Listening (so to speak) to the ND5XS
Posted by: Massimo Bertola on 19 September 2011
Yesterday I shortly visited the TopAudio in MIlano. My main goal was to greet Luca Gombi from Suono e comunicazione and enjoy the Naim room.
Playing was a complete XS system, topped by the new ND5XS, fed - presumably, I am not completely sure - from an HDX, and into Ovator 400's. DC1's and PowerLines everywhere.
It is very difficult to give an idea without any term of comparison - CD's were not spun, in spite of a CD555 patiently waiting for its moment, for the time I stayed - but the ND5XS - beyond being a very clever machine that fills a very obvious gap, looks attractive, sounds gorgeous. I could take a look at the SuperUniti - both its outside and its inside, which hasn't told me much unfortunately, but having learned that it cannot be PSU upgraded makes me hope it will not make me regret I bought a SN less than two months ago.
Sound was, as usual, awful - too much bass, treble compressed and suffocated, no air in the presentation (and in the room itself, for that), but the 155XS was pushing the SL400's very hard, and the system's sound was great.
The ND5XS looks to me like something that will sell in tons.
M.
p.s. The best sound I heard elsewhere, moneywise, was by far the following system's: Laptop, NAD C446 Tuner/streamer, NAD Integrated/Dac, PSB Imagine mini loudspeakers.
Posted on: 19 September 2011 by Massimo Bertola
Perhaps it's useful if I specify that the sound of the room was awful - not of the system. Thse hotel rooms are the worst possible spaces for audio listening.
Posted on: 19 September 2011 by frankster_666
Max,
thanks for your insight, but I'm confused. How can you tell the system's sound was great, when the sound in the room was awful?
Regards
Frank
Posted on: 19 September 2011 by Massimo Bertola
Frank,
a very good question. Perhaps I am confused.
Just ignore my report. It's useless, after all.
Moderator, please, be kind to a senescent and eliminate my post.
Thanks,
Massimo
Posted on: 20 September 2011 by james n
No photos Max ?
James
Posted on: 08 October 2011 by Iver van de Zand
Today I have been to the New Music Hifi show in Brussels. The Benelux Naim distributor was there showing the full range of products. The auditioning room was well suited and aprox. 10 by 10 meters. Amongst others, the ND5x was installed in a full XS system composing of 155/152sx, FlatCap and Neat Motive2sx loudspeakers.
The ND5x impressed me a lot delivering a sound that in terms of warmth, timbre and analytics comes very, very close to the CD5x. Even stronger, closing my eyes I would have believed it was a CD5x. We listened to some music in Jazz, Soul and Classics and the sound was awesome and recognizable with good attack and exactly to speed I know from other XS produxts. I have been playing with the remote a bit and everything was "where I expected" and worked smoothly. Price in Belgium is € 2495. I have decided to order one.
There was also the SuperUniti connected to Neat Momentum 4 which to my opinion sounded a little harsh, but in all honousty we weren't able to seriously listen to the product.
Remarkable: when dicussing the ND5x with one of the Naim guys, I mentioned my plan to order a new NAS and asked for advize. The guy firmly said not to look further and advized me to buy QNap. Apparantly Naim has good experience with these Nas products.
Posted on: 08 October 2011 by Alco
Sounds like you had a wonderful saterday, Iver. 
If Brussels wasn't so far away for me, I'd have loved to be there too.
I'm interested in the ND5xs and (perhaps even more) in the Neat Motive 2se.
regards,
Alco
Posted on: 08 October 2011 by Iver van de Zand
Hi Alco,
Within 2 weeks from now, there's a show in The Netherlands where you can audition them too.
Cheers,
Iver
Posted on: 08 October 2011 by Alco
quote:
Within 2 weeks from now, there's a show in The Netherlands where you can audition them too.
I assume you mean the AV-NU show in Utrecht ?
Will Naim also use the Neat Motive 2se there with the XS system ?
I was planning on not going this year, (been there last year) but I must confess it's tempting...
btw,... I see that you're also using a Nait 5i-2, and CD5i-2.
Will you replace your CD5i-2 with the ND5xs, once it has arrived or are you planning on using the ND5xs as a second source ?
Posted on: 08 October 2011 by Iver van de Zand
Dear Alco,
Correct, I was pointing at that show. Not sure whether they present the Neat Motives there too, but one call to Latham and you know.
Yes, I will replace the CD5i, in fact I already sold it to soembody who will pick it up shortly.
Cheers,
Posted on: 08 October 2011 by Alco
quote:
I will replace the CD5i, in fact I already sold it to somebody who will pick it up shortly.
Ah ok...too bad (for me) as I'm still considering getting a (recent, mint) s/h CD5i-2 for my Nait 5i-2.
I'm not sure if streaming is my cup o' tea in the end... lately, for several reasons, I begin to miss my CD5i-2, that I sold early last year.
Posted on: 09 October 2011 by pcstockton
Originally Posted by Iver van de Zand:
Remarkable: when dicussing the ND5x with one of the Naim guys, I mentioned my plan to order a new NAS and asked for advize. The guy firmly said not to look further and advized me to buy QNap. Apparantly Naim has good experience with these Nas products.
which f-ing one??????? There are like 50 models. How to figure which one to get?
-p
Posted on: 09 October 2011 by Simon-in-Suffolk
Iver, quite honestly the NAS type has as much relevance as to which utility company you buy your electricity from. Yes one can make a recommendation if you need one, will it make a difference? Nope...
For the streamer the critical element is the uPNP server and not the NAS. What is important is the uPNP server you use can see the NAS, and that the uPNP server can mount the NAS.
BTW I use E.ON electricity with my Naim.
Simon
Posted on: 09 October 2011 by Iver van de Zand
Hi PcStcokton And Simon,
Completely agree with Simon. I can also hardly believe the guy mentioning. he said QNap (for example the 219, which is not too expensive). Asking him "why QNap", he said because it comes with the UPnP server Twonkey. This is no argument, since you can run Twonkey on the majority of the available Nas products. In the store I am planning to buy my Nas, you simply decide as a customer which uPNP you like, and they install that for you. Again, I have spending hours and hours reading about what Nas to chosse, and my current conclusion is that the decision is based on reliablity, noise that they make, processing capacity and future expandibility. I also have nowhere seen any valid argument on SQ. My shortlist is on the popular models from QNAP (219), ReadyNas and Synology (211).
Anyway, just wanted to share with you some short auditioning on the ND5 and I was impressed so it is now on my shoppingcard :-)
Posted on: 09 October 2011 by Simon-in-Suffolk
Iver, as you might have read elsewhere I definitely recommend you steer well clear of Twonky for your streaming. Its old fashioned software, limited if any ability to customise it's database to suit your music collection, limited or no ability to transcode to different specific network players and control points on your network (stream to Naim in the living room, and the wifi mp3 network player in the conservatory) and perhaps most importantly it fails to handle id3 tags in WAV files, which means your Nstream is going have nothing but a file name to go on if using wavs.
Posted on: 09 October 2011 by Iver van de Zand
Hi Simon, thanks for this. I have read your comments in different threads intensily and enjoyed them ! I probably ask the shop to install Asset.
Posted on: 09 October 2011 by Simon-in-Suffolk
Iver, yes I didn't want to mention that software by name as some might have thought I must be on commission or something, but it works well for me ;-)
little proviso, asset only runs on windows based OS. Many consumer NAS run only a tiny liitle unix kernel on their little processors, so you might need to have the Asset uPNP server separate from the NAS if you want to use certain NASs. (I think QNAP might use a little unix kernel, reading their web site)
Simon
Posted on: 14 October 2011 by mackb3
The QNAP 409 is on the Naim tested list. Think it has been replaced with the 410.
Posted on: 25 February 2012 by PTCM
How's ND5 XS vs CDX2 bare ?
Anyone ?
