Brigtness with 552

Tareq,

Do you have any acoustic treatment in your room? You could be experiencing deleterious high frequency reflections.

What about your power strip and wall outlet? Some can tend toward brightness, but all you can really do here is experiment with alternatives.

No specific treatment, I just took care that there is a balance between absorbent materials and hard materials without major glass surfaces around... On the power strip, I have one I bought of "main cables r us", I will try to swap that to see if there is any change there... the leads are all powerlines so should be ok in that department.

Regards,

Tareq

I suspect it's your source. Before I had the NDS I had a CDX2 with DAC powered by an XPS and while it sounds great through the 552, harshness was there when you got into the high registers. Now that's gone. Just test it by testing out a better source, assuming you will have the budget afterwards to make the buy, otherwise it would just be a frustration.

With £25,000 of amplification into £20,000 speakers, it's surely not surprising that a £1,400 DAC source is not coping? This is a classic outcome of running a mullet. While acoustic treatment may take the harshness away it can never put back what is not there in the first place. I suggest that you try some really good dacs, or a streaming source such as the NDS/555PS. 

That is one of the things that is making me weary of upgrading my DAC, not sure what would be the best way to go forward while preserving my roon-based playback setup. Perhaps a Sonore microrendu would be a first step to take the HTPC out of the direct connection to the naim system.

I agree with Bert, look at your sources. The 552 will replay your sources warts and all. Lesser electronics may have a degree of higher frequency distortion that lesser amps/speakers filter. Try with a Hugo or NDS/555PS and see if that harshness is still there.

Haeshness and brightness are not the same thing, although brightness can spotlight harshness. Having a smooth bright high end system usually points to speaker/room interfacing issues.

As said on another thread currently, system synergy is so important.

Simon

[@mention:4804681823084713], would the NDS work with roon or would I be constrained to the naim remote app?

Simon, excuse my ignorance here, the NDS is a network streamer+DAC? in other words the PC would be removed from the equation, right?

Yes, you'd put the music on a nas and stream to the NDS over ethernet. The NDS won't do Roon though. Knowing nothing of Roon I don't know if it's just a way of presenting the information or whether it actually improves sound quality. If Roon is critical then a really good DAC seems the way forward, and I suspect there are things you can do to improve the feed from a computer - there is a thread in the streaming forum about that. 

Correct the NDS is a network streamer plus DAC. So if you used  a PC as a source you would need to use one of the SPDIF (coax or fibre) inputs on the NDS.

The Hugo is a DAC with some similarities to the NDS but with out the streamer part. If you want to use USB then the Hugo TT is the device to use.

Perhaps see if you can borrow and see if things improve.

your comment of using PC / Mac as source/transport does raise the spectre of RFI and electrical noise. This almost certainly will lessen the performance of the 552 with low level intermodulation distortion, often heard as subtle grit in the audio, unless special care to filter and decouple is excercised. Again if you feed USB from a PC into a Hugo TT you have reasonably effective decoupling with a fantastically impressive DAC which normally sounds sublime with the 552

I did give the Hugo (not the TT version) a try a while back, then I was running a NAC282+NAP250 combo and did not feel much improvement over the DAC-V1 so let things be. I read a lot of praise about the Hugo TT so perhaps with the much improved resolving power of the 552 and the extra I get with my new NAP300 I will feel the improvement with the Hugo this time around... Will try to find one for a second demo for sure..

Surprised to see so many people rave about the Hugo, it is not that much higher up the food chain compared to the DAC-V1 if you look at the price alone.

Yes I am not sure the 282 can really do the Hugo total justice.. it didn't for me although on SPDIF it was still impressive. Feed it into a 252 or 552 it's quite different. Not tried a Statement NAC yet with it. Just keep clear of USB with the Hugo unless you want to faff around with third party decouplers.

The Hugo and Hugo TT are almost the same, and the DAC electronics are the same, but the TT offers larger batteries to drive control electronics such as remote amongst other things, hugely better USB interfacing and balanced audio outputs. If you use SPDIF then the Hugo and Hugo TT are almost identical, with a subtle extra warmth to the presentation on TT which is not that significant.. and for me it was less prefereable... I use SPDIF.

Also you can't neccessarily compare performance and price, especially with newer technology. Yes it can be good indicator, but in the end it's your ears not wallet that decide. The reason the Hugo works like it does at its price point is that it's design and audio reconstruction method is very different indeed from Naim.. if you like its different DNA and a different evolution path.

It could be reflections. Do you have a room with lots of reflective surfaces and/or big windows? 

The 552 will faithfully let through whatever is fed into it, so the source possibility is also a strong one. 

Mt NDS/552 doesn't ring or spit at all. It sounds remarkably natural and transparent.

My room is about half and half. Heavily carpeted and curtained with bigf soft furnishings plus some glass fronted cupboards and a strategically placed mirror. In days gone by with another source I was considering having some ceiling treatment done in the hope of cutting treble over emphasis but it's not a problem any more.

I've heard the 552  on numerous occasions with analogue and digital sources.  Enthralling never bright or harsh. Although I'm not a source first disciple you are seriously out of balance     At minimum you require a nDac/NDX with XPS. Sorry

thijazi posted:

That is one of the things that is making me weary of upgrading my DAC, not sure what would be the best way to go forward while preserving my roon-based playback setup. Perhaps a Sonore microrendu would be a first step to take the HTPC out of the direct connection to the naim system.

My experience is that PC to microRendu to V1, great as it is, will slightly tend toward a 'drier' sound than PC/V1 which may not help much in your case. When properly set up the mR  should improve on the PC with a lower noise floor detail and better imaging. PC to V1 usb is a nice fluid (albeit somewhat rounded ) sound which I have come close to matching with the mR, but it takes some work. One thing I find is that the V1 sound changes with different USB cables - something I asked NAIM about but never got an answer! The good thing is you can 'tune' the sound this way, but obvious requires trial and error. Something you could try if you have not already!

Hugo will tend to be brighter and 'airier' than V1 but neither DAC generates 'harshness' in my experience, when fed a good source.

B.

Edit - I have heard a 552/500 - but never in my environment, so others may be totally right here- could be incompatible with your source?

Simon, I think Hugo perhaps gets some unjust bad press through USB. For me it was better than 2Qute despite 2Qute having galvanic isolation and also DAC-V1. I've also tried a USB-SPDIF converter and an isolator and have ended up reverting back to stock USB cable from Mac/Audirvana. I'm not saying that it can't be improved when using a computer source but direct from USB has always given me the most involving, enjoyable listen. My point being that, I wouldn't rule it out completely :-)

^

'Mac/Audirvana' may be a good USB source for Hugo?

Mayor West posted:

Simon, I think Hugo perhaps gets some unjust bad press through USB. For me it was better than 2Qute despite 2Qute having galvanic isolation and also DAC-V1. I've also tried a USB-SPDIF converter and an isolator and have ended up reverting back to stock USB cable from Mac/Audirvana. I'm not saying that it can't be improved when using a computer source but direct from USB has always given me the most involving, enjoyable listen. My point being that, I wouldn't rule it out completely :-)

Of course I am sure you are right, I think compared to the spectacular SPDIF performance the standard Hugo USB does often fall short in my experience on high end systems however.. but feed it with a Melco USB  and its excellent admittedly. However the OP is experiencing issues with his V1/552 and so I suspect Room reflections and/or  RFI getting into the source are likely suspects. A standard Hugo using USB is a risky choice to try whilst trying to rule out RFI.

Get a chord mojo.

Buy a Naim CD player!

i can only relay what i would do were i in your shoes: first, i'd get the microRendu to serve as your Roon endpoint, along with one of the linear power supplies that Sonore recommends. then, i'd order some ethernet cables (enough to hook up all your stuff) from Blue Jeans Cable, which are inexpensive and tested to make sure they meet the proper specs. then, as detailed in another corner of this forum, procure a Cisco 2960 switch, available on Ebay for 50 USD, which will further smooth out the sound -- or, as Nigel says, make it "nicer". (i agree with him!)

all that done, see if you can do a home demo of the Chord Hugo TT, or if budget allows, the Dave. 

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Mayor West posted:

Simon, I think Hugo perhaps gets some unjust bad press through USB. For me it was better than 2Qute despite 2Qute having galvanic isolation and also DAC-V1. I've also tried a USB-SPDIF converter and an isolator and have ended up reverting back to stock USB cable from Mac/Audirvana. I'm not saying that it can't be improved when using a computer source but direct from USB has always given me the most involving, enjoyable listen. My point being that, I wouldn't rule it out completely :-)

Of course I am sure you are right, I think compared to the spectacular SPDIF performance the standard Hugo USB does often fall short in my experience on high end systems however.. but feed it with a Melco USB  and its excellent admittedly. However the OP is experiencing issues with his V1/552 and so I suspect Room reflections and/or  RFI getting into the source are likely suspects. A standard Hugo using USB is a risky choice to try whilst trying to rule out RFI.

Agree 100%! Melco, et al. or a player supplying a high quality SPDIF out are most certainly on my future hit list.

Hi,

most will not realize how good one's dac could be. Just make sure, you give it

a quality signal input. 

The yellowtec puc-lite usb converter is a very high quality for reasonable price.

Sure it will bring the v1 to higher level, and get you  pleasent sound from your pc

Or just trade the v1 for a Dave dac .That will be interesting combination.

Re. DAC performance –  I'm currently using a Chord Hugo: macmini>Hugo connected directly via usb (Tellurium Q Black Diamond) ; Hugo>N-272 analogue input connected via rca (Tellurium Q Black Diamond); n-272/TPXS>250DR>B&W PM1(Tellurium Q Black speaker cable). Playback via Audirvana sounds superb; great synergy throughout the system. Smooth, musical and very engaging for long listening sessions without fatigue. A different presentation to the on board DAC which is also excellent.

In defence of the V1, before installing one in a second system where it's used as a digital preamp/DAC I tried it in my main system (552, 3 x active 500s into DBLs) & whilst it wasn't up to the quality of my usual Chord QBD76HDSD, it nevertheless sounded very good. Harsh it was not!