I am confused: the bare ND5XS2 seems to beat ND5XS2 + nDAC

Posted by: M@rtin on 08 December 2018

I ordered an ND5XS2 in September without opportunity to listen to it before. I got it this week, but here is short background description before I try to describe my listening impressions of ND5XS2.

CD5XS has been my main source since 2009 completed with nDAC 2010. But the last five years we used an iPad with Spotify connected with a cable directly to the nDAC most of the time, since we are consuming a lot of music. But of course the sound was not good enough with that solution so one year ago we changed from Spotify to Tidal. We got a better sound but still far away from the CD5XS as transport to the nDAC. So I bought an Arcam rplay as a streaming transport to the nDAC. The sound quality with rplay to nDAC compared to the iPad with cable to nDAC was much better, but still the sound from CD5XS to nDAC was better in many ways. This spring I decided to get a Naim streamer as transport to my nDAC that was at least as good as my CD5XS. When I visited naimaudio.com I saw they had new streamers in their pipeline. As I wrote above I ordered an ND5XS2 in September without an opportunity to listen to it before (I did the same with my CD5XS I had only heard CD5X before and some more CD-players in that price range).

When I came home for a couple days ago with the ND5XS2 I connected it into the nDAC with an DC1 cable. After only 30 seconds listing it was obvious how the sound quality in many different aspects was better than the one from the CD5XS. The resolution was really better, the whole sound was so airy. In perspective to ND5XS2 the CD5XS sound is more strained. This variant comprised both the CD5XS and ND5XS2 digital transports to the nDAC.

After one day of listening I connected ND5XS2 directly to my amplifier. My assumption was that I would get a worse sound compared to when it was connected via the nDAC. But both my wife and I thought the sound was better with a bare ND5XS2, it is not a big difference but the bare sound was a bit more direct, the resolution was a little better and the sound was more airy. My thesis has been proved wrong!

My conclusion is that ND5XS2 is a really good product for the price it has!

It is hard for me to realize that I won’t be using the nDAC with the legendary DAC chips Burr-Brown PCM1704. The ND5XS2 have same DAC chip as in the NDX (Burr-Brown PCM1791) but definitely not as cool as PCM1704

Posted on: 07 January 2019 by james n

Mike-B posted:
Anders in småland posted:
Hi. I have a NDX connected to ndac into nac 282. Should I have NDX on ground and ndac to floating or the othe way around?
Hie Anders, logic tells me that it should be NDX on chassis (ground) & nDAC floating. The 'logic' part is because all CD Players have their signal grounded & that is not sellectable, so the NDX assumes the same connection as a CDP.
You can try listening to see if you prefer it the other way round.

Shouldn't that be the other way round. The NDX has transformer coupled coaxial S/PDIF outputs (as are the Naim DAC inputs) and will be galvanically isolated from the Naim DAC. The Naim DAC will need to be the component to connect the signal gnd to mains earth so set the Naim DAC to chassis and it doesn't really matter what the NDX is set to.

Posted on: 07 January 2019 by Mike-B

You could well be right James, I had overlooked S/PDIF isolation. When I had a CDX2 & nDAC I tried it in both & couldn't hear a difference. Like I said in the post, try listening to see if you prefer it the other way round.

Posted on: 07 January 2019 by nbpf

Anders in småland posted:
nbpf posted:
Richard Dane posted:
You should only have one source with the signal ground connected to earth. Typically this is a NAim CD player. Other Naim sources have switchable signal grounds, in which case set to float.
Thus, assuming that only one source (a Naim DAC, for example) is connected to a Naim amplifier, that source should be set to "Chassis", right? Thanks, nbpf
Hi. I have a NDX connected to ndac into nac 282. Should I have NDX on ground and ndac to floating or the othe way around?

// Anders

According to the answers provided to my question on page 1 of this thread, I would set the nDAC to chassis (ground) and thus the NAC 282 to float.

I would expect the setting on the NDX to be immaterial if the NDX is only connected to the nDAC.

If you also connect the analogue outputs of the NDX to the NAC 282 (set to float), the NDX should be set to chassis (float) if the nDAC is also connected to the NAC 282 and is set to float (chassis).

Posted on: 07 January 2019 by james n

The NAC282 doesn't have a ground switch. It relies on one source to provide this connection so just set the Naim DAC ground switch to chassis.

Job done.

Posted on: 07 January 2019 by Anders in småland

nbpf posted:
Anders in småland posted:
nbpf posted:
Richard Dane posted:
You should only have one source with the signal ground connected to earth. Typically this is a NAim CD player. Other Naim sources have switchable signal grounds, in which case set to float.
Thus, assuming that only one source (a Naim DAC, for example) is connected to a Naim amplifier, that source should be set to "Chassis", right? Thanks, nbpf
Hi. I have a NDX connected to ndac into nac 282. Should I have NDX on ground and ndac to floating or the othe way around?

// Anders
According to the answers provided to my question on page 1 of this thread, I would set the nDAC to chassis (ground) and thus the NAC 282 to float.
I would expect the setting on the NDX to be immaterial if the NDX is only connected to the nDAC.
If you also connect the analogue outputs of the NDX to the NAC 282 (set to float), the NDX should be set to chassis (float) if the nDAC is also connected to the NAC 282 and is set to float (chassis).

Only ndx digital to ndac.

I think your answers have covered it all.????????

Having both on chassis right now, Sounds ok.

Bass seems to be a little tighter.

// Anders