Buying an NDS today ?

I'd also add the NDS allows one to use the wonderful Superlumina DIN-DIN cable with the very advanced Naim air plugs - you haven't heard your NDS properly unless with SL interconnects. 

You can have a very expensive and fantastic source, but the signal still has to travel to the amplifier, Naim understand perfectly that the cable can ruin the signal - and to my knowledge is the very few only companies that makes a complete solution, source- cable- amplifier... (and speaker..?)

They didn't leave it to chance, and make their own cables, now that is audio perfection and excellence.

analogmusic posted:

I'd also add the NDS allows one to use the wonderful Superlumina DIN-DIN cable with the very advanced Naim air plugs - you haven't heard your NDS properly unless with SL interconnects. 

You can have a very expensive and fantastic source, but the signal still has to travel to the amplifier, Naim understand perfectly that the cable can ruin the signal - and to my knowledge is the very few only companies that makes a complete solution, source- cable- amplifier... (and speaker..?)

They didn't leave it to chance, and make their own cables, now that is audio perfection and excellence.

 

 

 

Analogue - not strictly true that Naim make the SL. 

jon honeyball posted:

French Rooster posted:

i hope you find not this solution so good sounding as your cd555.  If for you it is the same level of sound quality,  maybe you can go to see an ENT specialist.... ( there are many in Paris)

Thats nice....

it is french humor:    i wanted to point that streaming qobuz with an iphone 6 connected with mini rca is miles away from an nds.  Nestor burma is not convinced to buy one.

analogmusic posted:

some comments interesting...

It's all about musicality and sound quality in the end.

And the NDS got both, it is the best streamer that Naim make, that can easily hold it's ground against the considerably more expensive digital sources out there (for example, DCS)

In a Naim context, it is the source to aspire to.

People think the latest DSP/DAC/Moore's law will cure anything and everything, well it's all down to implementation, and Naim are the masters/experts on this.

Naim are one of the few companies that really understand music... they really understand the interaction between electronics, electrics, mechanical energy and how all this impacts on how much one will enjoy music replay at home.

Some will like it, some won't. Ear of the beholder and all that.

Many don't believe that it can be that good and can stay at the top of the market for so long.

That's usually because they haven't heard one!

What  can tend to be overlooked is that this technology, although "new" to many HiFi users, has been around for a long time and is fundamentally well understood. Pushing and pulling files over networks pre dates CD and will certainly survive it.

SO who makes it ? Not vertere I doubt that very much. Maybe the same Supplier that makes vertere cables , yes?

naim don’t make their own transformers either. Still a naim amp , yes ?

the Porsche Cayenne got doors made by VW. Still a porsche, yes ?

even chord have to rely on outside supllier for the top secret Taylon insulation in Chord Sarum T

and Chord electronics use Xlinx FPGA for their Hugo Dac

Just to be clear, I’m a naim sound exclusive supporter, I have spent most of my time upgrading and enjoying it. Whenever I can I put a cd in the CDP and enjoy it. Now however, I cannot find so exciting to spend on an nds to have ...the same, more or less. This is why I prefer to allocate my resources to the nap 500 upgrade, and see what is coming next from naim in a logic of continuous improvement which will happen I believe rather sooner than later with the NDS...However I’m very lucky, whenever I want to listen to the CDs that...I do no have(!) through Quobuz simply from my iphone that there this little miracle called google audio chromecast that is really surprisingly good (of course the nac552 and the nap500 help a lot!). For 40 Euros plus a mini jack to rca cable it is a gift worth trying, to avoid opining on something that one doesn’t know. Again purpose here is to buy time and ride the next naim wave!

nestor burma posted:

Just to be clear, I’m a naim sound exclusive supporter, I have spent most of my time upgrading and enjoying it. Whenever I can I put a cd in the CDP and enjoy it. Now however, I cannot find so exciting to spend on an nds to have ...the same, more or less. This is why I prefer to allocate my resources to the nap 500 upgrade, and see what is coming next from naim in a logic of continuous improvement which will happen I believe rather sooner than later with the NDS...However I’m very lucky, whenever I want to listen to the CDs that...I do no have(!) through Quobuz simply from my iphone that there this little miracle called google audio chromecast that is really surprisingly good (of course the nac552 and the nap500 help a lot!). For 40 Euros plus a mini jack to rca cable it is a gift worth trying, to avoid opining on something that one doesn’t know. Again purpose here is to buy time and ride the next naim wave!

Try it with an optical cable to a Chord Mojo / Hugo into your preamp and you are King of the Hill.

Agreed and been considering it...but if on its own it is so good already... i better save for the son of the nds. Unless i want to take it with me on travel to improve the iphone. Also I hear that the optical out of the chromecast is not so good.  And the analog is really...surprising. 

son of NDS? no such thing. It doesn't work that way.

I've compared the latest and best Chord Dave with the old-timer Naim CD555, and the Naim CD555  still plays music very, very well.

You can keep waiting for the next Naim streamer, but life is not forever, and I know I would rather enjoy music today rather than wait for a product which might take years to appear.

The Naim fundamentals of Pace, Rhythm, and Timing do not change.

Keep that in mind.

MOANDS - to revive a hackneyed and utterly meaningless form of terminology.

analogmusic posted:

You can keep waiting for the next Naim streamer, but life is not forever, and I know I would rather enjoy music today rather than wait for a product which might take years to appear.

As analogmusic said. Life is not for ever. 

Agree! I have the 555 and all the reference chain already, so I’m enjoying life already very much with naim!

nestor burma posted:

Just to be clear, I’m a naim sound exclusive supporter, I have spent most of my time upgrading and enjoying it. Whenever I can I put a cd in the CDP and enjoy it. Now however, I cannot find so exciting to spend on an nds to have ...the same, more or less. This is why I prefer to allocate my resources to the nap 500 upgrade, and see what is coming next from naim in a logic of continuous improvement which will happen I believe rather sooner than later with the NDS...However I’m very lucky, whenever I want to listen to the CDs that...I do no have(!) through Quobuz simply from my iphone that there this little miracle called google audio chromecast that is really surprisingly good (of course the nac552 and the nap500 help a lot!). For 40 Euros plus a mini jack to rca cable it is a gift worth trying, to avoid opining on something that one doesn’t know. Again purpose here is to buy time and ride the next naim wave!

i understand now your point of view and respect it.  Nds is perhaps a little more open, detailed , with better soundstage than the cd555. The cd555 is a bit more punchy and with more focused sound.  So the differences are not night and day.

Better perhaps waiting for something radically better or different from naim.  It will happen, but when?   You can wait or eventually sell the cd555 and buy second hand nds.....But it must be difficult also to sell a wonderful machine like the cd555....with a sound like no other cd player in the world.

the new uniti range will produce an up market unit with no amplifier ,  cant see the classic range surviving . to be honest the look is dated..  the new range looks the part

Discontinuation of a classic increases the allure, to me.  I considered selling my CD555 before it was discontinued; now, I find it hard to part with.  This might explain why I still have a Pioneer Elite CLD-99.

Nick

I would buy a NDS only if it‘s possible to change board/hw to newer specs (roon, more streaming services, maybe mqa, dsd128 etc.). ...just my 2cents.

audio1946 posted:

the new uniti range will produce an up market unit with no amplifier ,  cant see the classic range surviving . to be honest the look is dated..  the new range looks the part

You mean an all-in-one one-box unit retailing for £2,000-£3,000 which outperforms an NDS/PS555/DR+NAC552/PS552DR+NAP500/PS500DR combination.

I like your thinking! Duck! - there goes another pig.

Yes, there is that slight problem of Naim's assertion that as to you up the SQ ladder you reach a point where you have to separate components into discrete boxes to optimise said SQ, despite the compromise introduced by the addition of various cables to link those boxes together. That is not to say the Classic range might get a makeover one day, but the discrete box concept will remain at the higher end IMHO.

It seems that the 272 is as far as they are prepared to go with combining components into a single box at the mid-classic and up stage in the hierarchy.

Now I have said that a 372 is bound to be launched!

I'll take an NDS or better in the same box as a 552, with a full range volume control. 

Nice.

I don't get it how you get CDs to sound better than Tidal. On my cd5si same tracks sound much worse than from auralic/Mojo from Tidal can someone explain?

audio1946 posted:

the new uniti range will produce an up market unit with no amplifier ,  cant see the classic range surviving . to be honest the look is dated..  the new range looks the part

The evidence doesn’t quite support that assertion.   

Eye of the beholder. The Classic ranges look like timeless Naim. The new range looks like this month's trinkets.

I'm sure there is plenty of room in the world for both.

why no brand produce a streamer/ dac/ nas/ ripper , all in one box?  i would be glad if naim could make one, a high end one ( with just a second box for the ps).   I know only the burmester 111 music center......

That would be the HDX.

It can even play CDs. Which is charmingly retro.

nigelb posted:

Yes, there is that slight problem of Naim's assertion that as to you up the SQ ladder you reach a point where you have to separate components into discrete boxes to optimise said SQ,

Unless it's a DAC, in which case Naim insist that it goes in the same box. Unless it's the Naim DAC, which works better in an outboard box. 

Never a dull moment huh?