NDX2

I was never a fan of the original streamers either. I had a home demo of an NDX last summer but decided to go for the NDX2 which I have with 555PSDR. I can’t recommend it highly enough. I have mine with wired ethernet connection into a switch (as is my Core) and it’s fast playing in uPnP from my Core and Tidal with no drop outs. The SQ is a big step up from the NDX. It can also play higher res recordings than NDS or NDX.

James, I would like to consider it as a stand-alone player. If not there will be no or minimal benefit in changing what I currently have. Also interesting my NDX bare sounds so much better into the 552 compared to how it sounded into my lesser NACs... so kind of rediscovering my good  old NDX analogue outs now I have my 552, a bit like I did with my CDX2...

I thought that would be the case but just curious given your Chord leanings

We have a NDX2 now playing in the system... it certainly is a ridiculously large step forward over my NDX.. so the evaluation commences....

Only niggle so far.. the NDX has two automation output jacks.. which was great, one for my CDX2 and one for my 552, the NDX2 only has one jack as far as I can see... and also it can do only either SPDIF or audio, but not both like the NDX2... bit of a blow for digital recording..so will definitelyneed  to use my NAC recording bus... 

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

We have a NDX2 now playing in the system... it certainly is a ridiculously large step forward over my NDX.. so the evaluation commences....

Enjoy Simon. Do have it with 555PSDR connected? It’s an even bigger step up than NDX2 bare

No, I sold all my powersupplies (555PS and XPS2) apart from my 552PS as I wanted to cut clutter... so will be evaluating on its own native merits. However the inbuilt PSU is not run in, so needing to do that to some extent... certainly quite bass heavy and a tad slow.. be interesting to hear if it tightens over the next day or so.

I heard it with both XPSDR and 555PSDR, I thought the former was a good performer, perhaps warmer and less analytical. I would certainly want to hear both at length before jumping. Anyhow, interesting to hear your conclusions Simon.

Can anyone conclude if there is an uplift in sound quality with respect to tidal? I probably use tidal for 80% of my listening and wonder whether the ndx2 warrants the upgrade in this regard?

Thanks in advance

I can’t, I have switched to Qobuz which is not natively internally supported... but I can say Apple Airplay sounds good, and displays well.. so my Apple Music streaming  works well.. I know it’s AAC but sounds pretty good if you can accept the slightly veiled top end, especially with pop/chart music... 

timster posted:

Can anyone conclude if there is an uplift in sound quality with respect to tidal? I probably use tidal for 80% of my listening and wonder whether the ndx2 warrants the upgrade in this regard?

Thanks in advance

I listen to Tidal on NDX2 and can vouch for a big improvement compared to NDX from memory when I had it on home demo.  I have some recordings downloaded on Tidal (e.g. Manu Katche, Joni Mitchell, Agnes Obel) which are very high sound quality streamed from NDX2 via the Naim app. I now longer want to rush out and buy digital copies so Tidal works for me 

Hi Simon

Sounds promising (no pun intended).

I'm still using the ND5XS with Hugo, so would be interested to know if you actually still need the Hugo with the new NDX2 - or whether, with its improved internal DAC, that it actually sounds better without the Hugo in place.

Enjoy the home auditioning 

It is interesting .. in some ways the Hugo is ahead as it is in my opinion for the ND555, and to me this is more down to the use of the TI PCM1704K and perhaps it’s inherent limitations .. in other ways there is an attractive vibe to the sound with the NDX2, and indeed ND555, and so I am listening further...one example that shows this is the biting sound one gets when violins are aggressively played, or cellos played loudly.. I guess the sound produced is very complex.. it’s a very ‘tactile’ sound.. the Hugo captures this aplomb, but yet to hear another device do this as well... but I am nit picking.

As a transport the NDX2 is hugely more advanced, and I have been playing with Roon with it.. the Airplay implementation is great.. and if I am honest I do like the album art display on the unit too... so early days.. but the evaluation is going well.

Glad the evaluation is going well Simon. Sorry to keep going on about adding a PSU, but you are really not hearing it at it’s best. With the 555PSDR there’s a massive uplift in performance. Vocals and organ and piano timbres sound great with my 252 I have on demo. With your 552 I imagine it would sound stunning.  I get your point about box count but you wouldn’t need an external DAC with NDX2 plus PSU so you could swap out the Hugo. 

Looking forward to reading the outcome of your evaluation Simon. As an NDX / nDAC / 555PS owner I would be interested to know if the nDAC is still an upgrade for the NDX2. 

Bongoman, honestly I have had Naim PSUs and know what they do, but moved on.. it’s not those aspects I am interested.. I have heard PSUs on the NDX2 already... the balance and feel  is changed slightly, but that is irrelevant or largely irrelevant to what I am referring to.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

It is interesting .. in some ways the Hugo is ahead as it is in my opinion for the ND555, and to me this is more down to the use of the TI PCM1704K and perhaps it’s inherent limitations .. in other ways there is an attractive vibe to the sound with the NDX2, and indeed ND555, and so I am listening further...one example that shows this is the biting sound one gets when violins are aggressively played, or cellos played loudly.. I guess the sound produced is very complex.. it’s a very ‘tactile’ sound.. the Hugo captures this aplomb, but yet to hear another device do this as well... but I am nit picking.

As a transport the NDX2 is hugely more advanced, and I have been playing with Roon with it.. the Airplay implementation is great.. and if I am honest I do like the album art display on the unit too... so early days.. but the evaluation is going well.

Perhaps the interesting compromise would be the ND5XS2 with spdif to your Hugo, you would have most of the new technology. Admittedly you are losing the screen and maybe it’s a lesser transport, but a demo should identify that?

Does it really make sense to use the NDX2 or ND5XS2 as transport?

For the price of a NDX2 or even a ND5XS2 , there are other options (eg. dCS Network Bridge, etc.)

Oh I think so (potentially). The transport is sooo important to the integrity of the audio signal.. and a lot of focus has gone into the NDX2 as well as ND555 to optimise their transport capabilities as well as including current technologies in a quality low noise way. 

In fact it’s seems strange to me that you would discount using the NDX2 potentially as a transport given the strengths it has in that area.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Oh I think so (potentially). The transport is sooo important to the integrity of the audio signal.. and a lot of focus has gone into the NDX2 as well as ND555 to optimise their transport capabilities as well as including current technologies in a quality low noise way. 

In fact it’s seems strange to me that you would discount using the NDX2 potentially as a transport given the strengths it has in that area.

I can’t say I agree. I deliberated for some time using my NDX2 as a transport with nDAC but the internal DAC of the NDX2 won out. For me it’s a step up compared to nDAC. Using a £5K streamer as a transport only is a complete waste 

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Oh I think so (potentially). The transport is sooo important to the integrity of the audio signal.. and a lot of focus has gone into the NDX2 as well as ND555 to optimise their transport capabilities as well as including current technologies in a quality low noise way. 

In fact it’s seems strange to me that you would discount using the NDX2 potentially as a transport given the strengths it has in that area.

i think Tomser wanted to say that buying something like the ndx2 and using only the transport and not the dac inside, is perhaps a bit of waste of money.

There are only transports without dac as auralic, lumin, dcs network bridge.  

I hope it is what Tomser wanted to point.

As to a previous post of you, which i respect, i am just surprised that you still think that the chord hugo has better dac than the nd555 dac, on sound quality.  But i can’t prove the contrary.

That’s exactly what I meant. Using the NDX2 as a transport only, makes it a very expensive one.

Simon seems to believe that it’s worth it, considering the efforts Naim have put in the NDX2’s transport section.

[@mention:1566878603876589], does that imply that you believe the best part of the NDX2 is its transport?

I am curious that are digital output quality of new ND streamers similar or not? They look like using same transport PCBs, maybe power supply is different.

But I think ND series is designed to be all in one network player. BNC only digital output is just not enough for their price as pure transport.

Surely the word ‘transport’ refers to the mechanism in a CD player and not a streamer?

i am very confused by all the different names:  player, transport, streamer, renderer, server, network bridge.....   it was easier with cd transport and dac, no other names.

French Rooster posted:

i am very confused by all the different names:  player, transport, streamer, renderer, server, network bridge.....   it was easier with cd transport and dac, no other names.

 

Or turntables for that matter

Hang on, belt drive, direct drive, suspended chassis, solid chassis, DC motors, AC motors, S shape tonearms, straight tonearms, parallel tracking tonearms, high mass, low mass, moving magnet, moving coil, phono stages and loading options, .....