NDS futureproof?

Newspapers do indeed have a short useful life, but at least they are a lot cheaper than Naim streamers.

I believe you feel the same way about newspapers.

What a strange statement to make!!!!

Newspapers are useless in a day or so after they are printed ... well I suppose some articles could be worth keeping ... but hopefully the NDS will still be useful in 10 years time 

I think the NDS is OK 'cos of its digital out so it'll be able to feed the new Reference DAC when it comes out ... the  Reference DAC will of course blow the NDS and every other digital source out of the water; they'll all seem broken and we'll wonder how we ever tolerated them ...  

In the mean time I'll put on another Elcasset .... while I try to work out how to play Adam's record on my LP12 ... perhaps the next radical upgrade will offer 16 and 2/3rds .... and 78 and the new super high resolution 156 rpm records that I understand will be coming out next April. 

My car is now obsolete too ... the new model parks itself and that would be really handy as I am useless at parking and often have to get up early and drive to the next village just to park and the long walk home is getting colder every day. 

A youthful literal reading of signs for "Self-drive cars" may have blunted the urgency required to master the art myself.

I know quite a few people who have this feature, self-parking, and yet I have never been in a car where it was used.

And, I tremble to ask, what was all that "A car that reads Traffic Signs"? I thought it was one of those BMW April 1st pranks but begin to think it might have been serious.

Is it just a private pleasure for the car or does it do something in response? If so - what sort of things?

If a spoof - this question was ironic.

How so?

https://forums.naimaudio.com/di...nt/21277303077404166

Hi Justin -

Not strange at all!   Adam simply has a low tolerance level for seemingly contradictory posts, combined with an almost savant-like ability for recalling old threads. 

A while back, Richard Dane was seen asking him to go a little easier on first-time offenders...

...but I am not sure if he took that advice.  You've been warned! 

Hook

You've said that before: -

https://forums.naimaudio.com/di...11#22262699338230111

"When I have nothing to say, my lips are sealed.
Say something once, why say it again?"

I've said that before - https://forums.naimaudio.com/di...093#1566878607672093

and, verdammt, before - https://forums.naimaudio.com/di...571#1566878607195571

I'm taller than them two - on top of each other.

Which doesn't make me a good person - just the focus of attention in an emergency.

Yes. Adam seems to make a lot of strange statements, a good many of which I simply do not comprehend, but which a good many others, presumably "in the know" seem to find rather amusing. I do wonder sometimes whether it's a case of the "emperor's new clothes" and Adam is having a good laugh at everyone.

Peter 

Adam just hates people when they're not polite 

Qu'est-ce que c'est
fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better
Run run run run run run run away

Ce que j'ai fais, ce soir la
Ce qu'elle a dit, ce soir la
Realisant mon espoir
Je me lance, vers la gloire ... OK

A car that could drive itself would suit me, sir. I had a hire car once that kept me between the white lines and a safe difference from the car in front .... rotten stereo though, not to put to finer point on it, wouldn't play my They Might Be Giants CD ... obsolete or what? 

I wonder if I'm obsolete ... now that is surely something for me to aspire to. 

Still I've met the new boss, same as the old boss .... 

And yes, to wilfully misinterpret your allusion, I do read the forum in the buff.

I think the laugh, for those with access to my webcam, would be on me.

I do find you funny.

Adam,

I could never understand cryptic crosswords like those in the Guardian newspaper - a fond lunchtime pursuit of a group of colleagues when I was at work. It all seemed a little strange to me - a small group of people with some seemingly special knowledge which allowed them to easily make sense of all manner of coded jiggery pokery. I'm afraid a lot of your forum comments remind me of that time - they are equally inpenetrable to me and clearly you and your understanders operate on a different plane. "The Mirror" crossword is about my limit.

Peter 

Now that's interesting and useful to know. If Chord can release an updated DAC with native DSD incorporated as a retro fit-able feature, I have no doubt that others can and will follow. But if it is possible to get WAV from DSD all the better. That's one less thing to worry about. The next will be how long it takes to get a catalogue which contains more than Brothers In Arms, DSOM, and all the usual classical suspects.

Not so easy for those that use a custom DAC chip ... Chord uses FPGA so can recreate the DAC to address new formats .... however, although that is very clever (or at least I think it is) there is no guarantee that what they create will sound great. That said very impressed with the Chord DACs I have heard, Still I expect the Naim Reference DAC may address this and we shall all be happy. 

Guy, the DAC and transform function elements I can't see be affected by formats, however the Pre processor / DSP controller prior to the DAC needs to have the knowledge to unwrap the new format. For example it was this element that was supplied with new software with the NDAC so it could interprete FLAC.

The input to the DAC itself is a high precision tightly clocked sample stream that is supplied by this programmable Pre processor.

Simon

+1.

I heard the Chord Chordette DAC at the weekend playing DSD over PCM (DoP via USB in this instance).  For £1000 this is an impressive piece of equipment.  For info one of their more expensive DAC's, which also has the DSD decoding, is reviewed in the current issue of HiFi+

I’m not sure if a software upgrade is all that is required for Naim DAC's to decode the DSD signal. I'd like to think it is as one of the ideas behind DoP is to enable the playing of downloaded DSD music not only possible, but make its implementation as painless as possible (for the manufacture).  Without such it's probably not going to catch on, it’s a limited market anyway and if we all need to replace our current DAC’s to be able to play DSD, then the format is going to have a very protracted take off.

It would be good if Naim made a statement/comment on this subject as there’s a growing number of other manufactures who have products out there for sale which can play DSD (eg Chord, dCS).  I’m going through the ‘Streaming Audio’ learning curve at the moment (and I'm not alone) and this recent development is making me hesitant about going the Naim route (my preferred option) – I like the idea and sound of DSD!

Further info on DSD at the Positive Feedback website -  http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue59/dsd2.htm and http://www.positive-feedback.com/Issue60/dsd_usb.htm

Karl

PS  As a slight aside, a computer based set up running dbPoweramp CD Ripper and J River’s Media Centre software connected to the previously mentioned Chordette DAC, will give perfect rips and be able to play virtually any, if not all, current formats, in high quality sound, all for less than  £1100……food for thought!

There is a useful article in this month's edition of HiFi News regading SACD which includes DoP info.

Karl

As a matter of philosophy, not consumerism, I like to watch these developments but do not let them keep me from determining which products to buy now, when I want to enjoy my music now.

I have even been known to stay one iPhone model behind, not "upgrading" out-of-contract whenever the latest model goes on sale. 

I have never been happier with my stereo than I am now after fitting in the NDS/555PS.  In fact, I am totally happy with it.  New standards that may or may not become significant in the future are interesting to the hobbiest in me, but don't paralyze the music appreciator in me.

Thanks Simon ... 

So would Naim convert it before passing it to the PCM 1704K DAC ... the Wolfson Chip appears to able to accept a DSM or PCM stream - and convert or not convert ... I'm probably confusing myself. 

I had thought the Naim DAC would need the DSD version of the Burr Brown .... I've probably not understood this very well. 

Can Naim upgrade the DAC for DSD by reprogramming the SHARC? 

Thanks, Guy 

Hi Guy, I would suspect that Naim would chose one format or the other and do the preprocessing. This would allow a predicatable load on DSP oversampling algorthm and so could be optimised for reduced interference/side effects. I am not proficient with DSD but I understand its a highly oversampled one bit data stream that is essentially low pass filtered. So I would have thought the algorithm/techniques for DSP oversampling would be quite different between DSD and PCM.

Be interesting to get the views from the Naim development team?

Simon

Thanks Simon

I hope Naim will be able to support DSD if it shows signs of becoming a format in which some music is distributed .... Linn replied on the Linn forum saying that it didn't see the need to support DSD at the moment and it wasn't an easy task to enable the KDS to play it even though the Wolfson DAC seems capable. ... however the issue in my mind is not sound quality ... it is more a desire to play music whatever format it comes in ... so perhaps a suitable NAS or some Vortexbox add-on that can transcode a DSD download to PCM is a solution. 

I've come up against the DSD problem before ... I have some Creedence Clearwater and Kinks SACDs, but cannot rip the SACD layer ... so I have some great hi-res material I can't play through my Naim DAC. [Richard D said the improvement in SQ was negligible so I wasn't really missing out]. 

I am impressed with the way Chord has made its product so flexible, but I'm sure Naim must be considering what they'll do concerning DSD ... of course it may just go away ...I'm not aware of any music that is DSD only ... perhaps a bigger problem is that I can't buy any music by Richard Digance without using PayPal unless I go for MP3 .. (perhaps if I just sent him a cheque he'd oblige)

All the best, Guy

Still waiting for Naim to announce the reference DAC ... I hope it will play DSD and a HDMI input would be nice ... just want it cover all bases. No complaints at all about the existing DAC's sound and it is easy to upgrade with new firmware. 

Guy, if I wanted to play DSD files today, where would I source them?  Are there online vendors selling them a la HDTracks, Naim, Linn, B&W?  Or is it essentially only home rips of sacd's?

Hello Bart

Please click HERE

All the best, Guy

They are slowly becoming somewhat more available, like here http://www.channelclassics.com/dsd.html

Thanks for the link Guy

Indeed; thanks!