I received my nDac today and it sounds great!

Posted by: Patu on 08 April 2011

What an amazing DAC! Found one second hand for a reasonable price. First thing, I updated the firmware and now it's playing sweet music to my ears. It easily outperforms the integrated DAC of SuperNait being slightly more revealing, having better slam and more depth in the sound. Overall more refined sound than what SuperNait's integrated DAC is capable of producing.

If someone is wondering, my setup is SuperNait + HiCap2 and now nDac as a DAC. Computer (PC with Win7) is my main source and all my music is in FLAC-format. I run the sound through Audio GD Digital Interface (USB to S/PDIF converter) to the nDac. My media player is foobar2000 configured with WASAPI output.

Posted on: 08 April 2011 by JBGood

Sounds great. Did you try different DAC's before choosing the Naim?

Posted on: 09 April 2011 by Patu

Before this decision I didn't audition nDAC in my own setup. For Naim-setup, the nDAC is reall a no-brainer. I did some listening in my friend's setup though (252/nDAC/SuperCap/S400 etc.) and we compared it to the Rega DAC. First it was difficult to separate the two but after going through several songs the differences came clear. nDAC has slightly more edge and aggressiveness than Rega DAC which was smoother sounding and more forgiving. Both of them sounded great though but in the end, nDAC was the winner.

I have tried and owned several DACs in past including Bel Canto DAC3, Audio GD DAC19Mk3, W4S DAC2 etc. but with SuperNait + HC2, I have only tried Linn Majik DS, SuperNait's integrated DAC and now nDAC. Majik DS did, in some parts, outperform the integrated DAC but added the Linn sound to the mix (which isn't bad thing really but I like the more aggressive approach of Naim). The nDAC is clearly faithful for the Naim house sound.