Streaming to the USB of a 172XS

As far as I know: NOT possible.

The manual states:  

2.7 USB/iPod Interface

The NAC-N 172 XS is fitted with a front panel USB interface intended for the connection of Apple iPod and iPhone models and USB memory hardware carrying audio files. The USB interface should not be used for any other purpose.

Depending on the setup options chosen, iPod and iPhone batteries will be charged when connected to the USB interface (see Section 4.3.5).

And NO – the mini-USB connector at the back will not do what you want :-(

Thanks for the answer, though not sure if it is from Naim or not, however there was a second part of the question, as follows:

If not are there any other solutions upcoming, in particular for third party streaming such as Spotify. I did read a third party article about a firmware upgrade in 2014 but have not seen anything since.

I use the Sonos connect to stream Qobuz into my NDS. It is able to stream other music from internet services such as Spotify or Deezer. I think it is a great product that you should be able to plug into the numerical input of your NAC-N 172 XS.

Cheers,

Michel

Thanks for the suggestion, but I wouldn't choose to mix Sonos with my Naim, any more than placing a Rbit in front of the 172, why introduce another DAC? The 172XS is a great streaming solution, I'd just like to understand if Naim will be releasing an upgrade to enable third party streaming.

In this case, the Sonos is not used as a DAC but precisely to circumvent the fact that Naim streamers are not able to use services such as Qobuz, Spotify et al. natively. Actually, streaming at CD quality level with Qobuz is very good though not on par with streaming with the NDS from a NAS.

I was also hoping that an upgrade would come but there is nothing coming on the horizon.

Naim are always tight lipped about these things, so you'll need to wait and see. You won't get an answer until any official release.

Thanks - I've now ordered a StarTech.com Wireless Bluetooth Audio Receiver with NFC BT2A, which hopefully will do the trick.

A relatively cheap and easy solution is to connect an Apple Airport Express to your 172 with an optical cable. For iOS devices, you can then use Airplay to play anything from your phone including Spotify, iPlayer radio, etc. For Android devices, I believe there are apps such as Allcast which enable them to work with Airplay in this way.

This might not be the best possible solution for sound quality, but Spotify from a phone is never going to provide that, so to my mind, it's a good solution, and if Naim come up with a better solution in the future, you'll only have spent less than £100 to get you up and running.

Mixing anything Apple with a Windows/Android platform is asking for trouble I'm afraid. I ditched itunes in favour of MediaMonkey for that reason - Apple just tries to take over. I figured spending £47 was a pretty good bet in the short term!

Philip, you may well be right. I'm using all Apple kit so I'm not really in a position to comment, although I do know someone who used Allcast as in my last post and said it always worked well for him.

Philip,

indeed many of us would love to directly stream Spotify from the Naim app, but apparently Naim and Spotify haven't come to a deal yet. There are other ways to stream Spotify:

1. As ChrisSU says, use an Apple Airport Express to your 172 with an optical cable.

2. An AppleTV device (100 euro) does the same, which is also nice to stream any other interent content (like YouTube) from your iPad to a TV.

3. Run an optical cable from your home PC/laptop into your streamer and run Spotify from your PC. Works fine, although you have to jump up to your PC to change songs.

3. Run an optical or RCA cable from your Smart TV into your streamer, and run Spotify via the TV's remote controller. Works fine on my Philips TV. The nice thing is that the TV shows the album cover, song title and time while playing. I also love to play YouTube songs on TV and stream the sound to Naim.

Watch out: Spotify apps are available on Philips, LG and others, but not on Sony's! Sony wants to sell its own streaming service, so you can't run Spotify on a Sony TV. Terrible, Apple-like behaviour.

A last point: I tried an App called Remote Controller for Spotify (or something) to control Spotify from my iPad running on my PC, but that was useless.

Have fun,

Be patient Bert, Spotify is coming once the new firmware has been fully tested.

That would be fantastic news Halibut, thanks for the update.

My Startech solution, which was only £40, goes a lot further than Spotify, which even in Premium mode is only at 320k. I use the Startech with Qobuz and Tidal, streaming at 440khz, CD quality, and am very happy with the result. Sad to say I won't go beyond the trial period because they want to charge £20 per month - how does that work when it's only £5.99 for Netflix! Now if there was a solution which mixed streaming with a break on downloading DRM free hi-res music that would make a lot of sense to most people here, I would think? 

Why not get the Naim product that is designed for use with a computer in the first place and then be free to use any streaming service you like ( even on 'terrible macs' )