I found the 500dr direct was great, and could have easily lived with it, but i needed to also connect a turntable.
I think anyone with a naim pre amp will hear the big gains you will get if you just remove it.
Also the difference from ND555 to the rossini will be big, let alone vivaldi. Both completely different beasts and in a completely different league. I would say the bartock is better than the naim, and that’s without the apex upgrade.
I also wanted true balanced connections for both my sources.
I ended up with the vitus sia030 which was simply lovely with my titan 808’s and again i nice inpovement over what the 500dr could do, this was also using the rca to rca, as i didn’t have any balanced cables at the time.
But if anyone wants to borrow the cables i made up to run rca’s to naim 500 or 300 amp’s then just ask, as i will post them out to you to try. Just pay the postage costs. They are silver cables just so you know.
If you can then i would certainly trade in the naim kit and go dCS direct into an amp. Just go try different amp’s as this is obviously very personal, and what works for me might not for you.
But as said i found the combination off vivaldi into vitus class A, and titan 808’s a lovely combination, added a nice bit of class A warmth and smoothness, as you can get all too clinical, and cold sounding if you’re not careful, but then you might like that? But coming from naim i doubt if you do, and naim is not very resolving or transparent.
If you do go vivaldi dac then you will need a streamer, obviously you can go upsampler like i have, but i also got great results from using the streamer in my melco beforehand.
Or dCS own network bridge is a great option as well.
One thing is for sure, whatever dCS dac you go for, i am sure you will soon forget all about the nd555, and you will find all the music you have been playing for years, needs revisiting as you will hear stuff you have never heard before, its great fun.
Obviously can’t say much on the naim forum as they don’t like it if you say anything bad about the gear, and the thread will just disappear like a few off mine did,
But you have found this place and its much more open on hear, you don’t get the same blinkered out look or angry owner if you happen to say you heard anything that sounded better.
Your experience and my ordeal with my Naim 552 as well as the NAP 350 mono-block and easy XLR connection is what is driving me to simplify thing with 4 boxes (dCS Vivaldi+Upsampler + 2 NAP 350).
I should think it will work well, but as said definitely try other amp’s as well, as you will get different results, and obviously you will hear the differences, and know what you like best
Thank you very much indeed Phil; terrific to have such a succinct understanding of the implications for volume control when implemented the dCS way, and amazing that the sound does not degrade regardless of the dCS product level used.
This is far too interesting an opportunity not to try out and I’ll see if Dunc will kindly let me discover for myself with his cable set…
Temptation is too much… - would love to try your cables if that’s ok? Don’t know how to PM yet as a bit new to these forums - does a moderator need to intervene?? Thanks very much
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All sorted chris is trying going direct this week, once my cables get to him.
Then they are off to the USA for gregg to do the same.
But as said if anyone else using naim 300 or 500 Amp’s would like to try this then just pm me.
252/supercap, one down from what i had then. I certainly wouldn’t bother if you only have the dCS.
As you will save money, and have a much better sounding system with out the naim pre amp in it.
I was completely shocked at what my 552dr pre amp was doing, and not in a good way.
Best thing i did was get rid off it.
The problem comes when you still need a pre, as you have a turntable or something as well.
No way could i put the naim 552dr back in after hearing what it did to the sound quality.
I would still rather not have a pre in my system over what i use now, but the pre in the vitus is much more transparent so i can live with it, but even so would still go direct if i could.
In support of your comment (as a non-vinyl owner): I have yet to see a dCS show pic or dCS factory listening room pic with a pre-amp. As far as I can tell, for several years now, dCS runs direct to d’Agostino monos the vast majority of the time.
There are ways around this without introducing a preamp … there are some nice ADCs out there (we have a couple of customers even using old “Pro” 900 series dCS ADCs) which can be used to take the output of a phono stage directly into a dCS (or any other) DAC so there are ways to do it.
I know that it could be regarded as blasphemy to suggest ever putting the output of a turntable through an ADC and I do remember having a rather heated conversation with a gentleman back in 2019 at a dealers when we did a dCS event regarding his LP12 and his Linn Exact system where he swore blind that no digital system could ever sound as good as his Linn setup and LP12 does now that he had just had the new Urika II phono stage installed … I explained that the Urika II converts the output from the cartridge of his LP12 into digital audio but he wasn’t having any of it.
I do realise that this will be a very controversial thing to float but I have used an £18 (!) ADC (which I had in my room eq measuring kit case) to get the output from an LP12 / Naim Stageline into a Rossini DAC (I was using the Rossini as a demo instead of the guys existing NDX / Naim DAC and 552) and it was really rather good … I totally get that it had absolutely zero “HiFi credibility” but it was done totally as a “how can we do this just to see whether it works”, it sounded good and that was on the end of a roughly £10k turntable setup with a £3k cartridge and what, £2.5k of phono stage and power supply?
Phil, I’d be interested in knowing more about the options for ADC to be used with a Rossini. I’m using my Rossini direct into mono blocks and currently without a TT but have lots of old vinyl that I might play once in a while if there was a decent, not too expensive solution.
There are lots of options as I’ve said but really they depend on where you’re starting from and where you want to end up…
Let’s say that you fancied an LP12 setup - well you could take an LP12 and put in a Urika II phono stage and go TOSLink straight into a Rossini.
Alternatively you could have a turntable with an external phono stage and add a separate ADC of whatever cost / spec you determine is comfortable for your needs.
You could have a turntable and add a phono stage that has an ADC built in with a digital audio output (like the old PS Audio NuWave).
It all depends on what you’re looking to do / spend / what kit you want to use / how many boxes you want it to be etc.
