ND555 Impressions

Yes. That's kind of what I was driving at from another angle. Ther streaming side of things was different back them but gaining ground fast. As I remember, it involved a lot of DIY and was driven by things like headless Macs and Squeezeboxes. It's come a long way in a comparatively short time. Although the technology itself is older than optical disk playback.

Harry  - I get your point. However, if you look at the ND555 they have super charged the power supplies - using DR technology (on the analogue side it is like a turbo'd NDS - however, this is not all they have done!)........ it would be interesting - infact amazing if Naim applied the same approach to a board refresh of the CD555. It will never happen - but I think that great player would step up yet further..... as red book cd can sound incredible.

Some of my best and most enjoyable music is in 16/44.1. We still buy CDs. We just don't play them back any more.

Darke bear talked about a different presentation between his CD555 and the demo unit of ND555.
I usually don't like any streamer's presentation (including NDS) - it's too big, uncontrolled and the focus is missing (in comparison to a CDP).
I much prefer the smaller shiny image that the CD player creates.

What soundstage does the ND555 produce? Large but with focus? Like a CD Player? Or is it still a bit wooly?

BP.

Harry posted:

Some of my best and most enjoyable music is in 16/44.1. We still buy CDs. We just don't play them back any more.

Why not !!!

BPhotographer posted:

Darke bear talked about a different presentation between his CD555 and the demo unit of ND555.
I usually don't like any streamer's presentation (including NDS) - it's too big, uncontrolled and the focus is missing (in comparison to a CDP).
I much prefer the smaller shiny image that the CD player creates.

What soundstage does the ND555 produce? Large but with focus? Like a CD Player? Or is it still a bit wooly?

BP.

In my system (albeit with a NAP500DR which I was using at the time instead of my non-DR version) and in my room, my experience was of a big, open soundstage, in which the speakers seemed to disappear. It has a very realistic musical presentation, more like a vinyl source than either CD or the NDS (IMO). It is clearly a great source product, which you really ought to try to hear for yourself. 

I think I will be placing an order just as soon as my NAP500 returns from its DR upgrade. 

BPhotographer posted:

Darke bear talked about a different presentation between his CD555 and the demo unit of ND555.
I usually don't like any streamer's presentation (including NDS) - it's too big, uncontrolled and the focus is missing (in comparison to a CDP).
I much prefer the smaller shiny image that the CD player creates.

What soundstage does the ND555 produce? Large but with focus? Like a CD Player? Or is it still a bit wooly?

BP.

I never noticed the ‘big uncontrolled unfocused’ presentation you mention on the NDS, but I’ve never had a CD555 to compare as I jumped from a CD5 to streaming over 10 years ago with a Slim Devices Transporter. The ND555 just presents the soundstage as it was recorded. Instruments and vocals just seem to be naturally placed. 

I have been out of town for the past week and have only listened to my ND555 briefly. I won’t be back for another week. Anyone notice any improvement in SQ over the first few week?

I didn’t either and still don’t as I post. I can tell you that Miles is quite focused as he is just salting Kenny’s peanuts and Steaming in 192kHz..  ????

Chag - 

Alison is perfectly focussed here as well, with the Union Station ensemble nicely distributed around her. No peanuts, but I’m only on 16/44.1!

I respect Miles and Alison but this music is also (almost) fine with my NDS (I still think that the CD player is better here).

I'm talking about classical music - piano, orchestra, etc.

Orchestra - each instrument must be placed exactly where it was recorded (i'm talking about good recordings), with the CD player it's a smaller presentation
but I can point of each instrument. With the NDS it's like the "blur" option in Photoshop. Sometimes it's OK but then I hear a flute coming from the left speaker instead of the middle, and it's not placed in the right location.

Some notes of the piano comes from the left and some from the right. It doesn't sound real enough for me (i'm exaggerate but I want you to understand).
The weight of the instrument, whether it's a piano or a violin, is not real enough in comparison to the CD player or the LP12.

Yes, you hear it's a piano, extremely fine one, but it's all ambiguous.
I also noticed that, if you take a flute as an example, the body, the shape and the material of which it was made from is much more clear, effortlessly, with the CD player (and much much more with the LP12), with the NDS it's a flute, very nice, extremely fine - sounds delicate - but something is missing.

That is the reason I'm getting bored with the NDS after a while. I can listen to it all day but then I feel I heard nothing. Two minutes with the CD player and I feel
all of the emotion in the CD/music, it's all getting much more dramatic and dynamic.

The dealer here won't bring a ND555 for a home demo, and even then, it will take me a long time to stop be impressed by what's good with the new streamer (like I had with the NDS, that does some staff really well) and examine what's missing from my memory with the CD player.

BP.

Ok, I understand... just spun up a recording of Mozart’s 40th. Violins sound just left of centre, flute behind and further left. On the 2nd movement the flutes seem to have moved more towards the centre. Will listen more and report. Instrument placement seems fairly solid in each movement, but I guess they could reposition mics between movement. 

Just getting back to ND555s for a minute... has anyone else heard the latest reason / explanation / excuse for a delay in shipping ND555s ?

OK, we've had  'run out of burndies', then we heard a rumour 'change to firmware'... and today's reason ?   You won't believe it... run out of 500 style cases !   

Even I was aware that these lovely smoothe cases are a low-yield product on the production front,  but hey, the production management team must be tearing their hair out by now; of all the things rto run out of !    Dare I speculate on the next problem area... cardboard box inserts perhaps?

I want it understood that I'm not complaining, I'm staying 'cool', and I'm fully appreciative of the vagaries that surround delivery of a brand new, advanced technology, £13,000 product... 

Hands up anyone waiting for their ND555 who doesn't mind it packaged in the classic powder coated sleeve....   No, I didn't think there'd be many.

PS - I just realised, this could all be Fake News, of course.

Confirmed my order yesterday for a ND555 and 555PS the dealer has said delivery could be in as little as four weeks I'll just keep my fingers crossed.

..wow! Folks, we are sure you all talk about 24k€ streaming device here, right?? Or did I miss something? ???? If so, Iwant one too! Do I need any tricks to get there?

T38.45 posted:

..wow! Folks, we are sure you all talk about 24k€ streaming device here, right?? Or did I miss something? ???? If so, Iwant one too! Do I need any tricks to get there?

Well, it doesn’t have any power, so you need to add that. Then it doesn’t actually produce any sound, so you need amps as well. More, more like 70- 80 K. I’ll think I’ll stick to my new Nova, that was enough of a stretch.

ayap1 posted:

Harry posted:

Some of my best and most enjoyable music is in 16/44.1. We still buy CDs. We just don't play them back any more.

Why not !!!

Because for a given level, X, S and now 500, a streamer outperforms CD replay for sound quality, musical enjoyment, or whatever one wishes to call it. Your experiences may differ. There is no universally applicable answer.

Sound stage wise, the ND555 sounds huge. With voices, notes, effects and acoustic space (when present in a mix) very sharply defined and delineated. It's as if making the image bigger gives everything more space to be in, and allows things to emerge from behind other things. What it doesn't do is pull it all apart and lose the sense of it. In my room. Can't speak for anyone else's room.

"be in" should be "be itself in" or "exist in".

BPhotographer posted:

Darke bear talked about a different presentation between his CD555 and the demo unit of ND555.
I usually don't like any streamer's presentation (including NDS) - it's too big, uncontrolled and the focus is missing (in comparison to a CDP).
I much prefer the smaller shiny image that the CD player creates.

What soundstage does the ND555 produce? Large but with focus? Like a CD Player? Or is it still a bit wooly?

BP.

I don’t hear a wooly unfocused image from my NDS . Hmmm . Guess it is different for everyone ! 

Different ears, tastes, rooms, systems, it never ends. If you know what you like and you're fortunate enough to own it, you're in a very good place indeed, regardless of what it is you like and why you like it.

i don’t share BPPHOGRAPHER description of the nds too.  I had before the cdx2/xps2.  But as said before, each different system, ears, kind of music....may give different results.

Harry posted:

Different ears, tastes, rooms, systems, it never ends. If you know what you like and you're fortunate enough to own it, you're in a very good place indeed, regardless of what it is you like and why you like it.

Audiophiles can not agree on what speakers sound best .  The many brands of speakers out there for consumers seem endless .  So what is one person’s nirvana in sound quality is not another person’s ! So some may love the sound of streamers others may prefer CD players . That is not surprising. 

Speakers are the worst. At least for us. The pair we now own took a year to select and it's not surprising that we have upgraded speakers the least. The ones we have now, sound similar to how they sounded at the dealer, before the home audition. However, the candidates which we auditioned at home before these just didn't sound right at home. They didn't work in our room. I tried everything. After they went back to the dealer we attended a Naim event at said dealer, a couple of evenings later. They sounded fantastic. Go figure...

Agree speakers are a nightmare .... you have the interaction with the room....and also the synergy with the amp..... I think that's why active speakers are good ... the synergy is sorted and you only have the room to worry about ..... and some even have room equalization..... 

rjstaines posted:

Just getting back to ND555s for a minute... has anyone else heard the latest reason / explanation / excuse for a delay in shipping ND555s ?

OK, we've had  'run out of burndies', then we heard a rumour 'change to firmware'... and today's reason ?   You won't believe it... run out of 500 style cases !   

Even I was aware that these lovely smoothe cases are a low-yield product on the production front,  but hey, the production management team must be tearing their hair out by now; of all the things rto run out of !    Dare I speculate on the next problem area... cardboard box inserts perhaps?

I want it understood that I'm not complaining, I'm staying 'cool', and I'm fully appreciative of the vagaries that surround delivery of a brand new, advanced technology, £13,000 product... 

Hands up anyone waiting for their ND555 who doesn't mind it packaged in the classic powder coated sleeve....   No, I didn't think there'd be many.

 

PS - I just realised, this could all be Fake News, of course.

This is what I have been told by Signals, now expected mid September! I would be happy with the power coated finish