NDX Tips and Tweaks

More or less the same tweaks I've done on my Squeezebox Touch...

What is the grounding switch should i choose ?

And more one need to caution, uninstall the wireless antenna for prevent abnormal signal jam in 

Very helpful, I have done post of these apart from the clamp and the disabling of the screen.

I also have an Asset NAS on the way in from the UK which I will set up next week. I don't expect much change in sound but I hope things will be a little faster than the current set up.

Finally, this is the weekend to wire in FM from the cable box. For odd reasons to do with how things are set up this is a bit more than a simple job.

Listened to some Hugh Masekala last night - sounded just great.

David

James - I don't know for sure, but I suspect it probably does.

Simon

Anybody know how to enter the NDX Setup mode without the remote?  Got one to try for the long weekend and forgot the handset.  I RTFM but do not see my answer.  Thanks.  Nick

Press and hold OK/List!  I see it now.  Sorry.  Nick

I can set a short display timeout but is there a specific setting to disable the display when playback starts?

I would also be interested to know the answer to this. I can only set a minimum of 10 seconds as far as I can make out; however, there has been a firmware update since Simon wrote his first post on this, so maybe this was once possible but no longer so?

Peter

Exact same tweaks as my squeezebox touch too.

So, it's just a little concerning. Even after buying a $5K system, I need to worry about these things?

Hie Peter there has been a firmware update, i set the display to clear after about 10 seconds

I wouldn't be inclined to interpret an obsessive pursuit of sound quality, eking out anything that can possibly be had down to the last nut and bolt as a wrong design. Technically I suppose this could be the case, which by extension means that the Naim CD player range was and is riddled with wrong designs. And for that matter all the integrated and pres which allow the LEDs to be switched out. How can so much stuff that is so wrong sound so right?

Hi Peter, I forgot to say as well, that since compiling the list I have now fed the NDX into the NDAC, and my findings now differ slightly. I now have  the later streaming board. I have found RFI choke clamping the SPDIF lead has a better improvement than clamping the Ethernet lead alone. Since I have started to choke the SPDIF lead and use the NDAC I find the display being on has less an impact and that along with the new firmware and streamer board, disabling unused inputs appears now to matter very little. I also feel that DIN and phono (on the ndac) are largely neutral, as benefits perceived IMO are down to the connector construction rather than connector type. (if connecting to RCA on the Pre).

Therefore I think there many benefits with the NDX to use a seperate DAC so as to help isolation. Of course the NDS goes to some length now to provide this same sort of isolation internally within the NDS itself. If all goes to plan I should be able to hear an NDS later today.

Simon

Hi Simon, very interesting, thanks for taking the time to post that.

Our NDX has the earlier boards, as we are unable to use the new type but has always fed into the nDAC/XPS2 combo, which we are very pleased with. I have choked the DC1 and cat5e cables following your earlier posts. My interest in switching off the screen was really due to the way I was serving the music to both the NDX and Qute, the screen was switching on at the beginning of every track. However, I have now found that using J River as the server and with careful setup I now have as near perfect a solution as we could hope for, truly excellent in fact.

Sadly the NDS is a non-starter for us due to the new boards; so unless a new nDAC MK 2 appears we will continue with what we have, and will without doubt remain very happy with it.

Hope you get to hear the NDS today as planned and will look forward to reading your thought in due course. Thanks again for your many helpful posts.

Regards

Peter

Hi Simon,

Any luck with NDS today, any thoughts?

Hi Dustsox, just got back and listening to some tunes. Heard the NDS with 2x  full fat 555PS's. If am honest I will need to listen in my home environment to compare. At this level unless it's your room and speakers it's hard to compare things and make a clear judgement one way or another.

One thing I will say, we listened to a Pre production NDS and there were 8 of us in the room and we stll clearly heard differences between FLAC and WAV on identical tracks from a variety of genres. Comments like 'WAV has more air', and 'where has the music gone?'  with FLAC and over dinner the comment 'the difference was night and day' was made.

Thanks to Signals and Naim for an enjoyable and interesting evening, and it was good to meet  some of the characters on this forum.

Simon

Interesting observation Simon. What was the response of the Naim personnel to this  - will it be ironed out in the production vesion or just left as for best results, use WAV (and hopefully AIFF !) ?

James

Good point, although it somewhat defeats the point of the NDX. I'd just be happy to stick to uncompressed files like i do now - Flac has no interest (or use) to me apart from being an initial download medium.

Dbpoweramp now has an option to create uncompressed flac. I have compared the CPU utilization between that and wav file. The difference is marginal. On my system, I haven't been able to notice too much of a difference. Has anyone tried that?

Yes I have. I tried different formats before I started ripping all my CDs. Choosing the wrong format would have been a nightmare considering how painful the ripping process is. To my ears WAV files are clearly better.

James, no I  didn't pose that question (and I don't beleive anyone else did)  - it would have felt rude as Mark probably wouldn't have been able to answer it. If I am honest I'd be suprised at this stage if this was eliminated in the production version. The view of most I discussed this with - if you prefer WAV then feed it WAV - its not a big issue - and I tend to agree - and I am sure those listening on lesser systems or who are more sensitive to other things with their listening approach will be quite happy with FLAC.... although I find it hard to see how