Naim NDS

Agree - wowsers.  Have been contemplating long and hard the Naim (Super) Uniti, but might revert to the idea of an ATV / AEX into a Naim Amp.

Also news story here, and it's being demonstrated at the Bristol Show this weekend.

Did sound good down in Salisbury on Monday afternoon, despite some disconnect between me and how the Naim dem room sounds (oh and some music best described as 'unfamiliar').

Had a comparison of ND5 XS + XP5 XS vs NDX/XPS 2 vs NDS/555 PS, all running through NAC 552/552PS and three NAP 500s plus an active crossover driving Ovator S-600s. Couldn't read too much into the sound, as the system and the speaker placement in the room were both unfamiliar, but the gains as you moved up the streamer range were very apparent.

Can't speak for the editor of one hi-fi title who swerved the dem as he's convinced there's no future in streaming, however...

The NDS looks like its going to Nice one Naim

Thanks

Rick @ Musicraft

That's rather daft of him. I can understand someone having no interest in streaming, but to claim there's no future in it shows a lack of understanding of the market.

Now all Naim needs is a 5i series streamer to complete their streaming line up. It's a very impressive line up.

Re the Editor who doesn't think there is a future in streaming. Hmmm, guess that's a magazine we won't be seeing for much longer then. Sad but  not suprising, many are getting a tad out of touch (present company excepted of course).

Re the Naim streamers, I can't help thinking that several £'000 is a lot given my Mac Mini does basically the same job (sweeping statement I know, but you get what I mean).

I may be wrong, which is why a test between a Mac Mini (or PC, let's not open up that can of worms) feeding a Naim DAC, suitably power supplied up, versus any or all of the Naim streamers, would be really useful. Do a proper job, get everything setup really well, so it's a real contest. If Naim are really confident then they should be up for it. I suspect it won't happen given the commercial realities of advertising etc (which is not a dig, more commercial reality in our hobby would be a good thing, but that's a whole other topic)

As WS Gilbert might have written, given the right circs, 'The commercial realities of advertising, tra-la, have nothing to do with the case'...

As I said, not a dig.

Now someone take this spade out of my hands 

Hi Andrew - good piece.  Is there a voltage/current mix-up in this para?:

Technical director Roy George (left) steps in to explain the way the DACs work, giving current output rather than voltage: this needs to be converted into current to feed the analogue filtering and output stage.

Intriquing that streamers are becoming differentiated by their DSP and implementaion of oversampling\digital filtering (hence why Linn can claim sonic gains with a f/w upgrade)

The obvious next step is to follow the AV boys and use a microphone to sample the room accoustics then use the jumbo processing power in SHARC etc. to implement real-time digital room correction.

Yes: corrected, thanks. It's what happens when you try to write too quickly while running the laptop on low backlight to avoid the battery dying before you get to the end of the piece, then attempt to post on a flaky wi-fi connection continually dropping when it tries to crunch a picture-heavy blog piece up to our servers. Saw that error this morning, thought I'd changed it before publication, but clearly not. Anyway, now done...

I think it's a very good point.

Compared to a Linn Klimax DS it's a veritable bargain. Cheap!

I would say there's no future in streaming in its current state - that whole wired ethernet malarkey is a complete turn-off for me. And any with the new official Wifi topology, internet independent, coming into play soon who knows what products may come.

Mind you, if you I afford the 6 grand NDS, then I could afford to neatly hide all those wires.