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.
The 'how much better' discussion was as inevitable as it is ultimately futile if you don't audition the system yourself. IMHO of course! 
Notice I say 'system' not 'device', as HiFi components work together in a system of other component devices and interconnects - and this matters in my little universe and perhaps a few others as well.
The NDS was similar and different but not better than my CD555 is fair to say when I auditioned it way-back years ago. I really liked it and if I owned one would use it alternating with my CD555 to do the 'missing' things that I found it did better - but the NDS did some things better than the CD555 so it was not one or the other for me. In the end I figured I'd wait as the cost outlay did not, in my mind, justify the NDS for my system.
Forward to recently and the ND555 demo. It is a different beast in my system and filled it out in a way that the NDS did not and in areas where my CD555 was not really going. These were in terms of the frequency extremes of low-tight and detailed bass articulation, timing and power - and top-end openness and lack of any feeling of containment - and also the seamless presentation. The latter, when done well is captivating and when done poorly is relentless I've found with some system combinations. Fortunately it was the good version here.
My only - and continuing - feeling is that the mid-band is just done differently on ND555 and CD555 and that on some music the extra open-window of the ND555 took me places I was pleased to go - but the CD555 has an intimacy and closeness to some musical performances that really puts you into the musical moment in a way I've not heard beaten, even by the ND555. But they are close and different in what they do here and it is just my own opinion.
So as before said - I've taken the plunge and ordered the ND555 based on what it revealed in my demo. I still have reservations about music access and control, but musical quality less so - I think it will be better overall. Perhaps not everywhere - this I'm still not certain about and will not be until I own and live with it for a few months.
I think the ND555, like the CD555 before it, made my music suddenly new and full of a different life and it is hard to pass that up if you can get it. The NDS never passed that test as much as the ND555, so for me it is right for my system. I hope!
DB.