STOP PRESS. NaimDAC v's ND5 XS: Dealer comments.

I was sorely tempted to wait for the new Mac mini for my third system but in the end ordered another Unitiserve. No doubt the Mac mini is a great box but I just like the simplicity of a box doing one simple task well. I have three AppleTVs at home (five in total) and many times I get a call in my hotel room thousands of miles away to say that AppleTV is showing no movies available. I remote into my server to find iTunes asking to update. I say no and all the stored media re-appears. When I used a mac-mini in the past I found it sometimes dropped its connection to the NAS. I believe that recent OSX improvements have solved these problems. I fully admit that the Unitiserve is an indulgence, each must decide if they justify it for themselves.

Ian

Are you sure there will be a unified app? AFAIK nServe and nStream are essentially two different forms of software that cannot (or not easily) be combined...

That is straight from the horse's mouth this year.

Interesting!

How did the demo go?

Thank you totemphile for this very comprehensive piece of information. Very well written and I learnt a lot from this post. Certainly better advice than many dealers' out there.

Keep it up.

In fact, I take my sweet time reading all the great posts written here.

Let me throw something else in:

A couple of weeks ago I was at my dealers, and he happened to be demoing to a customer who wanted to choose between the NDX and the UnitiServ/nDac combo. My suggestion to the customer was to just get a NAS and the NDX, since I figured the difference in SQ wouldn't be audible.

An hour's worth of demo later, I was very surprised.

The UnitServ -> nDac was better than the UnitServ->NDX and also better than the UnitiServ -> NDX -> nDac. The third option was the most surprising one to me.

Having said that, if it were my money, I would still go the NAS -> NDX route, even though the demo proved otherwise.

I thought I was alone in appreciating the Unitiserve into Naim DAC, Together with a 555PS I found the SQ to be significantly better than a CDS3 into Naim DAC/555PS.

I thought that it was I who was alone in this view. In all three systems I prefer the Unitiserve straight into the DAC. Least favourite is Unitiserve into the NDX then into the pre-amp. 

I was of the belief that the source made very little difference as the DAC would sort out the bits and get them to play straight. However if I supply the data from my Colorfly C4 and the same data from the Unitiserve the end result is quite different with the Colorfly sounding much closer to the NDX. I don't even have a clue what is happening but it is a consistent effect across all three Unitiserves.

Ian

Gerry I'm a UnitiServe into Naim DAC guy too   I've not listened to all of the other options but just happened to land on this combo when building my first system in 30 years, last year.  For me the upgrade path will be to replace the Naim DAC with an NDS some day, but only following an audition.  I am definitely a "source first" person, and one who, now that he has invested in the UnitiServe, appreciates its elegant simplicity and the lack of computer hardware in my living room! (The Mac Mini or VortexBox are perfectly acceptable options for others; I hold no views or airs of superiority!)

I am going to update my UnitiServe to the current 2tb format in the coming weeks.  That will let me move the NAS out of the living room.  WAF and BAF (Bart acceptance factor) dictate as few blinking lights and whirring fans in the living room as possible.

There are more here, but Bart, Gerry and Lumos are uServe -> Naim DAC guys.

Chaps,

 As promised, I have demoed these two setups:

1. UServe + NaimDAC + NAC 152XS + NAP155 XS. (all Naim interconnects)
2. UServe + ND5 XS + NAC 152XS + NAP 155XS. (all Naim Interconnects)

Speakers were AudioVector Si Avant Garde (apparently tuned to Naim gear).

The aim of the demo was to determine whether the ND5 produces better SQ than the NaimDAC as outlined by my dealer in the OP. This is important as I aim to buy one of the set ups as my first Naim gear. As a new boy in town I have no preference for either route but am following all general advice. Just to recap those views, very generally from the Forum and quoted from the dealer.

Forum.

So far the general consensus from the Forum is that there should not be any audible difference in SQ between the two, but if there is an audible difference in SQ then it would be the Naim DAC producing it as it has a better DAC.

Dealer.

“...Naim network playing is a far better way to deliver the digital signal compared to using the coax into the DAC. It`s the better and safer way to deliver the signal because of computer decoupling and check-sum to prevent data loss”. “The Naim DAC compared to ND5 XS standalone is of course a better DAC - but the way to deliver the data is best from a network player which Unitiserve  isn`t”.

For those that want to get into the discussion in more detail please read the thread and apologies for being very general with the Forum comments.

Before I start just one very important caveat for the ND5, the one that was used was brand new and only had a few hours on the clock. Because of this I will be returning for one final demo as my comments below will show.

We started off playing I Shot The Sheriff for some minutes on the ND5 to warm it up a little as the dealer made me a cup of tea. 

First up was the NaimDAC playing a few minutes of Crosby Still and Nash. The sound was warm and responsive and as expected the SQ was fantastic especially paired up with the Pre and Power combo. Incidentally, I heard the Nait XS on a previous demo and the Pre/Power XS combo was far, far superior in SQ in all areas. The SQ from the NaimDAC was well rounded and very engaging to my ears and put a big smile on my face.

Then came the ND5 playing the same track. Well the sound was immediately sharper and the tweeter pinged and the high notes sung. All to such an extent that it was certainly harsh on my ears after the warmer rounded NaimDAC and I felt that this would certainly be uncomfortable after a few hours listening.

We then played, the Dandy Warhol's - We Used To Be Lovers on both setups and pretty much the same thing. Then we played Tim Buckley´s Pleasant Street, and here I think the ND5 came out on top in terms of sending me the sound. I know this track very well and wanted to see how they coped with his wide vocal range (pitch) and emotion. The ND5 was audibly better at top end, more tidy and the harshness I mentioned above was less apparent, but obviously still there.

I also wanted to here some searing violins so last track up came Anne-Sophie Mutter, Carmen Fantasie. Zigeunerweisen. It was pretty much as above with the NaimDAC producing beautiful renditions of the notes, but the ND5 was simply audibly clearer.

Summary

Chaps, I cant really wax lyrical about the two sounds coming out of the NaimDAC or the ND5, its not my forte but what I can say is that I heard an audible difference between them. The NaimDAC being warm and rounded, the ND5 clear and tidy although somewhat harsh on the ears. However, the ND5 was new and had very little time on the clock.

For this reason I will reserve judgement until I return for another session once the ND5 is warmed up. Now that I have heard the two different sounds I am seeking something in between. The NaimDAC is now too warm and rounded for my ears and the ND5 too harsh. There are an awful lot of other factors one could add in, speakers, interconnects and upgrades are the three main ones. 

My thinking at this point is that the ND5 will be a better rendition of the sound I like once it has more hours on the clock, and/or if the ND5 is still a little harsh at that point then maybe a careful selection of speakers would tone down the sharpness. I cant really see how the NaimDAC can be enhanced the way I would want it to be by speakers alone, it may require much more expensive upgrading, and I am not in the market for becoming an upgrade monkey.

As far as the UI is concerned I cant really see any problems with the nStream, it works really well and is nice to use.

Obviously these are my ears, but along with Allen B´s thread and the dealer comments the jury is still out.

Fair and square Jason. As mentioned before the ND5XS is a great product and together with the rest of the XS range a nicely balanced solution. Some thoughts:

- Are you going to buy these speakers you were listening to or are you going to keep the ones you have? If the latter I would take your speakers to the demo session next time to have a listen and see how they sound with a Naim system. If the former I would seriously consider opting for another (and cheaper) storage solution and use the money saved to pay towards a better pair of speakers. In fact I would do this anyhow, regardless of the speaker situation.

- I maintain the view that buying the US with the ND5 is a huge luxury. You are in effect spending close to €3000 for a ripper, server and storage machine when the same can be had from a company like RipNas for about €1000. Were you to choose a NAS solution such as Synology or Vortexbox, you could even get started for less than €500. Personally I would choose a 2TB AssetNAS, which costs €898 at list price. Mainly because it offers Asset UPnP, probably the best UPnP server out there and at least on par with Naim's own solution. Consider this, Linn recommend Rip/AssetNAS solutions for their high end systems. XLD on Mac will do as good a job as the US when it comes to ripping. I am certain you will not hear a difference between the US or a Rip/AssetNas serving up files to your ND5. Asset UPnP can also transcode any file format into WAV on the fly and serve WAV to the ND5. Just like the US does. If you feel this is important to you.

- Another thing to consider, when you opt for the the ND5, you will probably want to use nStream long term because AFAIK it offers full preamp controll via the ND5, whereas the US doesn't. Worth checking if this is the case or whether this only applies to the NDX? I think they both offer this functionality but not 100% sure.

Good luck

tp

Hi TP,

I am sure the NaimDAC is a brilliant DAC in its own right, I don't have any experience of it except from the demo described above, but there have been much chat about coax, digital outs, check sums and the like. It is a very interesting conversation, as the thread shows, of which I have very limited knowledge and experience at this time. 

On reflection, in may be a case of "balance¨. I know that you and others have been keen to express the importance of balance, I may have heard a fine example of this. However, it may come to pass that the ND5 is still too sharp for me and if that is the case I would rather listen to the NaimDAC than get worn down by the ND5.

Its a strange one, I know that one member here has commented that he found the opposite sound character from these boxes, i.e. NaimDAC to sharp and the ND5 warmer and plumped for the ND5 for that reason.......and the dealer was in agreement with you that the XS range is the sweet spot in the Naim range and I will certainly take yours and his word on that. Personally I am unwilling to venture higher up the ladder. This kit sounded superb to me and I honestly expect to keep it 'as is' for a very long time without upgrading so I am happy to lay down the queens head in this instance, or should I say King Harald´s head.

As far as the speakers are concerned, I will be in the market perhaps early next year, I notice that you are into the Totems and they have had good reviews, Ive not heard them so would be keen to demo them and also keen to look at Kudos too.

But it would due fantastic if someone else could demo these setups and give their opinions on the SQ, I am sure the result would be different to mine. But watch this space for demo number two in a week or two.

Cheers D.

Sent you a message, check your post!

@TotemPhile:  Would the Totem Arros be a good match for the NaitXS in a small room? the source is NDX+XPS-2. Or does the source outclass the arro?

Hi Jason,

What a nice write up. I am very interested in your 2nd demo. I have been in a similar situation (owning 152xs/150xs/flatcaps) and chosing between ND5XS and nDac. At the moment of demo, my opinion was that the nDac was a bit to bright and detailed, and the ND5XS had the more relaxed and warm sound. Almost the other way around compared to your findings. Of coursenot a problem, one chooses what suits best for your ears,but nevertheless I amvery eager to read your next demo-report

good luck, Iver

Have you considered a decent NAS instead of UServe? Personally I don't see the advantage of UServe when ripping can be done by a PC/Mac + a good software like dBPoweramp, and storage/serving by a reputable NAS such as QNAP or Synology. I must say I have not heard a UServe which might sound better than the NAS solution though.

If I were you I would go for this:

NAS + ND5 XS + NAC 152XS + NAP 155XS

i dont have a full naim amplifier system and that will not change.

ive tried many dacs since the 90s arcam black box.streamers i have also tried at home for long periods,

so this is the finally naim part of my system

nd5xs feeding a dac with nd5 power supply and the reults are excellent, listened to other options and cant see any changing happening . i have the top cyrus cdp transport and psu which is a delight but its use is limited due to the streaming use.  the convience of having the ascess to all 3000 cd via the ipad control  is the final sulution,  24/96 and 24/192 personally i could tell any difference ,maybe the 192 sounded a little bright.i use a     zone ripper has the nas and rip in uncompressed flac transcoded to wav .i did find fitting a modem switch useful to minimize drop outs.  the naim app now is fine

the naim streamer options seems confused  for the normal customer

after all that i still prefer vinyl   AL

Hi Jason, Like Iver I've also noted that sort of edgy treble emphasis with NDAC/DC1 in a couple of systems, including a trial in my own system.

I don't know about ND5XS, but might be fair to give it 3+ weeks run-in before concluding. BTW have you tried the CD5XS (without NDAC)?

Hi Shivoham,

IMV and own experience the Arro are a perfect match for the Nait XS in a small to medium sized room, approx. up to 30m2. They are particularly well suited for vocal and acoustic music, Jazz, etc. Their imaging is unreal and their bass presentation phenomenal for such slender speakers. Reggae music sounds amazingly good through them and you will not long for more bass I guarantee you. Of course they are no head banging speakers but even playing stuff like Kings of Leon sounded good through them, especially in a small room. My room at the time was about 15-20m2. When we moved places I set them up against my Forest in a 48m2 open plan living room, it extends out at one side into the kitchen and entrance, so far from ideal. With some music, i.e. vocal stuff, it was hard to tell the difference between the two. Rest of my system at the time was CDX2.2/Nait XS/FC2X. The Arro are a lot of fun and one of the loving things about them is that you simply will not be able to fathom how they produce the music they produce. When I first heard them it was one of those wow moments and had I not known that the Arro were playing, I would have looked around the room at much larger speakers to find out which of them was playing music. Arro/Nait XS is a terrific combo and they can easily handle the NDX/XPS2 as source. I would certainly put them on my list of speakers to audition, if I had a Nait XS. Or if you can find them second hand at half the RRP just buy them and if you don't like them you could always sell them on without too much financial loss.

Good luck

tp

Rest assured the Totem Arro is a good match with NaitXS. They were the only piece of hifi kit that survived the longest (3 years) in my system before they were gone. The Arro is like a kid mimicking an adult voice which is why it is very impressive. The down side would be it is trying too hard and leaving no headrooms when you wish to push it louder. Just when you think it cant perform on some tracks with that deep bass line, it shocked you with the output. On the other hand, when you think it should be able to handle that song with ease, well it disappoints you. Thats why i agreed it's called a fun speaker. 

In the near future, when you are itching for upgrade, do swap the speaker out instead of your current black boxes and you will get what i mean by outclassed. Do take note that my current system is merely a NDX + NaitXS.

Cheers!

Chaps,

Here is the second demo for the following:

UServe + ND5 XS + NAC152 + NAP 155 (Naim interconnects)

UServe + Naim DAC + NAC 152 + NAP 155 (Naim Interconnects)

Speakers were now Audiovector SI3 Signature and not the Avant Garde Arete which were used for the last demo. The reason for this was that my dealer wanted me to check out the Ovator 400´s and the Signature´s are around the same price. Incidentally, in retrospect I was wondering whether the Avant Garde´s were slightly too analytical for me based on the last demo.

This A/B demo was undertaken to establish which set-up suited my ears best, fundamentally a choice between the ND5 or NaimDAC, please see thread for the full interesting story.

The ND5 was actually a retuned unit from a Norwegian magazine doing a review so it was fully warmed up unlike the last demo where a new (cold) ND5 straight out of the box was used and gave skewed outcomes IMO.

List of tracks:

Allison Crow - Gravity (Folk/Female Voice)

Clash - Guns of Brixton (British Rock/Punk)

Tim Buckley - Pleasant Street (Folk/ Male Voice)

Anne Sophie Mutter - Carmen Fantasie Zigeunerweisen for Violin & Piano Orchestra

Stevie Ray Vaughan - Little Wing (Guitar Riff/Blues)

I think I will keep this simple as its in everyones interest . What a turnaround from the last demo, the ND5 was much less harsh on my ears and was clearly more inline with the sound coming from the Naim DAC, i.e. warmer to the touch. The tweeter was less pingy and less analytical than before but still retained some of the tidiness at top end just more full bodied. The NaimDac was still as before, warm, full bodied and rounded in both top and bottom end slightly less analytical than the ND5 but the ND5 was a smidgen tidier in the top range. For my ears, the NaimDAC came across better when dealing with The Clash and Stevie Ray Vaughan, but the ND5 came out when throwing me the violins of Anne Sophie Mutter and Allison Crowe. Tim Buckley´s ranging voice, acoustic guitar and percussion came out somewhere in between...benefited from the tidy ND5 and in some areas really liked the rounded NaimDAC.

One thing was very clear, I was pleasantly surprised how the ND5 had turned from a pingy, analytical, speed freak into a warmer, tidy athlete. And the NaimDac remained as the good old faithful race horse, reliable and stern.

We then hooked-up the Ovator S 400´s as my dealer was keen for me to hear them. We ran The Clash, Tim Buckley and Anne Sophie Mutter once again to attempt a like for like.

Frankly, I much preferred the Ovators to the Audiovectors and especially with the ND5, than with the NaimDac. My feeling is that the slightly tidier and analytical ND5 is tempered quite nicely with the Ovators, where as with the AudioVectors, they tend to remain analytical.

My gut feeling here is that the slightly more tidy ND5 would be better for me if I chose a speaker that tempered the digital sound by producing a warmer character to the music rather than an analytical character, which some would argue is the way of the Danes or the Germans or the Japanese. Perhaps I am destined to go with a British speaker with the ND5 or a North American speaker. But it really is a conundrum as although an audible difference is apparent, there really is very little in it. Both sound characters had pros and cons for me, but I just think that I can have my cake and eat it by having the ‘tidy but warm’ sound.

Many thanks to all who have contributed to this journey of discovery, its certainly a long and often frustrating exercise, but very enjoyable none the less. 

Please wait in anticipation for my perpetual pestering when the boxes arrive  

Cheers,

Jason.