Naim ND555 Event, Manchester, 20 September.

I should also be there wearing whatever is clean.

Steve

I shall be there, almost certainly in black jeans, all else subject to change. 

Eoin

Where is it? Any clues?

Register here https://www.audiot.co.uk/news/...nd-venues-at-audiot/

I hope that link’s OK Richard as it’s for a Naim event.

That's fine Eoink. I've moved the thread to the Hifi Corner and also amended the thread title, as it's an ND555 event...

Cheers all.

Hi,  I'll be there, I'll be in faded black jeans and a grey shirt, plus as many layers of jacket as needed for the weather, at this moment in time I suspect that means about 5 layers. Anyone coming in from the East, I'll probably be on the Leeds-Manchester via Halifax train that gets in at 1804.

See you there,

          Eoin (pronounced Owen)

Nice to see you guys yesterday.

What were your impressions from the demo?

Jason Gould did a great job of presenting things to us. Audio T were hosting the event which meant we heard everything through the big Dynaudio Contour 60 speakers. I think the usual format has been to start out with the NDS, switch to the ND555 and finish with the two 555 PS hitched up. Before starting Jason asked us to make allowances for room acoustics. The venue itself is a very impressive, beautiful building but the room was huge, very tall and very square. Of course the sound improved as the equipment was changed but I had to work very hard to imagine how this might sound in my living room. It all sounded like a big impressive hifi but it really could have been any big impressive hifi. I can say it sounded good enough to want a proper demo in a "normal" sized room at Audio T. This would also mean having control over the choice of music. Last night it was all very "nice". I would like to thank the guys from Audio T Manchester. It was obvious they had worked very hard to put this together for us.

Awful weather. Low turn out. Rare chance for me to hear something local so very much appreciated. I was dead centre front row and whilst the room and set up time were, as ever, less than ideal I thought the demo was excellent and confirmed a number of things very clearly for me. I’m no fan of Dynaudio and having now heard a more expensive one I’d maintain that view. The music often seems to fight them to come through and there’s lots of detail but perhaps without the coherence or musicality of other far cheaper speakers. 

It was equally interesting to re-hear the NDS after a gap. I’d had a dealer/Naim demo at the launch of the original streamers and was looking forward to hearing the NDX as the alleged obvious replacement for my CDX2. It wasn’t until I heard the NDS at that demo that I heard anything I could live with but even then I felt the NDS fell short. Hearing it again now left me equally cold so it was with some trepidation I had my first listen to the ND555. Have to say first listen was clearly a change to the NDS but it felt slightly out of balance. The whole dem lacked good mids but was very sibilant and bloated at the bass end. The NDS with 1 power supply improved on the NDS but it wasn’t night and day and it retained some of those issues. The addition of the second power supply? Well I’d like to have listened for longer but everything snapped into place immediately. My involuntary movements started with Shelby Lynne. Always a good sign. I’d have liked a broader range of music. Some harsh guitar. Some electronic but it wasn’t hard to imagine that in a better room with a better set up it would be magnificent. 

Out of my price range but I’m very interested in the NDX2 whereas the original e left me completely cold. 

Yes there wasn’t a high turn out and the weather might have played its part in that as it had been bucketing down with rain all day.

The set up was NAC252 SCDR and NAP300DR into Dynaudio Contour 60 speakers which were an impressive size but I certanly wouldn’t be able to fit them in my room. The demo room was pretty much square shaped with a very high ceiling complete with chandeliers (a la “Only Fools & Horses”) with bare painted walls so not ideal for taming the considerable bass from the Dynaudios. The demo started with a few tracks from the NDS/555DR which is what I have with the same amplification. This included a fair bit of acoustic guitar (Leo Kottke) which the NDS handled well but it seemed to sound a little congested (the room ?) with more complex music. 

On the comparison music the ND555 had better definition making both vocals/lyrics and instruments easier to follow. This was even more the case when a second PS555DR was added. Our naim host explained that the effect of the second PS was to remove even more noise so as to send the cleanest signal to the amplification. 

I’d like to thank everyone involved at Audio-T and naim for an enjoyable evening and a very instructive demonstration. 

I thought Jason did a great job considering the room. I was sitting in a seat which left the bass booming. The demo did show the differences between the streamers, the ND555 for me clearly made vocals more real, gave instruments a fantastic reality and the superb bass control did help manage the room bossiness. I’ll be  interested to hear the ND555 in a better room, and also get a chance to compare the NDX2. Thanks to both the Naim guys and the Audio-T Manchester guys for struggling through the rain to demo to us.

And thanks for turning up in the bar with a bottle opener on your keyring Eoin!

What a guy!

Mike Hughes posted:

Awful weather. Low turn out. Rare chance for me to hear something local so very much appreciated. I was dead centre front row and whilst the room and set up time were, as ever, less than ideal I thought the demo was excellent and confirmed a number of things very clearly for me. I’m no fan of Dynaudio and having now heard a more expensive one I’d maintain that view. The music often seems to fight them to come through and there’s lots of detail but perhaps without the coherence or musicality of other far cheaper speakers. 

It was equally interesting to re-hear the NDS after a gap. I’d had a dealer/Naim demo at the launch of the original streamers and was looking forward to hearing the NDX as the alleged obvious replacement for my CDX2. It wasn’t until I heard the NDS at that demo that I heard anything I could live with but even then I felt the NDS fell short. Hearing it again now left me equally cold so it was with some trepidation I had my first listen to the ND555. Have to say first listen was clearly a change to the NDS but it felt slightly out of balance. The whole dem lacked good mids but was very sibilant and bloated at the bass end. The NDS with 1 power supply improved on the NDS but it wasn’t night and day and it retained some of those issues. The addition of the second power supply? Well I’d like to have listened for longer but everything snapped into place immediately. My involuntary movements started with Shelby Lynne. Always a good sign. I’d have liked a broader range of music. Some harsh guitar. Some electronic but it wasn’t hard to imagine that in a better room with a better set up it would be magnificent. 

Out of my price range but I’m very interested in the NDX2 whereas the original e left me completely cold. 

Interesting comments about the Dynaudios. I’m looking for new speakers so which cheaper speakers do you like more? Not a loaded question. 

I would like to add my thanks to both Naim and Audio T for putting on the event. Although I am an unlikely customer for the ND555, in the end I couldn’t resist going to have a listen to hear what all the fuss is about.

As others have noted, Naim felt the room acoustics were bad, and to me the bass was too strong throughout. I have owned Dynaudio speakers in the past and generally think they are good, but bass is often their weak point in my view, and the Contour 60s are enormous speakers, I can’t imagine they sell many of them in the UK. All of that said, this demo repeated two personal irritations that seem to feature in almost every hifi manufacturer’s demos, firstly to make a point of saying that the room acoustics are bad. Why is it that hifi demos are always in a room that is either too small, or too big, or the wrong shape, or unhelpfully furnished? The second was to assure us that all of the music played was 16 bit 44.1kHz CD rips. Heaven forbid that we should be bamboozled by hearing what a product launched in 2018 can do with data files of a higher bitrate than 1980s technology could handle.

To the positives though, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could hear a clear difference between the NDS and ND555. It seemed like the ND555 stripped away a layer of haze from the sound leaving everything clearer and better. I wonder whether that would remain as welcome extra detail over extended listening or start to become tiring. The difference of adding the second 555PS to the ND555 was less clear to me, it seemed like a subtle improvement. Maybe more space around instruments and voices. Maybe I wasn’t concentrating hard enough at that point.

Overall it was an interesting demo and I was impressed with the sound of the ND555. Whether it is worth twenty grand, and whether a standalone source component that requires a separate analog preamplifier is agreeable in 2018, are matters for personal judgement. I think I’ll be waiting to see what the next new product is from Naim.