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Naim NDS - still a good buy?

lencotweaker

Mostly dreaming of record players
Question for the hive mind. Is the Naim NDS still a good used buy?

I’ve noticed that the used prices on these have been driving down quite recently. They’ve been regularly dropping under £3K and quite a few now have been advertised at the £2.5k mark. Even more remarkably a couple of units sold over the bank holiday weekend on eBay UK, a really lovely one from the main dealer Acoustica in Chester sold for a pitiful £2.1K and a few hours later one sold for only £1500! At these prices I’m kicking myself for not bidding.

But the question still remains, is it still a good used buy?
 
I sold mine in 2014 as I was fed up with how unreliable it was. I understand the App etc has improved since then.

Once you factor in the cost of a power supply etc and recognise that the technology is a decade old, £2K (plus cost of power supply) seems very expensive to me. A new device from the likes of Lumin or Auralic (to name but two) at your £2-£2.5K will be a much better sonic investment in many ways and is likely to be useful for the best part of a decade. Leaving aside the Naim brand for a moment, streaming is a fast developing market in terms of technology. I would want something relatively future proof for my money.
 
Dac only, probably a good buy just still, but you need a power supply still for it, so that increases the costs.
I for one would not buy one, even at £500, as its streamer side has been far left behind these days, and dont want the hassle or mess of having to add extra boxes to it, to get it work and stream, plus going forward its burr brown dac chips have just about run out, this may become a problem, or not
 
I already have an XPS2 for it that I’m using on the nDAC so it would be a fairly straightforward upgrade on what I have. As a dedicated Roon user for about 5 years now I’d want to pipe Roon to it though so would additionally need the Sonore UPNP bridge workaround but then it would be everything I need in streaming tech.
 
Prices are falling because there is a lack of demand. If I was thinking about a streamer, I would want to know how long a manufacturer is prepared to support the product for. I bought a NDX and was shocked by the loss of resale value over a short period of ownership. These things are really computers so obsolecence is pretty much built-in. Having just sold a mac mini, I'm currently using a 2010 iMac as a digital source and it's not bad. I can't see myself ever buying another streamer; perhaps a M chip powered mac mini at some point in the future.

I would be taking a long, hard look at the market before spending any amount of cash on a streamer.
 
I think perhaps the penny is dropping that there are far less expensive options that offer equivalent or near equivalent quality, plus which the technology is still moving rapidly. The same wasn't ever true of turntables or CD players
 
What about an ND5 XS 2? You give up the screen, which many may think it's a good thing given screen life spans, it is about the same money as a second hand NDS but the latest platform. I have no experience of either ;)
 
I used to have one. If you like the house sound, it's an excellent bit of kit. Spoilt by the fact that you need to fork out for a power supply.
 
It’s a brilliant used bargain with outstanding SQ. I doubt the naysayers have ever heard one.
I heard one with a statement and a huge pair of focal speakers at a Naim event at a show. It was a perfectly acceptable sound.

I think that the point of this thread is whether or not the NDS represents a good investment. If Naim drop support in a couple of years is it worth spending a lot of money ? If Naim are going to offer a lifespan of say 10 years then the value proposition changes somewhat. With rapidly moving technology, I’m not sure that any streamer is worth the money (with the possible exception of a pi).
 
It’s a brilliant used bargain with outstanding SQ. I doubt the naysayers have ever heard one.

I have a 2012 NDS and am still improving the sound that it can produce. I have not trialled it against a modern one box DAC, but powered by a TXPS and TXPS+ and fed via an Etherregen + Cisco the sound is superb. If one has a NAS or NUC then Tidal, Qobuz and Roon are all available.
 
It’s a brilliant used bargain with outstanding SQ. I doubt the naysayers have ever heard one.
I owned one. Like I said it was sold in 2014. I don;t disagree about the sound quality, it is the age and potential longevity that would concern me.
 
I owned one. Like I said it was sold in 2014. I don;t disagree about the sound quality, it is the age and potential longevity that would concern me.

Naim (still) have a good record of supporting their products, in keeping with the ethos of PFM
 
We have just sold our demo unit and I already regret it, it is a real stunner.
 
Question for the hive mind. Is the Naim NDS still a good used buy?

I’ve noticed that the used prices on these have been driving down quite recently. They’ve been regularly dropping under £3K and quite a few now have been advertised at the £2.5k mark. Even more remarkably a couple of units sold over the bank holiday weekend on eBay UK, a really lovely one from the main dealer Acoustica in Chester sold for a pitiful £2.1K and a few hours later one sold for only £1500! At these prices I’m kicking myself for not bidding.

But the question still remains, is it still a good used buy?
I’ve skimmed through the responses here. It will be good buy if it fits in your system, particularly at the current low prices. Although the used price is considered to be low, take note that it may continue to plummet with time. If you purchase it and decide to sell it in 3 to 4 years time, the price would be lower but the damage would be a lot lesser than buying it new.

The analogue old school amps without any digital circuitry built in would fare a lot better than the digital components of streamers and streaming preamp etc.
 
If what we are saying is 'if I add all these other boxes to it, it will be the perfect streaming solution', then its just acting as a dac. Therefore I would be looking closely at that price point for a dac. As a streamer/dac solution, its not making much sense.
 
Just to add the £1550 one that sold over the weekend looks like it didn't have the 2 burndy cables, but the oher one that sold at just at £2100 from the dealer did come complete.
The NDS is no longer supported by naim as far as updates are concerned, but obviously they can service it.
Its streamer board is not great by today standards, but as said if you can work around this, then looking at its price now, it MIGHT be a good buy for dac only for some.
Just glad i sold mine now last year, as mine was a 2012 model, but i can see them falling even more.
 
It doesn’t really need updates as it is stable and as long as the Tidal functionality continues to work then it will be fine running native for many. For more functionality it can be ‘Roonified’ at low cost running a UPNP bridge on the network to divert and convert a stream from Roon to UPNP of the NDS. No difference to the user experience if your were running any Roon based streamer/DAC. Just an extra (Sonore) box sat in your network somewhere (cupboard under the stairs directly into the switch in my case).
 


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