Naim has revealed details of its new ND 555 (£12,999) Network Player alongside the new NDX 2 (£4999) and a ND 5 XS 2 (£1999). So why a new 500 Series product now? The answer is quite simple; until now Naim hasn’t considered the performance of its Network Players to reach that of the CD555 CD Player.

The heart of Naim’s new network players is their ‘new platform’ board and software that started development over four years ago. New Platform, as it is known internally, was first revealed in Naim’s Uniti products launched last year. The launch of the Uniti products, together with a worldwide shortage of some key parts has delayed the launch of these new Network Players until now.  Naim expects to ship the ND 555, NDX 2 and ND XS 2 in Summer 2018.

Digital connectivity from the NP800 Streaming board to the DAC board is I2S over LVDS. I2S has the benefit of a separate clock signal, in contrast to S/PDIF which doesn’t. The NDS Network Player had a Faraday cage to help eliminate noise leakage from one part of the player to another but in the ND 555 the new Faraday cage system is now physically isolated from its environs and it is radio opaque to a much higher frequency. Naim’s new exclusive NP800 streaming board is unique. When used in UPnP or streaming mode the streaming clock is totally under the control of the ClockMaster situated near the PCM1704K DACS.

ND 555 features a powerful new 4th Generation 40-bit SHARC DSP processor, the ADSP 21489 capable of 2700 MFLOPS running at 450Mhz. The SHARC processor implements Naim’s RAM buffer (first used in the DAC and NDS and called zero S/PDIF). The SHARC processor also performs 16 times oversampling and digital filtering. ND 555 uses two PCM1704U-K DACs in their own Faraday Cages. Naim’s 500 Series of products are known for their floating PCB isolation system. The ND 555’s SpringBoard system uses a system of circuit boards hard mounted to massive floating brass plates mounted on springs. The ND 555 includes 13 Naim DR voltage regulators.  The DACs, the clocks and the output stages all have their own individual DR voltage regulators. User features include Chromecast Built-in (up to 24Bit 192kHz), integrated TIDAL, Spotify Connect, AirPlay, UPnPTM (Universal Plug ‘n’ Play), Bluetooth, Internet Radio, USB, Digital Input (TOSlink and Coax), Multiroom and it’s Roon Ready.