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Mac Mini with Naim Ndac V NDX

D

Darfy

Member
Currently have a Naim NDX with Teddy PSU with flac files stored on a NAS.

If I were to add an NDac and the power supply on the NDAC would this give me any improvement over using a different streamer.

I know a lot use the Mac Mini with the Toslink Optical into a seperate DAC- would this be a step backwards?. I can connect the Mini to my TV and would use my I phone as a remote.

I have about 350 gb of music so the 500 gb version would be enough for me.
 
If the music is stored bit-perfect & lossless, i.e. FLAC on a NAS/Naim or AIFF on a Mac-Mini, I'd think the differences would be minimal. The differences will be due to the DAC & the connections.
 
I just recently compared NDX to nDAC and to my ears, nDAC sounds better. It simply works better as a DA-converter than NDX. NDX functions as a streamer at the same time. Of course with nDAC you need to take care of transporting the audio signal to the DAC. Simple toslink from PC/MAC to nDAC is the worst possible solution. Separate USB to S/PDIF converter (a good one) is needed and you should also consider proper isolation between PC/MAC and the USB to S/PDIF converter to achieve the best possbile sound quality.

Adding the nDAC between NDX and preamp would give you an improvement in SQ. In that case, you can just plug your current Teddy PSU to the nDAC and NDX could act as a transport only and IMO will not need an external PSU in that function.
 
Both the NDX and Naim DAC do a pretty good job of re-clocking input signals, so as long as the bits arrive, there should be no problem using the optical input. One thing to be aware of when using a Mac as a transport, is that the built-in CoreAudio subsystem does not automatically adjust the output bit depth and sample rate to match what you happen to be playing. So unless you change it manually, or you use a third party player or plug-in which adjusts the output automatically, you can easily get into a situation where the Mac is resampling the output unnecessarily. Whether the difference is noticeable is another matter, but I would still try to avoid this extra processing where possible.
 
If you try this, you'll probably get the best results with an SPDIF/coax connection. You might also consider a Chord DAC (Hugo etc.) as depending on personal preference, you may like this more than the NDAC, but listen for yourself, as that is subjective.
Have you tried WAV instead of FLAC? I prefer it on the NDX, but if you don't want to store in WAV some Servers will transcode on the fly so the streamer still gets a WAV stream.
 
muzzer said:
There is no difference in SQ between WAV and FLAC.
Click to expand...
Naim digital transports are designed around WAV, and if fed with FLAC, they have an increased workload as the DSP processes the incoming packets and feeds them to the DAC. It is entirely to be expected that the additional electrical noise would feed into the signal. Do the comparison on an NDX with a fairly revealing system, and the results are audible. Transferring this additional workload to the server if you wish to store in FLAC is a tried and tested workaround.
The bits themselves are, of course, entirely identical, but to assume that the matter ends there is to ignore the reality of what happens to a digital signal as it travels and is processed.
 
Naim nonsense?------
The impending new Naim Uniti Core Server is £1600 & rips your CD's to..... Oh, wait. It doesn't include ANY internal storage medium. So you have to add an HDD or SSD for it to work at all.
So it's a ripper with nowhere to rip to for £1600ish. Hmmm
 
yeah, but it rips to WAV.

Darfy, I'd recommend demoing the Naim DAC vs. a Chord 2Qute or Hugo if you can.

i'm a Naim fan (running 282/250), but i think Chord gives Naim's DACs a run for their money.

i have a Sonore microRendu and the 2Qute -- if you were to go down this road and sell the NDX, you'd have money in your pocket, and could keep the Mac Mini and use it as a Roon server (Roon's pretty great). the microRendu isolates the computer from the rest of your HiFi. you connect the rendu to the Chord DACs via USB.
 
I've tried the following combinations:
1. Mac Mini (Audirvana) Wireworld supernova 6 - NDAC
2. 1 + 555PS
3. NDX+ XPS2
4. (2) + 3.
IMHO option 2 was the best sounding, most detailed, controlled, dynamic, best timing. The full monty (4) was almost there but was a bit less dynamic.
(rest of system was 252/SCRD/300/S400 full Fraim etc.

I'm now with Devialet, but the NDAC is good.
 
josh said:
It's interesting how many Naim owners seem to have discovered Devialiet.
Click to expand...

As you can probably tell from Brendan's post above, Naim systems have a tendency to grow over time. Devialet systems are a popular option for customers looking to reduce their box count.
 
Whatsisnaim said:
Naim digital transports are designed around WAV, and if fed with FLAC, they have an increased workload.
Click to expand...

They have a slightly increased CPU workload (but FLAC decoding is very lightweight compared to proper DSP), but it is offset by greatly decreased I/O load as the network traffic volume drops by almost 50%.
 
You can decode FLAC to WAV on server side, on the fly. Many server software support this feature, I used it with AssetUPnP. I couldn't hear any difference between FLAC vs WAV with NDX when I owned one though.
 
josh said:
It's interesting how many Naim owners seem to have discovered Devialiet.
Click to expand...


Have heard Devialiet several times..... I'll stick with Naim ;)


I'll throw another DAC in there, depending on where your from price range should fall somewhere between the Hugo & nDac, the Metrum Acoustics Menuet. Recent owner here & have been very happy with the purchase. I'm using the Simaudio 180Mind for streaming duties.
 
Patu said:
Adding the nDAC between NDX and preamp would give you an improvement in SQ. In that case, you can just plug your current Teddy PSU to the nDAC and NDX could act as a transport only and IMO will not need an external PSU in that function.
Click to expand...

I use exactly this arrangement, with the TeddyXPS powering the NDAC, and the NDX using its internal power supply. It's very good, though I've not compared it to any of the other recommendations on this thread.
 
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