Naim DAC or Naim ND5 XS

Posted by: newbieNaim on 07 December 2011

I can get my hands on a 2nd hand Naim DAC which I can get at a cheaper price than the new ND5 XS.
Which one is better in terms of sound quality. As I thought the ND5 XS is just a DAC + source, which I plan to hook up with my mac mini anyway.

Which will be a better route for me?

I am using Naim Nait XS now

Thanks

Posted on: 07 December 2011 by Stoik

With a good USB digital music interface between your MACmini and a nDAC, you should obtain a very nice resulting combo with your Nait XS.

I've made an interesting listening last week at a friend's house. To make a long story short, the nDAC's improvement (that it generaly brings) got completely ruined by a CD changer that turned to be a more than mediocre CD transport. Somebody brought also a fairly good digital interface with a laptop to be used as a music server, and it was a relief to hear something good coming out of my nDAC finaly...

So make yourself sure that you'll feed the nDAC with the best digital source you can find. There's more things happening that one could imagine between the digital music media and the SPDIF output.

Bye.