but it did for.

2. Rearranged on fraimlite so top to bottom is NDX,US,SN2.

3. Swapped out freebie mains sockets for MK unswitched  (made a huge difference). Too much in fact, now I have too much mid bass that seems to swallow up the mids and high frequency a bit. 

Or maybe is just made it all sound as it should and I need to adjust.  Whatever,  it is the opposite of your findings.  

Did you mention what your mains set up is? 

I've found over the years that there can be massive differences (usually for the worse) when using extention blocks or other distribution blocks, and in particular the mains cable from wall to said box boxes. Getting that wrong can give the results you have. 

we seem to be more interested than the op himself.  Offer use focal aria 936 in a 11 feet room.  supernait with ndx.  only tidal. equalizer in the chain. but we don't know nothing about the cables used, the mains...the system he had before, and if we really enjoyed naim sound somewhere....  And to end he seems not very responsive....  Perhaps he doesn't want really help, just to tell us that he doesn't like his system, like someone who didn't like what he had eaten at the restaurant, just to share....

A question based on some feedback on here regarding Tidal.....

I've recently took the 3 free month subscription. I find it quite satisfactory. 

But, if Tidal isn't good enough for an NDX, then that would suggest that a Unitiserve isn't either, after all the US can rip in FLAC too?.  (Mine is set to rip in WAV).

So, what's out there to get the best out of NDX?.....hires downloads ?

Believe it or not, despite owning this gear, I've never used it for anything other than CD rips and occasional Tidal, mainly because I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to all this. Yes, I've been an enthusiastic for years, and have a good knowledge/understanding of hifi in general but I'm a bit vague when it comes to the digital streaming era. 

Ray, Tidal lossless does not sound as good to me as the same album as a CD rip. The difference is repeatable and quite easily noticed, and many others have reported the same. So with my NDX, there's no way I would abandon UPnP for Tidal, although perhaps this will vary with other streamers. There has been some discussion here of the new streaming platform being potentially better in this respect; time will tell.

Incidentally, some report that WAV sounds a little better than FLAC on Naim streamers over UPnP. To me this is a subtle difference, but I prefer to store in FLAC, and the US can be set to transcode to WAV on playback, which gives you the best of both worlds.

ray sheldon posted:

A question based on some feedback on here regarding Tidal.....

I've recently took the 3 free month subscription. I find it quite satisfactory. 

But, if Tidal isn't good enough for an NDX, then that would suggest that a Unitiserve isn't either, after all the US can rip in FLAC too?.  (Mine is set to rip in WAV).

So, what's out there to get the best out of NDX?.....hires downloads ?

Believe it or not, despite owning this gear, I've never used it for anything other than CD rips and occasional Tidal, mainly because I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to all this. Yes, I've been an enthusiastic for years, and have a good knowledge/understanding of hifi in general but I'm a bit vague when it comes to the digital streaming era. 

To use a non-music analogy - you have a really capable sports car (Porsche, Ferrari...). And you never take it out of the 2nd gear (Tidal streaming). Ocassionally you manage the 3rd and the 4th (CD-quality WAV steaming). But your car has 7 gears.... 

ray sheldon posted:

A question based on some feedback on here regarding Tidal.....

I've recently took the 3 free month subscription. I find it quite satisfactory. 

But, if Tidal isn't good enough for an NDX, then that would suggest that a Unitiserve isn't either, after all the US can rip in FLAC too?.  (Mine is set to rip in WAV).

So, what's out there to get the best out of NDX?.....hires downloads ?

Believe it or not, despite owning this gear, I've never used it for anything other than CD rips and occasional Tidal, mainly because I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to all this. Yes, I've been an enthusiastic for years, and have a good knowledge/understanding of hifi in general but I'm a bit vague when it comes to the digital streaming era. 

Ray, Tidal can be fine for the NDX, yes it is FLAC, and using the inbuilt DAC, the NDX prefers WAV, using an off board largely decoupled DAC with the NDX seems to lessen the difference. Also the SQ of Tidal seems to vary on the latency and speed of your internet connection... the harder your NDX needs to work to get the data the more impact it has on SQ.. so the bottom line with the current Naim streamers the SQ will vary with Tidal from location to location.

For the most part to get the best SQ from the NDX, the choices would appear to be currently

• a local UPnP streaming source
• use SPDIF from a quality transport
• [Advanced] if using lossless web streaming try and use a media proxy buffer (MinimServer with the BBC Radio3 FLAC stream trial is an example)

and indeed some/many  may may well find Tidal sounds completely acceptable and enjoyable as well n the ND streamer when streamed directly. This is good but is less certain from user to user.

Both,

Thanks and understood. I do agree that a CD rip sounds better than the same album over Tidal. I suppose it's the same as 4k Blu Ray beats any 4k stream.

I have got the US set to convert flac to wav, my dealer told me that hires downloads are in flac and it's better to have the US perform this than the NDX.

I also agree that a CD ripped in WAV sounds a little better than ripping in FLAC. I would imagine that is evident in that a FLAC file is around 1000 kbps v a WAV at around 1200. (Although the US set to convert flax to wav would address that anyway?

Question..whats the benefit of ripping in FLAC and getting the US to convert to WAV, to just ripping in WAV in the first place?

The benefits of FLAC over WAV is reduced storage and for some software more consistent interoperability with meta data... 

On the original pquestion: the two closest friends I have made during the past few years frequenting the local NAIM dealer's store don't like at all the NAIM sound. They are of course into tubes. We hear the same things but draw different conclusions. Besides the EQ point raised several times in this thread this might be the simplest hint to answer the OPs question (assuming of course he's really interested in reading all the comments to his question which seems  dubious...) 

Let's allow the OP to have his dealer over and then get back to us with the dealer's comments and suggestions. Let's stop hounding him and give him some space.

ray sheldon posted:

 

I have got the US set to convert flac to wav, my dealer told me that hires downloads are in flac and it's better to have the US perform this than the NDX. 

Have a look at HD Tracks website - high-resolution downloads are available in WAV, FLAC, AIFF, ALAC.
Of the 4 formats I would recommend either WAV or AIFF (as uncompressed ones).

French Rooster posted:

 Perhaps he doesn't want really help, just to tell us that he doesn't like his system, like someone who didn't like what he had eaten at the restaurant, just to share....

Ah, so for some people the forum is a kind of Audio Trip Advisor

Is the speaker cable NACA5, 3.5mor more,  if not what?

Are Naim interconnects used?

Are Naim speaker plugs used on the amp end? Are the negative conductors nearest each other and the positives on the outside. The speaker terminals are mirrored and also the wrong way round with the left on the right and right on the left when considered from the front of the amp. 

Is there a switching mode power supply plugged in near the Naim gear, like a modern television or a computer or router?

How have you selected your speaker positions? What makes you think they're right if the system sounds wrong?

All,

Thanks for responses. I will have a play with a hires download in near future.

In the meantime just ordered 2x3m tellurium black ll. Pre burned.

With a 60day money back guarantee, it's worth a go! 

Christopher_M posted:

French Rooster posted:

 Perhaps he doesn't want really help, just to tell us that he doesn't like his system, like someone who didn't like what he had eaten at the restaurant, just to share....

Ah, so for some people the forum is a kind of Audio Trip Advisor

yes, perhaps the op will rate Naim audio sound on the "trip advisor site"....  But otherwise, after joking, i will be glad if he finds finally how to appreciate his system .