Is the XS a Hint?

quote:

I go to my dealers a year later, armed with my Mac Mini

I've just cooked a second one of these that we used in-house as a light-duty application server–insufficient thermal management will kill computing hardware dead, and I'm not convinced that a Mac mini (no matter how much I love the form factor, or Mac OS X in general) is the RIGHT solution for a hi-fi rack in which there are other heat-generating devices. This unit was used in free space–as best an operating environment as is possible without liquid cooling.

Apple TV might be a better fit as far as form factor goes, but it has even LESS thermal management and doesn't sound as good.

I didn't think they ran hot - we've got two in this household (one in a hi-fi rack) and both run barely warm. My old 12" Powerbook runs much hotter (6 years old and still going strong)

I have over 20 mac minis that we use to demonstrate a distributed software computing product. We've been using them for years - they have travelled too many miles and been handled pretty roughly.

I've found them the be very reliable and extremely cost effective to replace.

Also these have run for many many months in a data centre environment that would make the top of an NAP 500 feel quite cool.

As new to Naim (and - indeed quality hi-fi), and having used a computer as only source for 8 years, I find myself in a irritating position. I love the sound from Naim cdps, but I can't stand cds and don't want anything whatsoever to do with the bloody things. I do get quality playback from vinyl, but would like my digital to sound good as well obviously.

The HDX is a computer with a mainboard and a hard drive (albeit, surely, with fine sound), and no-one in their right mind under 30 would buy one, principally because it will be antiquated and worth 300 quid in a few years time. I'm sorry, but I laughed when I saw the HDX and its specs. Linn has so totally got this right, and offer scintillating network players.

Like the guy said at the beginning of this thread - he wants to play music from his computer, be it over ethernet, usb or whatever. Play music from a computer, not buy a new computer fashioned as a hi-fi component.

I am sure a Naim network player would be a great thing. There is no reason it shouldn't be; if they can get a htpc like the HDX to sound good, imagine what they could do with a dedicated network player where they design everything from scratch. The HDX is a computer in disguise for people who want the convenience of easy digital but who fear computers as part of their hi-fi - whereas the Linn DS-boxes are modern, rational and won't be a laughing matter in 3-5 years.

Maybe I have misunderstood something. I may not be Naim's principal demographic (computersavvy twentysomethings), but I do love the Naim sound and I will buy players from them if they make a proper network player instead of the laughing matter they recently released. I will wait a few months more and then get a Linn I guess.

I must admit, i have no interest in the HDX in any shape or form. This is the first product from naim that seems to be in a no mans land IMHO.

Steve

quote:

Originally posted by dtddiver:
As new to Naim (and - indeed quality hi-fi), and having used a computer as only source for 8 years, I find myself in a irritating position. I love the sound from Naim cdps, but I can't stand cds and don't want anything whatsoever to do with the bloody things. I do get quality playback from vinyl, but would like my digital to sound good as well obviously.

The HDX is a computer with a mainboard and a hard drive (albeit, surely, with fine sound), and no-one in their right mind under 30 would buy one, principally because it will be antiquated and worth 300 quid in a few years time. I'm sorry, but I laughed when I saw the HDX and its specs. Linn has so totally got this right, and offer scintillating network players.

Like the guy said at the beginning of this thread - he wants to play music from his computer, be it over ethernet, usb or whatever. Play music from a computer, not buy a new computer fashioned as a hi-fi component.

I am sure a Naim network player would be a great thing. There is no reason it shouldn't be; if they can get a htpc like the HDX to sound good, imagine what they could do with a dedicated network player where they design everything from scratch. The HDX is a computer in disguise for people who want the convenience of easy digital but who fear computers as part of their hi-fi - whereas the Linn DS-boxes are modern, rational and won't be a laughing matter in 3-5 years.

Maybe I have misunderstood something. I may not be Naim's principal demographic (computersavvy twentysomethings), but I do love the Naim sound and I will buy players from them if they make a proper network player instead of the laughing matter they recently released. I will wait a few months more and then get a Linn I guess.

dtddiver

I couldn't have put it better myself. As a long standing Naim fan (20 years) I had to make the very difficult decission recently to buy a Linn DS. Naim are known for being slightly quirky and not always following the crowd, but I really can't see where they're going with the HDX, sure, it will sell in reasonable numbers to the converted, but it's too expensive and too limited to appeal to most potential customers.

quote:

Originally posted by nkrgovic:
The webpage for HDX allready states that "the HDX is a music server that can provide up to six different streams of music simultaneously over a home network" - but there is no device to play those streams.

There actually are two Naim-produced devices to play those streams - Naim produce two room amplifiers that are capable of playing the streams from an HDX and they are the NNP01 and the NNP02 and are part of their "NaimNet" range of products.

Cheers

Phil

Hiya Phil,

Can I just ask where I can see naimnet product information/ discussions on this site - I must have missed them somewhere

Thanks

Barrie

Barrie- click on the Naim audio main web site and click on the green icon on the bottom right "multiroom" It takes you to the Naimnet home page.

Thanks Gary- much obliged

Guys, I'm confused by the comments about the HDX vs. the Linn DS. I do understand that there are people who've been using computer based music for a while and have already ripped their music collections to a PC/Mac/NAS previously. For this group there certainly are aspects of the HDX that are redundant for you and obviously unnecessary and therefore are portions of the HDX that you don't want to pay for. Fair enough.

For many others who haven't already converted their Cds and don't want to deal with choosing the correct ripping software, settings, set-up, then the ripping aspect of the HDX takes the guesswork out of the equation. Naim has done it for you. You can rip to the HDD or soon directly to your NAS whatever. For most people, including myself, it's not an issue of being computer savvy, I've posted my opinion elsewhere in the thread to explain my pov.

However, now that the music is stored, I fail to understand what the HDX doesn't do that the Linn DS series does. At the moment I believe that you can currently access internet radio, but certainly this could be done with a software upgrade to the HDX. I won't get into musical performance comparisons as I've not heard the DS series, but have to rely on comments from others who've demoed the series and where they fall in comparison to Naims CDPs. There is no doubt that the HDD aspect of the HDX may/will become absolete depending upon where storage goes and that will be cost dependent on the medium. It however doesn't change anything else about the HDXs ability to obtain and play music stored on a computer/mac /or NAS the same way in which the DS series does or the ability to play hi-res 24 bit files. If download streaming by subscription becomes available it should with appropriate software be capable of this as well.

There are some advantages to Naim development namely that they have put together a coherent, integrated system that doesn't depend upon other third parties, eg twonky etc... Gary S. you have the Akurate and may be having no problems with the kit and its integration into your home/hi-fi system. A quick survey of the Linn forum shows that the overwhelming majority of the nearly 600 threads are about "problems" with use of the DS from other "computer" related issues, (in)compatibility with other computer systems, software, and the list goes on.

While there are some aspects of the HDX software that need re-working and updating and I've forwarded my comments on these items to Naim as I've experienced them, I've been using the HDX for about 8 weeks now and have not run into any of the problems which are rampant throughout the Linn DS forum (keeping my fingers crossed after that comment). The musical playback has been terrific and 24 bit just is amazing.

Granted Naim doesn't have a whole series of products from an "intro" level to a "hi-end" solution and the products they've released are more expensive than the Sneaky/Majik streamers given pricing for the NS-01/HDX.

So outside of the fact that the HDX rips and stores your music collection or a portion thereof to itself what am I misssing here?

I think most differences would evaporate if the HDX solution clearly reset the price performance benchmark. Unfortunately it didn't. The HDX clearly fits in the present cost / performance hierarchy.

The HDX gives you high quality ripping convenience, one box (I'd really like one box!), and it does looks great.

BUT...

At the end of the day - for me - its too expensive for what it delivers (as I suspect the Linn solutions will be also). For whatever reason, I'm delighted (dancing around the front room) with the performance from a 'mediocre DAC' which cost me less than a grand.

So, I wonder how many in the forum would continue to care about "form factor", or whether hard disks are include or not in the solution - if the common consensus was that the HDX clearly trounced the 555 musically?

If it did it musically - I'd take the beatings from the wife - and buy one!

quote:

Originally posted by gary1 (US):
Naim has done it for you. You can rip to the HDD or soon directly to your NAS whatever.

Well for one, when I was looking, there was no discussion about being able to use the HDX to rip to an external hard drive, in fact the impression I got was that this would not happen. Also, I don't necessarily want to have Naim do it for me, I've quite enjoyed experimenting with different software and settings.

quote:

However, now that the music is stored, I fail to understand what the HDX doesn't do that the Linn DS series does.

I have over 1TB used on my NAS drive, granted approx half of that is movies, but what are you going to do when you run out of space? 400GB is peanuts these days, especially when you start downloading mastertape quality stuff. Also, you can't currently use your HDX to rip to your external hard drive, so you will have to start playing with other software like the rest of us.

quote:

I won't get into musical performance comparisons as I've not heard the DS series

Interesting! given that you seem to take any opportunity to rubbish the Linn products and have on several occasions refered to sound quality. I make a point of never commenting on something I've never heard, since it's otherwise pure hearsay and totally meaningless.

quote:

It however doesn't change anything else about the HDXs ability to obtain and play music stored on a computer/mac /or NAS the same way in which the DS series does or the ability to play hi-res 24 bit files. If download streaming by subscription becomes available it should with appropriate software be capable of this as well.

But, as of now, you can't do this and it would be a "U turn" if Naim did release software which would allow this. Thus far they have argued about the potential for data corruption etc. As things stand right now, you need a NAS or other storage device to be able to play anything other than ripped CDs and as I've already said, you will also need this to be able to continue to rip CDs once your 400GB is exhausted.

quote:

There are some advantages to Naim development namely that they have put together a coherent, integrated system that doesn't depend upon other third parties, eg twonky etc

Accepted and for some people, I can see this being a real advantage, for others however, the lack of flexibility is a disadvantage.

quote:

... Gary S. you have the Akurate and may be having no problems with the kit and its integration into your home/hi-fi system. A quick survey of the Linn forum shows that the overwhelming majority of the nearly 600 threads are about "problems" with use of the DS from other "computer" related issues, (in)compatibility with other computer systems, software, and the list goes on.

Oh come on Gary! This forum is absolutely stuffed with technical queries and posts from people who are struggling to get this to work with that. I had my system set up by a good competent dealer and it just works perfectly. Given the number of Linn DSs that have been sold, and the number of permutations there must be regards networks, NASs and media tablets etc, you would expect quite a few queries. BTW there are only a total of 550 posts on the Linn forum spread across the DS and troubleshooting forums (432 and 118 respectively) and many of these are not queries, so please don't exagerate

quote:

The musical playback has been terrific and 24 bit just is amazing.

As it is on the Linn

quote:

So outside of the fact that the HDX rips and stores your music collection or a portion thereof to itself what am I misssing here?

Quite a lot it seems.

The point is, the two things are very different animals. The Linn is considerably simpler and doesn't have any ripping facility or storage facility, to some this is bad, to others like me it is good, since I don't want a portion of my music collection on it, I want the whole thing, otherwise I've got to have a CD player as well, or a NAS, which defeats the object in the first place. Furthermore, I don't want two hard drives in the same box, I want it two rooms away, where it doesn't anoy me.

Look Gary, you are clearly one of those people who are Naim through and through and treat the whole Linn/Naim thing as an "us and them" battle. You have been very critical of the Linn on here for some time, notwithstanding the fact that you admit to never having heard one. Fine, this is the Naim forum after all, but please just accept the fact that not everybody agrees with you and it's not as black and white as you make out.

Cheers

Gary S

Seriously, can't the HDX rip to an external drive? That effectively ruins the already dubious advantage of ripping without a computer; a 400 gig drive is a laughing matter and full before you know it.

You can store the rips wherever you like. You rip locally and then just drag the files wherever you like. The only way to get this good of rip otherwise may be with a properly setup EAC etc. plus a few other things being right and I've found that it takes longer with poorer meta data retrieval than just using the HDX and dragging.
I guess the question is whether the rips sound better than what most are doing with their computers and I certainly think it does so with nice data attachment, a great user interface that allows both local and remote control and organization of software with a proper local player(not nearly appreciated enough) so you don't need to worry about a poor digital interface or jitter. Rips are able to be stored anywhere that you like and the player is in now way limited to 400gb even with rips done on the player whether they will ever allow you rip to another drive or not. They can be moved there and deleted from the local without fuss. You never need to use the internal drives for anything if you don't want unless you want to use them for your rips which in this case is an asset. Naim has made sure that your source material is up to snuff in a way that regardless about how people feel about the theory of rips (and I'm sure many will continue to disagree which is fine too),they are guaranteed a good result. I do know that it's a touchy subject to suggest that an extensive library of rips may be compromised. Resistance to that is understandable.

What you may be missing is the personal aspect of interface and sound. Gary1 and others quite like it. You don't have to and that's fine too but many of the things you describe as undesirable are actually positives in a very comprehensive piece of kit. We use the HDX or ns01 for rips that we may not store locally. It's the easiest and fastest way to get it done with this good of a result. Eye of the beholder I guess. No product is for everyone.
I think many are just not aware of the problems associated to computer sound and even though much of the HDX is computer based (as it would have to be Where's that analog interface, LOL) It has addressed these problems that those who are computer savvy though not engineers may not think needs to be acknowledged. Maybe Naims large staff of digital engineers got it wrong and these issues are in there imaginations or Naims normal R&D of identifying problems in a format and finding solutions is a narrow view but my observations in use coincide with what they've done. It's not their last word on stored playback but it's plenty good and the interface is as good as it gets.

Gary S, I don't have time to post a full response to your comments, but suffice to say at this time you never really answered the question.

The differences which you mention I acknowledged in my post and even acknowledged whther for some they might be an advantage or a disadvantage. I gave you all of that, yet you highlighted a portion of my quote above which you never answered.

Gary

Not sure I follow you. I thought I had answered you comprehensively, but I'm not sure we are ever going to agree on this so I'll just ignore you from now on if you would be so kind as to do the same.

Gary S

js

Thanks for you detail comments, I didn't fully appreciate you could drag the files to another storage device once you have ripped them on the HDX. This does however still mean having another device, which as I say sort of defeats the object, but I can see where you're coming from.

Kind regards

Gary S

That they're busy listening. Problems get more noise than satisfaction does.

quote:

Originally posted by js:
That they're busy listening. Problems get more noise than satisfaction does.

or they have been fortunate enough to not have discovered the forum

Gary S

Cannot believe your animosity. The fact is however, that there is an entire Linn Forum dedicated to problems that have arisen in the course of using the DS devices. It's a fact and it's there in black and white. That's not to say that it's not a great product(s). While you appear to not have any issues with your "system" clearly many others have had problems for one reason or another.

The Linn DS series use products from a variety of vendors that aren't explicitly designed for that system or for a single user. We are all aware that the more variables introduced into the IT world the more chances for things to go awry. It's a fact of life in the computer realm. The fact that Linn had to explicitly start a "Troubleshooting forum" says alot.

As far as the complaints on this forum, they are irrelevant since they are from DAC users that are trying to combine different products from different manufacturers that were not designed explicitly to be used together, so it too is not surprising to see problems.

Bottomline, however, is that I went through the exercise above with the various points that I made, not to criticize the Linn products, but to show that despite the differences between Naim and Linn that they are more similar than different. So I do not see where one is considered "futureproof" and the other is already obsolete.

So once again, other than internet radio,once the music is stored on an external NAS regardless of how it got there, what does the Linn DS do that the HDX doesn't?

quote:

Originally posted by munch:
US ,
When will you ever learn, That enough is enough.
There are no W of M D hear.
Just peoples thoughts on there kit and there quest for info on where to go next.

Munch

I suspect I'm included here. As I recall, you were munching at my heels when I voiced my thoughts on another piece of kit. This clearly isn't a US exclusive and please keep Gary and my posts seperate as I don't always share his opinions nor always feel as strongly about those we do share.

Gary1 (US)

No anomosity I assure you. I've just become fed up with the way you take any oportunity to have a pop at the Linn DS, mosty it seems, on the basis of hearsay evidence and spurious arguments about technical issues etc.

Clearly you love your HDX, which is great, I'm really pleased for you, which I've stated before, but were does your animosity of the Linn products come from? It seems you are on the defensive all the time and feel you have to justify your choice, you don't. You pissed off a lot of people on here a while back when the Lavry was being debated and now you seem to have switched to the Linn.

There seems little point in contunuing this discussion, but as to your question "what does the Linn do that the HDX doesn't", very little is the answer, in fact quite the opposite, the HDX does much more than the Linn DS, it's just a different concept that's all. There were a number of factors which steered me in the directoin of a DS rather than the HDX, which I explained in detail to you on another tread only last week.

Come on Gary, lets bury the hatchet over this and just agree to disagree hey! Life's to short for all this shit

Regards

Gary

Gary S,

Hatchet buried.

You do seem to have gotten to the crux of the issue is that people are annoyed from the whole Lavry thing.

Sorry, I cannot help it that myself and others did not fall in love with the kit and expressed our viewpoint. Other forum members then took the debate to a whole new level. They ,and they alone, are responsible for their actions and consequences.

Unfortunately because of this I know that I am personna non grata and my posts are looked at in a very different light than others who post the same viewpoint, but do not have the name of Gary1(US). No question about it. Just read the responses to my comments and the responses to others who have expressed the same pov. One long time forum member severely criticized the DA-10 and continues to poke fun at the kit and yet he is not asked by others to exit the forum or told "enough is enough". Anyone can see this as clear as day. It's a fact and I really don't care.

My whole point about the DS vs. HDX issue was not made to defend my purchase of an HDX, nor to come back at you or the others who implied that it was a "laughing stock" but to demonstrate that they are more similar than different, yet the whole thing was erroneously taken as a "pop" at Linn. My negative comments with respect to the DS series were not even in relation to the products themselves, but meant to be addressed to the whole concept of issues that arise when in the computer world different software/hardware products that are not co-developed to be seemless are put together and the inevitable series of issues/problems which arise.

Even my dealer feels the heat and feels that he has to distance himself from me as if my name were "BLAGO" and I was trying to sell a senate seat or something.