Naim DAC extinction?

It's a great upgrade to the 272. Adds a lot more detail to the sound.

FWIW, I plan on revamping my office system in the next 18 months to breath new life into an otherwise brilliant UQ2. I am hoping that a DAC-v2 may surface so I can add this and a NAP100 with higher end speakers. 

But if a DAC-v2 is not on the cards, then shoebox systems are basically end of lifed for Naim. Which would be a massive shame IMO.

As a realist, I can see how there may not be enough market for shoebox seperates with the Uniti range filling that price point but hope springs eternal.

The nDAC still seems still appropriately priced given its upgradeable and tech. Whether you like what it does is another matter. To many are quick to indicate its sound is unfavorable and this due to ancient tech. But the truth is they probably just don't like the sound of a Naim DAC in general. Naim would ensure any new DAC technology still sounded like a Naim source so no guarantee at all that a new Naim DAC would float your boat.

But that's a moot point. They are extremely unlikely to release a standalone DAC on a different architectute than their brand new streamers which share DAC architecture with the very fine current nDAC.

Wonder if they would step into FPGA territory. But I really doubt they would build a standalone Dac without a streamer thrown in

feeling_zen posted:

FWIW, I plan on revamping my office system in the next 18 months to breath new life into an otherwise brilliant UQ2. I am hoping that a DAC-v2 may surface so I can add this and a NAP100 with higher end speakers. 

But if a DAC-v2 is not on the cards, then shoebox systems are basically end of lifed for Naim. Which would be a massive shame IMO.

As a realist, I can see how there may not be enough market for shoebox seperates with the Uniti range filling that price point but hope springs eternal.

The nDAC still seems still appropriately priced given its upgradeable and tech. Whether you like what it does is another matter. To many are quick to indicate its sound is unfavorable and this due to ancient tech. But the truth is they probably just don't like the sound of a Naim DAC in general. Naim would ensure any new DAC technology still sounded like a Naim source so no guarantee at all that a new Naim DAC would float your boat.

But that's a moot point. They are extremely unlikely to release a standalone DAC on a different architectute than their brand new streamers which share DAC architecture with the very fine current nDAC.

I’m running a UC2 and NAP100 as a second system in a combined office/media room, works very well. How would the DAC v2 work with that? BTW, I’m wondering whether to swap the UC2 with a Nova, as I’m interested in the improved headphone stage. Not sure whether the Nova would lift the performance with the Torem Hawks via the NAP100 though, may need more amplification for that?

Mike Sullivan posted:

feeling_zen posted:

FWIW, I plan on revamping my office system in the next 18 months to breath new life into an otherwise brilliant UQ2. I am hoping that a DAC-v2 may surface so I can add this and a NAP100 with higher end speakers. 

But if a DAC-v2 is not on the cards, then shoebox systems are basically end of lifed for Naim. Which would be a massive shame IMO.

As a realist, I can see how there may not be enough market for shoebox seperates with the Uniti range filling that price point but hope springs eternal.

The nDAC still seems still appropriately priced given its upgradeable and tech. Whether you like what it does is another matter. To many are quick to indicate its sound is unfavorable and this due to ancient tech. But the truth is they probably just don't like the sound of a Naim DAC in general. Naim would ensure any new DAC technology still sounded like a Naim source so no guarantee at all that a new Naim DAC would float your boat.

But that's a moot point. They are extremely unlikely to release a standalone DAC on a different architectute than their brand new streamers which share DAC architecture with the very fine current nDAC.

I’m running a UC2 and NAP100 as a second system in a combined office/media room, works very well. How would the DAC v2 work with that? BTW, I’m wondering whether to swap the UC2 with a Nova, as I’m interested in the improved headphone stage. Not sure whether the Nova would lift the performance with the Torem Hawks via the NAP100 though, may need more amplification for that?

The DAC-v? takes over the preamp section of a UQ2 also reducing the UQ2 to just a streaming transport. The current v1 has both a superior DAC, preamp, analogue output stage and headphone amp. And if you do a lot of late night work with headphones on, the weedy headphone amp in the UQ2 is a sore point.

New dacs at this stage feels a bit over the top

What naim really needs now is a dedicated shoebox sized streamer to match the V1 (and nDac). £1000-1200-ish would be sweetspot. This product could be made in new incarnations every two-three years.

..would get alot of new supporters introduced to the brand and complement the already great programme really well. Could be hooked up both to the built-ins aswell as separates - would make alot of sense!

Will Naim not want make an updated/better DAC available to those who for whatever reason choose a different rendering solution? There are quite a few people using Melcos, Innuos products and even complicatedly optimised sources based on the microRendu, using nDAC or V1, or other manufacturers’ DACs.

Is UQ+V1+NAP100 better than SU?

MangoMonkey posted:

It's a great upgrade to the 272. Adds a lot more detail to the sound.

You must have a separate pre or streamer/sourxe inorder to use 272 with a dac

Then why buy 272

Then why retaining a digital out on all their streamers?

Antonio1 posted:

Then why retaining a digital out on all their streamers?

To use as a streamer not dac/streamer

Into an amp/dac solution other than naim?

It doesn’t look to me the naim way at all..

Is there a solid rumor that the Naim DAC will be discontinued and not renewed? Usually when a Naim product is being phased out, the current model goes on sale for a substantial rebate. I haven't seen any Naim DACs on sale with a rebate (in Canada). 

Naim are, perhaps unsurprisingly, not doing the hard sell on external DACs right now. Their official description of the SPDIF out on the ND555 is “A single S/PDIF output, on BNC, is provided for connection to an AV system and can be disabled via the control app, which benefits sound quality”. Still, I wouldn’t be surprised if they produced another DAC in the future, but this would require them to go right back to the drawing board, so it might take a while. Some said there would never be a replacement for the Unitiserve, which just goes to show that you never can tell what’s going on behind closed doors in R&D. 

lhau posted:

Wonder if they would step into FPGA territory. But I really doubt they would build a standalone Dac without a streamer thrown in

Why, they use Analog Devices DSP programmable processors that use the AD SHARC parallel processing architecture.. from what I can gather Naim don’t hugely tax the SHARC device  currently. 

We might see decoupled streamer transport and DAC when and if the Statement streamer appears.

Let’s put it this way.... ND5555 and nDAC use the same processors... can’t be too bad...

The DAC-V1's USB input has allowed me great flexibility in how I feed my system. Currently that's Roon > microRendu > DAC-V1 > 250 DR. I was holding out for a V2 but now Naim offers such a broad range of inputs on it's new streamers I could see myself going for a 272 level streaming preamplifier with the new platform. For that reason I can see why a classic series DAC is not high on the agenda. 

However in the time I‘ve owned the DAC-V1 I’ve never needed to worry about how to hook up the latest music service or streamer/renderer. If/when they get around to new DACs; and I hope they do, I’d like them to include a DAC-V1 style USB input, especially if it’s expensive and thus likely to be in my rack for a while!

Daniel H. posted:

Is there a solid rumor that the Naim DAC will be discontinued and not renewed? Usually when a Naim product is being phased out, the current model goes on sale for a substantial rebate. I haven't seen any Naim DACs on sale with a rebate (in Canada). 

https://forums.naimaudio.com/t...or-a-naim-dac-backup

Adam Zielinski posted:

Let’s put it this way.... ND5555 and nDAC use the same processors... can’t be too bad...

The same family of processors, but I believe the ND555 uses a later more powerful AD processor (and possibly lower current). The buffer and synchronous clocking circuitry is quite improved in the ND555 over the NDAC... as well as the analogue filter and i2v stages being tweaked on the ND555. Of course finally the ND555 offers mechanical isolation.

But yes the ND555 DAC stage is quite a traditional conservative design that although now refined first appeared in the Naim portfolio with the NDAC.

MangoMonkey posted:

It's a great upgrade to the 272. Adds a lot more detail to the sound.

After a patch work integration of the nDac from 272+xps/200 to Chromcast Audio/nDac+xps/200, with only ultracheap RCA cables that I have lting around, I have to say..... WOW

The ndac really is something special isn't it? It is just of a different World. Initially the pace seems to slow down compared with 272, however, its just because there is all the new details and 3 dimension positioning taking place. Its like Matrix, when you can see more, time seem to slow down. nDac is really a significant upgrade to 272 and at these 2h price it's VFM.

@lhau

I was running a 272/Nap250DR + RegaRP6TT/Stageline/HicapDR. Sold off the 272. Now running AlloDigiOne into Naim Dac/Nac72/HiCapDR into Nam250DR.

It's nice to get some of the nac72 edginess back. 272 was a little too tame. Naim Dac's extra details are also welcome.

MangoMonkey posted:

@lhau

I was running a 272/Nap250DR + RegaRP6TT/Stageline/HicapDR. Sold off the 272. Now running AlloDigiOne into Naim Dac/Nac72/HiCapDR into Nam250DR.

It's nice to get some of the nac72 edginess back. 272 was a little too tame. Naim Dac's extra details are also welcome.

That's very interesting thank you.

I have a NAC72 that needs servicing and was very impressed with an NDX 2.

My plan I think will be service NAC72/Hi-Cap/NAP250 and get the NDX 2, later I will upgrade to NAC282 or 252.

surely  dac only have had there day . to be replaced streamer /dac in the new range design so we can just use our exsisting sytems .

Dunno man - streamer tech is evolving too fast. The $200 Allo does more in terms of streaming than the older naim streamers.

Case in point - My kids and wife (who has her hands full with a 1 yr old) can't be bothered to search for the phone to turn out music when she needs it for the kiddos. She just talks to Alexa - so now, the $200 Alexa Show gets more use than a $100K system right next to it. 

The newer streamers don't have speech recognition - so already obsolete. 

I'd rather hook a streamer with alexa support and a solid spdif out implementation into a dac. - The 'cheaper' commodity hardware can be replaced every couple of years - I don't have any intentions of replacing my ND555 anytime soon.

Most local folks I know just used the NDS and now the ND555 (strange) as a Dac - they use the UnitiCore as a spdif out streamer into the dac section of the NDS/ND555. Don't asks me why - they think it sounds better. But that totally defeats the purpose of the streaming tech in these players.

MangoMonkey posted:

Dunno man - streamer tech is evolving too fast. The $200 Allo does more in terms of streaming than the older naim streamers.

Case in point - My kids and wife (who has her hands full with a 1 yr old) can't be bothered to search for the phone to turn out music when she needs it for the kiddos. She just talks to Alexa - so now, the $200 Alexa Show gets more use than a $100K system right next to it. 

The newer streamers don't have speech recognition - so already obsolete. 

I'd rather hook a streamer with alexa support and a solid spdif out implementation into a dac. - The 'cheaper' commodity hardware can be replaced every couple of years - I don't have any intentions of replacing my ND555 anytime soon.

Most local folks I know just used the NDS and now the ND555 (strange) as a Dac - they use the UnitiCore as a spdif out streamer into the dac section of the NDS/ND555. Don't asks me why - they think it sounds better. But that totally defeats the purpose of the streaming tech in these players.

That's probably because the NDS/ND555 are the upstream optimization of the basic plan of the Dac......