Nd5xs+hugo vs Ndx+hugo vs ndx+hugo+xps

Whilst Naim's DACs may not be as good as Hugo, at least in the judgement of Seemingly a significant number of thase who have compared, and similarly  Mac Mini/Audirvana suitably isolated can beat Naim renderers, all at less cost, what the Naim streamers do provide (as well as a box matching other Naim kit you may have, and in some cases even ringing like a bell apparently) is less thinking about setting up if you already have a NAS at home. (If you don't, then Mac Mini more neatly solves that potential minefield for those not very compuer savvy).

I had a 250 DR at home a couple of weeks ago and (very quickly) decided that I had to upgrade my 250.2 and thought that this time I must really compare my NDX-Hugo with and w/o the XPS to decide if I should sell the XPS.

So I spent another weekend comparing and the conclusion was that the sound is a little bit different, though I really can't say which is best, but I prefer it with the XPS.

I'm keeping my XPS. And I've ordered an upgrade of my 250, but I guess I'll have to wait for it to happen...

Peter

AussieSteve posted:

As I peruse the high end sites and reviews, I see the FGPA technology seems to be coming the future of DAC technology. From the ultra high end to the Hugo, off the shelf chips are seemingly bettered.

AussieSteve - its worth remembering the FPGA is used for the DSP processing and shaping for the (custom)  digital to analogue converter chips on the Hugo. The point being some of the latest FPGA processors can provide a huge amount of processing power with little load and noise - and this allows DAC filtering and reconstruction in the DSP to be performed with less compromises and / or less cost as compared  to the digital signal  processors of a few years ago.