ND555 Impressions
Posted by: Bert Schurink on 26 July 2018
The Beast will arrive and will be installed tomorrow morning in my system. So I thought it was a good moment to open up a thread with the fist experiences, also giving others the possibility to share their first impressions with the beast.
I feeel a bit like a little child who has his birthday tomorrow. I assume that even while it will be nice weather during the weekend that I will be a spending a lot of hours with my system.
And as expected my car will not arrive before the ND555.
What did I forecast? 
I said it takes weeks to run-in and the first three are the worst - that is just what I found. Mine is still running-in approaching end of week 5. I had a music evening with a few friends tonight and they could all hear it changing through the evening from a bit bright to 'perfect' to a bit dull over a period of about two hours - and then back again. But this is now tolerable as the big up-down dips with a period of a day are (for now) gone.
I've heard another different ND555 in my system with another two months run-in on it and it sounded smoother and more open allowing the music to appear in space between the speakers - mine does a lot of this now but still has some 'attitude' about it at times.
I can wait. I'm very happy with the performance and direction - a larger open-window into my music with detail within detail resolution that is utterly absorbing. My friends over-stayed by more than an hour losing track of time listening so something is going right.
DB.
I want to share my thoughts of my ND555 and some other things discussed in this thread:
I have had my ND555 4 weeks now. From cold it was clearly better than my NDS. Thighter, clearer, faster... all have been said before
and yes, a little bright on some music. Now after 4 weeks the brightness is gone and I find myself just sitting and enjoying the music my new music collection!
Now I prefer 1 555PS. I have 2 but one is put away for the moment. I will put it in again after a couple of weeks and hear it again.
Now I find as follow, but maybe in a couple of weeks it will be different??
Positive with 2: More control, tighter.
Positive with 1: Voices more natural, more open, more "analog feeling" a little like my LP-12....
Some have been said about streaming cables, that the ND 555 is not as sensitive for the quality of streaming cables as for example the NDS. I tested some different, from a cheap standard computer cable up to Chord Music and I found the Chord Music to be absolutely stunning in my setup. More separation between the musicians, easier to follow different instruments, more fun! Conclusion: In my system, for me, the streaming cable make a big difference.
Dark Bear: Don't stop writing! I agree completely about searching for the "best" sound possible in the context of the system. To know what affects the systems performance is great even though I don't follow everything I discover every time I listen to music...
In the beginning of this thread Dark Bear wrote a-lot about how other electronic devices affected the performance of his system.
I have 2 cabinets over my music system containing: Apple tv, DVD, projector, etc. etc, look at the picture. I have never tested to compare how my music system sounds with the "crap" on standby (as I always had) to completely unplugged....the difference was unexpectedly big....For no cost at all the performance was clearly better when I took out the plugs from the wall. Thank you Darke Bear for this!
Fraims: I find it better with some empty shelves...
Enjoy the music!!
A neat set-up - compared to mine! 
Active with S1 Pre-NAP500 vs Full Statement Passive may steer toward a different preference in the 1 vs 2 supplies on ND555 perhaps, but it also comes down to personal preference and what you are used to, as when my Dealer first demoed the ND555 to me it was on the full Statement system and I still really preferred two supplies. As the ND555 runs-in it is a lot easier with one supply as two does clarify the frequency extremes which are not too nice at times while running-in.
As to the in-plugging stuff not being used while playing music - I'd be surprised if you did not hear that with this system. Some things are worse that others and no easy way to know other than un-plug each an listen. If you have not also tried it - turn-off any smart-TV on the same network as ND555 and to a lesser extent if you have a Sky STB - while listening to music. I think the smart TV keeps pinging everything network accessible to it to be its friend, but whatever is happening it all sound better when it is off. Some stuff, like my Computer being on, seems to make no real difference, but other network media players seem to.
Great pictures with no dust. 
DB.