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Post by petea on Nov 7, 2018 12:28:20 GMT
I bought a TeddyXPS PSU for my Naim NDX in the studio in Germany a few months back and have only just had the chance to bring it over from the UK (I bought a pair of monoblocks at the same time that I wanted there which is why it ended up there in the first place) and try it. As I indicated in another post (about Tidal), I have been fiddling with cables etc and so didn't want to introduce too many changes at once. I was happy with all of that (and Tidal seems to be back to normal now) so today I added the TeddyXPS. I was expecting to hear some improvement, but was totally unprepared for the impact it has had. I'm used to hearing small incremental changes not ones on this scale. Stunning is the word that comes to mind at the moment. It is making a fabulous job of a high res download of The Ash and the Clay by the Milk Carton Kids at the moment.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2018 12:57:09 GMT
I had a Naim NDX for a while and I personally found it a big disappointment after the CDX2 and CDI's I had owned previously. I did try adding an XPS2 which made a significant differences, but then you are talking about £8,000 streaming solution all in and I have heard a lot better for equal price, but also for less. Personally, I never tried any of the Teddy Pardo kit, but I heard good things about what they can do in the Naim system context, so am pleased to hear you are hearing improvements
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Post by MartinT on Nov 7, 2018 13:49:18 GMT
I played with a Teddy Pardo circuit many years ago. Very good performance indeed in low noise, less good in dynamic transient response. I guess the Naim really needs lower PSU noise.
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Post by petea on Nov 7, 2018 14:14:47 GMT
Yes, that upgrade route can get pricey. The NDX here (and an NDX2 in the UK) are the only Naim kit I have although I am about to install a Unity Atom in the apartment as a partner-friendly option! It'll be coupled to a pair of Neat Iota-Alphas which are just right for the small room they'll be in - where does all that sound come from?! The headphone output on it is pretty reasonable too and certainly better than the MacBook!
I was impressed by the convenience of the NDX and the Naim app as a way of checking out stuff from Tidal etc and I bought the ex-demonstrator from Andy at Winchester HiFi for the studio here. Having looked around I decided to get the NDX2 for the main system in the UK for the same purpose and it should be waiting for me when I get back to the UK. However, this will not end up being my main route into 'computer' music. At present I have some source material on the Synology NAS units I use for work and stream it through the NDX via an Aqvox switch to 'filter out' all of the other network traffic etc. My plan though is to purchase a dedicated music server. At present I'm considering either a Melco or a Fidata unit and will route the output from whichever I end up with (Fidata is in the lead at the moment - any other options / preferences gratefully received) through a USB DAC (I'm intrigued by the TeddyDAC I have to say).
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Post by MartinT on Nov 7, 2018 16:14:13 GMT
Excellent. I'm not familiar with those servers so do keep us apprised.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2018 17:09:24 GMT
I would love to know more about how you are filtering using the switch you describe. This is something I sort of do, but doubt very well.
Also, I am going to invest in a NAS shortly because my elder iMac I used to use for music storage has died, so looking for an alternative so any views/advise would be helpful please?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2018 18:10:04 GMT
Andy @ Winchester Hifi is a genuinely nice chap The Aqvox switch is a nice solution (especially with a quality psu added), if you use this to stream via the internet and your separate NAS its a good start point if you are going down this route imho They are others which cost much more ££ do they work, personally I have no direct interaction with at length to form an opinion. Though we have one client who has every device know to mankind in his home network infrastructure, before it reaches his playback device which cost him in the region of £6K and that does not includes his network cabling which is purely Crystal Ultimate dream Lan cables, I believe these are £6K a meter!!!!! Some of us just have an internal network from our servers direct to the player (Internal 8TB SSD) 385TB on servers, no switch required. At home I have 300Gb+ Virgin speed, yet a nicely remodeled 4G router (Under £200) plus a quality linear psu sounds better (when streaming live or downloading) than the big fiber pipeline should not be different really after all it's just 1's and 0's! Personally I have built a dedicated stripped back PC just for downloads, which I feel delivers much better SQ than just downloading to a specific playback device. Having spent time with various Melco's I feel the Fidata units to be of a better all round quality (both sound and build), they even use the same clocks we use in our products lol. I do not retail either Melco or Fidata so I can mention this with having to engage the shield generator
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Post by Stratmangler on Nov 7, 2018 18:29:06 GMT
I would love to know more about how you are filtering using the switch you describe. This is something I sort of do, but doubt very well. Also, I am going to invest in a NAS shortly because my elder iMac I used to use for music storage has died, so looking for an alternative so any views/advise would be helpful please? What are you streaming with?
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2018 18:35:11 GMT
I use a modified NovaFidelity X40 streamer, which has onboard HDD storage and I listen to Spotify currently.
All of my CDs have been encoded as either FLAC or Applelossless and are stored on an external USB drive which is currently not being used due to the iMac failure.
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Post by Stratmangler on Nov 7, 2018 18:57:05 GMT
Pretty well any NAS out there will do what you need, which is to have the capability of being run as a DLNA server.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2018 19:35:14 GMT
Thanks Chris. To add, I would like to move the music from the outboard USB drive to the NAS.
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Post by Stratmangler on Nov 7, 2018 22:05:55 GMT
Thanks Chris. To add, I would like to move the music from the outboard USB drive to the NAS. You can configure most NAS boxes to transfer data to or from an attached HDD on the touch of a button. The world is your lobster .....
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Post by Deleted on Nov 7, 2018 22:18:03 GMT
Thanks Chris.
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Post by petea on Nov 7, 2018 22:26:25 GMT
In Germany we have a 60 Mbit/s Magenta broadband package from Telekom (ie it includes IP telephony). This comes into our apartment via a router which links to a PBX and to our main, industrial firewall device (the wireless connectivity of the router is disabled, DHCP is disabled and no other wired devices connect to it). The 'green' side of the firewall connects to an unmanaged Netgear gigabit switch which serves the apartment, connects to the master backup NAS (a Synology DiskStation DS1513+ containing 6TB of WD Red drives in RAID 5), a wireless access point (WAP), various wired devices on the 'home' network and my studio (a totally separate building, but in the same complex) via Cat 6 cabling, underground. In the studio the incoming Cat 6 cable is connected via an ethernet socket to a 24 port, Buffalo managed switch. Into this is connected various wired devices for my work (printers, MacPro, security cameras, Mac Mini etc) and a WAP as well as a direct connection to an Aqvox-Switch SE using a 7m Aqvox Excel Cat 7 network cable. The Aqvox switch is connected to the Naim NDX using an Aqvox Edge Cat 7 cable. Also connected to the managed switch is our primary NAS (also a Synology DiskStation DS1513+ containing 6TB of WD Red drives in RAID 5) which also acts as a media server at present. The contents of this server is backed up to the replicate machine located in the apartment at about 2AM every day. In the apartment is another Aqvox-Switch SE connected using Aqvox Excel Cat 7 cables via wired ethernet to the unmanaged switch and directly to a Naim Unity Atom. So both the streamer in the studio and the apartment can access online services (I use Tidal), network radio (using the internal vTuner) and the media server on the primary NAS in the studio. Control is via the Naim app on iPads. Everything is on fixed IPs except for devices connecting wirelessly using the WAPs (although these have a very narrow range of IPs and are Mac address filtered and locked down very securely, and the one in the studio is only powered on when I am in there - paranoid, me?! ). Adding the Aqvox switch certainly made a difference to sound quality, but not as much as the Teddy Pardo PSU (although that was added after). I'd need to take the switch out at some point to be a bit more analytical about what the differences really were although my general impression was of improvement. Does that help? This schematic shows how the Aqvox switches and streamers fit into the overall network topography described above. I have left the FVC VPN link highlighted as I can echo the contents of the music server to my home although I have not yet automated this, but will do in the next couple of weeks. Eventually whatever standalone music server I choose (probably Fidata) will be connected to the Aqvox switch on the right and the streamer will be connected to it directly. The NAS will then act as a backup for its contents and the streamer in the apartment (on the left) will be able to access its contents as well.
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Post by Stratmangler on Nov 7, 2018 22:59:53 GMT
Spacing out your post might As it stands I will not be attempting to read it ....
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Post by petea on Nov 7, 2018 23:29:01 GMT
Spacing out your post might As it stands I will not be attempting to read it ....
Any better? I can add a schematic tomorrow if anyone is interested.
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Post by Stratmangler on Nov 8, 2018 0:13:31 GMT
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Post by petea on Nov 8, 2018 11:55:24 GMT
I have added a schematic diagram to the post on the Aqvox switch above which I hope explains how the streamer / servers fit into an existing network (I edited our Spot Maps record in PS).
I am also toying with the idea of placing the music server, streamer etc onto its own VLAN although I'd really need to swap the unmanaged switch to a managed one to ensure maximum benefit (if there is any aside from maintaining the security of my work system). I'd also need to think through how the automated backup would work as I think both the main network and the VLAN would need to be able to access the library and I need to see how I can allocated specific network interfaces on the NAS to the shares that contain it. And how I would place downloads and ripped CDs etc onto it.
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Post by MartinT on Nov 8, 2018 12:14:55 GMT
For those who don't know, the Teddy Pardo regulator is made up of a standard 3-pin regulator (the LM317) followed by a gyrator that amplifies the effect of the high quality C4 capacitor followed by R5/C5/R6 high frequency filter. A combined JFET/transistor 'darlington' Q1/Q2 provides the output. As I said earlier, the Pardo's strength is very low noise. It has a high output impedance, though, and is better suited to steady current draw devices like preamps and streamers.
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Post by petea on Nov 8, 2018 12:25:24 GMT
Thanks, Martin. There is more information on the Teddy Pardo site for anyone interested - www.teddypardo.com/diy/superteddyreg.htmlI have a pair of Teddy Pardo monoblock power amplifiers in England, but I have not yet had time to swap them into my system to see how they compare with my trusty (recapped) Meridian 205 monoblocks. I'm quite intrigued by his DAC too.
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