Where does Naim fit in my environment?
Posted by: andarkian on 11 January 2013
Firstly, confession time. I do not own any Naim gear but do appreciate the quality of its output. Until a year or so ago all my music was delivered by oldish Audiolab and Tag McLaren kit alongside a pair of Castle Harlechs.
Everything except the Harlechs is now in the loft and I set myself up with a 5.1 AVR system driven with an Onkyo TX5800 receiver alongside my Castles, PMC centre and rears as well as a Monitor Audio sub. So far so very good.
I then decided that after losing my PC and the so-called raided NAS, which is hopeless if the cabinet fails, that my music resident in iTunes could go into the iCloud. With a £100 Apple TV attached to the Onkyo amp, played through pure audio setting I.e. through the Castles alone I have unfettered and as far as I can tell, sonically uncluttered access to all my music with no need for active PCs, TVs or NASs using my 40 mb Internet connection. Just an iPad or iPhone.
Now I have to say that the results are pretty damn good. At long last my question is: where would Naim products fit in such an environment to better the experience? Am prepared to allocate another room, don't tell the wife, but it must stream via Apple iCloud rather than a server. As I write this on my iPhone I am controlling the whole shebang with the self same iPhone.
Everything except the Harlechs is now in the loft and I set myself up with a 5.1 AVR system driven with an Onkyo TX5800 receiver alongside my Castles, PMC centre and rears as well as a Monitor Audio sub. So far so very good.
I then decided that after losing my PC and the so-called raided NAS, which is hopeless if the cabinet fails, that my music resident in iTunes could go into the iCloud. With a £100 Apple TV attached to the Onkyo amp, played through pure audio setting I.e. through the Castles alone I have unfettered and as far as I can tell, sonically uncluttered access to all my music with no need for active PCs, TVs or NASs using my 40 mb Internet connection. Just an iPad or iPhone.
Now I have to say that the results are pretty damn good. At long last my question is: where would Naim products fit in such an environment to better the experience? Am prepared to allocate another room, don't tell the wife, but it must stream via Apple iCloud rather than a server. As I write this on my iPhone I am controlling the whole shebang with the self same iPhone.