NDX - input comparison with some unexpected results

Posted by: DrPo on 18 December 2017

I had yesterday at home two friends from my "audio" circle for a listening session after some recent key upgrades of my set up. We only listened to digital from my NDX+XP5PS using the same tracks from Tidal, USB flac rips and the digital input of the NDX fed by a basic MusicalFidelity CD transport. We did not try to listen to the same tracks from the NAS.

My understanding was that USB provides the best input to the streamers. However the results were quite different: best SQ was achieved from the digital input (i.e. using NDX as a DAC), followed by Tidal, and last, by quite some margin, the USB input. Although I am in general quite skeptic about such comparisons, on this occasion I think I must agree with my golden eared friends.

The above together with some recent posts on this forum but also some (recent again) reviews on top transport/players like the DCS Rossini where the reviewers find CD playback better than the "streaming" mode got me thinking. I cannot understand how can a mechanical and "real time" (as opposed to taking time to re-read and account for errors) reading device like a CD transport can achieve better sound quality than a buffered, non mechanical data stream.

I post this just in case someone has had similar experiences or bright ideas about what could the difference be attributed to.

Greg

Posted on: 18 December 2017 by Innocent Bystander

Could you clarify what you mean by usb flac rips? What device are they sitting on? (Memory stick? Computer?)

Posted on: 18 December 2017 by Innocent Bystander

It is very possible that the issue is the file format, because the NDX has to convert a flac file on the fly as it plays it, whereas it doesn’t with a wav file. Much on the forum about flac vs wav. Many people using Naim streamers who store as flac for storage space and/or metadata reasons find it best to use the UPnP server on a NAS to transcode on the fly, sending wav format to the streamer, the argument being that  the streamer doesn’t have sufficient spare processing power to do it adequately, whereas the NAS does. 

Posted on: 18 December 2017 by DrPo

hi IB - they were flac rips on a USB stick. Not made by me. As with respect to flac / wav : I cant tell the difference to be honest but perhaps I need my golden eared friends once more to have that comparison done :-)

Posted on: 18 December 2017 by Mike-B

How was the USB stick formated before the FLAC rips were loaded,  it should be FAT32,  its works OK for me with my NDX so suspect that might be the problem.     Whatever playing from a USB stick is extremely clunky,  nothing like the ease & pleasure of UPnP from NAS.     As for USB providing the best input for streamers,  if you can hear a difference then there is something wrong with your network.