What we have learnt from the Naim DAC...
Posted by: PureHifi on 11 November 2009
I thought it was time that we posted a few tid-bits of our experience with the Ripping, storage and playback of music after our resent promotional event that formed a part of the New Zealand Naim roadshow.
As a Naim retailer we learned a lot from the New Zealand Naim distributor, Chris Murphy, and are finding the whole move to digital storage and playback very interesting...and a lot more involved than a lot of people might initially think.
Our roadshow kit was as follows:
CDX2 (latest with digital out)
HDX (used with digital out)
DAC (with and without a 555PS)
282/supercap, 250.2, Fraim/ Ovator S-600's
Apart from the obvious new speaker exploration we settled down to get to grips with the new CDX2 + DAC and experiment with the HDX a bit more. In particular we wanted to get a solid handle on the performance variations with ripping CD media and the storage and playback.
Ripping the software used does affect the final playback, Chris had files from the same CD Track ripped to WAV with several software packages (WMP, iTunes, EAC, DBpowerAmp, HDX, etc) and the outright winner was the HDX rip - iTunes sounded horrible - ragged & sibilant would best describe it.
Storing It became apparent that the storage medium also influences the audio performance. The simplest example was writing the same HDX ripped music file to different USB memory sticks and then playing them back via the USB input on the DAC - cheap memory sticks generally played back poorly compared to a higher priced stick from LaCie. Perhaps this reflects on Naim's choice of Hard Disk drives used in the HDX.
Playback Several things in the playback domain have cropped up recently for us, in both Naim's solutions and other brands that we stock. We have found, in terms of digital playback from PC laptops and MacBook, that the media player software has a huge impact on the music quality - WMP was poor but Winamp and Foobar were great by comparison (never got around to iTunes). The USB cable between a Cambridge DacMagic and our laptop was also a hugely variable item, we tried a range of normal looking USB cables (some with superior shielding and RF stoppers) and ran them against a Wireworld Ultraviolet USB1 cable, results were outstandingly in favour of the Wireworld item over all others tried. We could not try our Wireworld USB cable on the WD external HDD because of it's use of a mini USB connector but I am looking forward to testing it on a LaCie HDD that has the right USB connector.
The Western Digital 1TB external HDD feeding the HDX also benefited from a power supply upgrade, it might sound over the top but it made for a better result in the music (and was a good use for a spare NAPSC).
I can't explain in technical terms why a lot of these findings are the way they were, we judged everything on its sound merit and I am reporting our results.
What it highlighted most of all was the wonderful way that Naim's R & D has worked to make all those variables disappear for a customer in the HDX product - by providing Superior Ripping, storage and playback in one box.
The DAC is a wonderful device and will be a very successful product.
As a Naim retailer we learned a lot from the New Zealand Naim distributor, Chris Murphy, and are finding the whole move to digital storage and playback very interesting...and a lot more involved than a lot of people might initially think.
Our roadshow kit was as follows:
CDX2 (latest with digital out)
HDX (used with digital out)
DAC (with and without a 555PS)
282/supercap, 250.2, Fraim/ Ovator S-600's
Apart from the obvious new speaker exploration we settled down to get to grips with the new CDX2 + DAC and experiment with the HDX a bit more. In particular we wanted to get a solid handle on the performance variations with ripping CD media and the storage and playback.
Ripping the software used does affect the final playback, Chris had files from the same CD Track ripped to WAV with several software packages (WMP, iTunes, EAC, DBpowerAmp, HDX, etc) and the outright winner was the HDX rip - iTunes sounded horrible - ragged & sibilant would best describe it.
Storing It became apparent that the storage medium also influences the audio performance. The simplest example was writing the same HDX ripped music file to different USB memory sticks and then playing them back via the USB input on the DAC - cheap memory sticks generally played back poorly compared to a higher priced stick from LaCie. Perhaps this reflects on Naim's choice of Hard Disk drives used in the HDX.
Playback Several things in the playback domain have cropped up recently for us, in both Naim's solutions and other brands that we stock. We have found, in terms of digital playback from PC laptops and MacBook, that the media player software has a huge impact on the music quality - WMP was poor but Winamp and Foobar were great by comparison (never got around to iTunes). The USB cable between a Cambridge DacMagic and our laptop was also a hugely variable item, we tried a range of normal looking USB cables (some with superior shielding and RF stoppers) and ran them against a Wireworld Ultraviolet USB1 cable, results were outstandingly in favour of the Wireworld item over all others tried. We could not try our Wireworld USB cable on the WD external HDD because of it's use of a mini USB connector but I am looking forward to testing it on a LaCie HDD that has the right USB connector.
The Western Digital 1TB external HDD feeding the HDX also benefited from a power supply upgrade, it might sound over the top but it made for a better result in the music (and was a good use for a spare NAPSC).
I can't explain in technical terms why a lot of these findings are the way they were, we judged everything on its sound merit and I am reporting our results.
What it highlighted most of all was the wonderful way that Naim's R & D has worked to make all those variables disappear for a customer in the HDX product - by providing Superior Ripping, storage and playback in one box.
The DAC is a wonderful device and will be a very successful product.
Well - we have the open house this weekend and I have just been informed that the Ovators are out of commission 
Gregg
Gregg
quote:Originally posted by js:By the way, I don't care for studio talk either. Trust me when I say they don't generally sound special other than source and that aspect is leveling with 24/96. Itreminds me of Bose adverts with musicians and conductors.
PC, did you hear the DAC at Connan's?
I had loaded XMPlay in the past but after seeing the interface, dumped it without a listen. Didn't realize I had it before until I saw it again. I put it back yesterday, changed the skin and added ASIO and took the time to find a convenient way to use it. Easy to use quickly buy going to the file and just clicking a selection when set as default music player. Makes all the difference. Will play entire albums (folders) or individual selections this way. Playlists are available to make. Still bare bones but it handles WAV pretty well which is imporatant to me personally. Apparently the lowest resource player out there and an executable program, not a true install if that matters.
I'll give an idea on sound latter when used with a system and I'm hopeful after the posts by ghook2020 who seems to share some of my views on players.
JS -
Have you tried XXHighEnd? It has gotten some positive reviews over at computeraudiophile.com.
Also, did you see the announcement by Linn today? They are exiting the CD player biz to focus on streamers.
To quote my dealer: the end is nigh.
Hook
quote:Originally posted by ghook2020:
Have you tried XXHighEnd? It has gotten some positive reviews over at computeraudiophile.com.
And on Hydrogen Audio he was completely torn to miniscule threads in the beginning of the year.
Might give it a try myself
-
aleg
No I haven't but I will try it if I can just down load it. I'll do sothe next time I have a Naim DAC on hand. Really some of these differences were pretty small in the system I used yesterday which wasn't top of the shop so a better setup is in order. I can understand why some of this isn't a big deal for some when if add format and source to mix. I'm keeping everything loaded up for a better compare with wav source and have tried to optimize buffer size and output whether Kernel, ASIO, or Direct depending on player for an easy runoff again. Straight Winamp will be tried without the MM wrapper also. I'm not assuming anything at this point.quote:Originally posted by ghook2020:quote:Originally posted by js:
PC, did you hear the DAC at Connan's?
I had loaded XMPlay in the past but after seeing the interface, dumped it without a listen. Didn't realize I had it before until I saw it again. I put it back yesterday, changed the skin and added ASIO and took the time to find a convenient way to use it. Easy to use quickly buy going to the file and just clicking a selection when set as default music player. Makes all the difference. Will play entire albums (folders) or individual selections this way. Playlists are available to make. Still bare bones but it handles WAV pretty well which is imporatant to me personally. Apparently the lowest resource player out there and an executable program, not a true install if that matters.
I'll give an idea on sound latter when used with a system and I'm hopeful after the posts by ghook2020 who seems to share some of my views on players.
JS -
Have you tried XXHighEnd? It has gotten some positive reviews over at computeraudiophile.com.
Also, did you see the announcement by Linn today? They are exiting the CD player biz to focus on streamers.
To quote my dealer: the end is nigh.
Hook
Aleg, I haven't read it but let me guess. Everybody was on him because it had to be playing the same bits but once the right guys heard it, it became more accepted. Just read this. I bet it went over well.
"On the FLAC (or ALAC) matter : This is about on the top of my prio list. The "on the fly" conversion from FLAC (etc.) also won't be all that easy, because doing that the normal way influences the soundquality, and it really shouldn't."
As for Linn's anouncement. It's probably a good marketing move for them relative to what they're actually selling. After all, they still support vinyl in a big way so they didn't do this due to CD availability. They're certainly allowed to run their bussiness as they see fit and to be judged only on what they actually produce. I do predict that CDs will still be around when firewire becomes a legacy format. http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-262047.html
quote:Originally posted by Aleg:quote:Originally posted by ghook2020:
Have you tried XXHighEnd? It has gotten some positive reviews over at computeraudiophile.com.
And on Hydrogen Audio he was completely torn to miniscule threads in the beginning of the year.
Might give it a try myself
-
aleg
I have just tried the demo version for playback on my Vista PC.
I was using Foobar/ASIO4ALL because I prefered that to Foobar and normal Windows audio settings (didn't try the foobar-WASAPI plugin yet).
I must say that XXHighEnd has, to my ears, much more transparency then Foobar/ASIO and when using the setting of Double or Quadro upsampling with the "Arc Prediction" algorithm the transparency increases even more.
I must says I like the sound very much so far.
The 'only' down thing is its user interface, which is fairly basis explorer style navigation and no tags. But you can create playlists.
I say definitely worth to give it a try.
-
aleg
quote:Originally posted by Aleg:quote:Originally posted by Aleg:quote:Originally posted by ghook2020:
Have you tried XXHighEnd? It has gotten some positive reviews over at computeraudiophile.com.
And on Hydrogen Audio he was completely torn to miniscule threads in the beginning of the year.
Might give it a try myself
-
aleg
I have just tried the demo version for playback on my Vista PC.
I was using Foobar/ASIO4ALL because I prefered that to Foobar and normal Windows audio settings (didn't try the foobar-WASAPI plugin yet).
I must say that XXHighEnd has, to my ears, much more transparency then Foobar/ASIO and when using the setting of Double or Quadro upsampling with the "Arc Prediction" algorithm the transparency increases even more.
I must says I like the sound very much so far.
The 'only' down thing is its user interface, which is fairly basis explorer style navigation and no tags. But you can create playlists.
I say definitely worth to give it a try.
-
aleg
Aleg -
Thanks for posting your impressions.
I think this world of computer audio is very interesting to watch right now. Because we are in the early days, it is not very hard to get access to the owners/developers of the software to ask questions, provide feedback and suggest enhancements.
As consumers we certainly do not have that same level of interaction and influence with more established manufacturers.
One thing that caught my eye over in the XXHighEnd forum is that their tests show different "bit perfect" players are producing different outputs. If you google "measuring xxhighend", you'll see the link.
Hook
quote:Originally posted by ghook2020:
Aleg & JS -
Curious what you guys use as a reference for judging computer software player sonic quality.
After listening to so many different software players, digital converters, cables, etc., was wondering if you had, for example, a stable CD player setup that you measure against.
Personally not a big fan of blind testing. I do not think most people listen to music the same way under pressure (it is such a "gotta be analytical and objective" situation). But still, at a minimum, I am assuming you guys are making an attempt to set volume levels reasonably close. I know my favorite test subject (i.e., wife of 30 years) is easily fooled into picking a over b if a has even a slightly higher volume level.
Thanks again!
Hook
Hi Hook
I don't judge them in absolute sense.
The computer software I only judge relative to each other.
I don't have the intention of feeding the output of PC/Mac software players into my Naim system. I'm using now, and am hoping for a Naim brand version of, a networked media player that accesses my music NAS directly. So no 15 mtr TOSLink/S-PDIF cable and no SB or Transporter for me in my final setup, if I can avoid it!!
I only use software players for playing music on my PC in my office. And my reference points are my ears and my brain
, i.e. do I like what I hear and which one do I like more. It is all just a matter of personal taste I guess. And I guess that my taste just happens to be also somewhat audiophile in character and that's why I came to listen to and like Naim!-
aleg
quote:Originally posted by likesmusic:
@ghook2020
my concept of a 'proper' streamer includes a DAC! To me, a streamer is just a DAC with an ethernet (or wireless) input. No s/pdif in sight. So, I think I shall wait. My data is on a hard drive. It should not be necessary to turn it into s/pdif just to get it into a DAC.
Likesmusic -
Excellent point! If you look at the market leaders (SB, Transporter, Sonos ZP, etc.), they all have the ethernet-to-analog output path covered.
My comments were clearly tainted by my decision to pre-order the Naim DAC.
It is funny how this decision has changed the way I now think about sources. Only spinner I want is a universal transport with a Toslink output. Only need a streamer to cover the ethernet-to-Toslink path.
And, of course, this decision has forced me to research the heck out of USB-to-Toslink conversion!
Should have known better that "proper" was a relative term...
Hook
quote:my concept of a 'proper' streamer includes a DAC! To me, a streamer is just a DAC with an ethernet (or wireless) input. No s/pdif in sight. So, I think I shall wait. My data is on a hard drive. It should not be necessary to turn it into s/pdif just to get it into a DAC.
likemusic,
I don't see any problem if Naim releases a pure streamer and I feed it to Naim DAC through S/PDIF -- because DAC is re-clocking.
I agree that all-in-one streamer like HDX would be an easy choice. But sometimes it does not work this way. I own Transporter which is a complete streamer and has a very good built-in DAC (say CDX2 level) but I personally don't like its presentation and prefer to run it through S/PDIF to external DAC which is closer to Naim sonically. I don't feel any sound deterioration in this path although external DAC is not re-clocking. External DAC is not better or worse than TP -- just different with the same level of resolution and microdetails. This suggest if you use low jitter source there will be no problem to run it through S/PDIF. If you are using re-clocking DAC then you can achieve a bit-perfect recording to the buffer which means completely eliminating transport jitter and S/PDIF jitter -- and that what we all expect from Naim DAC.
Many users of Linn DS will dream to see S/PDIF input on their DS because DS software interface sucks
quote:Why would someone want a multi-thousand dollar streamer especially to use with the Naim DAC.
That's the point, pcstockton.
When I talk about pure streamer I mean a cheap device which can communicate with NAS and then clock the audio bitstream to the S/PDIF output with minimum jitter. For example, Squeezbox or Sonos range. SB3 is $300 only but SB3/Lavry sounds fantastic and many people prefer it to CDX2. Logitech Transporter is 2 K$ and it sounds fantastic through it's built-in DAC and I also prefer it to CDX2.
The real streamers are cheap and when paired with recloking DAC they match a very expensive CDP.
You have to go closer to 10 K$ range CDP to supersede Transporter or SB3/Lavry.
And many of them allow HiRes streaming.
And they offer a versatility through playing around with different DACs.
And they usually provide a very high comfort of accessing your music storage.
The problem is that streamers market is still young and have a lot of small wrinkles.
Logitech streamers are designed to be driven by PC software (Slim Server). Which means you have to dedicate a PC in your home network to drive your streamers.
Linn DS does not provide built-in display to browse archives and force us to use aftermarket solutions or ... a dedicated PC
PS Audio announced but still did not launch the Bridge to PWD.
Naim HDX is all-in-one solution but raise a price tag very high at a cost of the components which others possibly don't want to have: like built-in HDD, built-in ripping machine, built-in DAC. I want to stream music from my own RAID with UPS, rip CDs with my laptop through the AccurateRip and use external DAC which I already have.
Why do I need to play triple for HDX? And I don't find the HDX interface more comfortable than my Logitech Transporter which shines. And I'm not sure that HDX has better S/PDIF jitter than Transporter.
The only advantage of HDX is that it has a built-in software and does not need an external devices -- at a cost of having simpler and less friendly interface than Logitech
That's why we want streamers.