Why spotify?

Maybe Tidal and Qobuz aren't happy to pay the amount that Naim wants.

Absolutely, until you consider the fact that for a long long time, and before Qobuz and others existed, many many people on here have lobbied Naim to provide Spotify on their streamers.  Now that they have we deserve better?  Best make sure we are very sure about what we ask for next time then so that we get what we deserve

I think £10 is very good value for what we get, and am surprised at the mithering that's going on. Sure, the quality is not as good as a CD, but there is no way it can be described as awful. Let's be pleased that things are moving forward, and I'm sure more streaming developments will be around the corner. To kick Naim when they have worked really hard to get this far seems rather churlish.

In complete agreement with you Nigel.

Naim have delivered what people were asking for and now they are complaining that they want something else. I'm sure there will be other service providers down the line. Naim are wise to go with Spotify as there are the most established and have a good catalogue. Which of the others will be around in 12 months? If there is a good, viable hi-res option (if Spotify doesn't go hi-res) I'm sure Naim will consider them. 

I'm happy with Spotify on Naim. Others aren't. That's life. 

Agreed.   But there have still been a lot of Naim users chasing the add on....it may not be perfect but it's perfectly adequate for listending to new and recommended artists/albums.  

i have been a huge fan of Spotify from the early days.

I use it it three main ways.

1 to listen to albums that I'm considering buying based on reviews, recommendations, etc and on that basis alone the £10 a month is worth every penny. I've lost count of the number of albums that i have bought because I liked them on Spotify and the money I've saved by not buying albums I don't like.

2 to access its immediacy. As other members have mentioned, I love the instant way I can access a song I hear on the radio, TV, read about etc., 

3 this is quite personal but I love the vast back catalogue that Spotify has in the Jazz genre. 

As to the sound quality,  ok, it ain't the best, but look at what you get for a tenner!

My office system is capable of playing DSD 128 files and at the time of writing I have 1 album in DSD128.  Let's not get hooked up on the wrong end of this. 25 million songs at 320 kps or 1 album at DSD128...

People! GET A F***KING GRIP! 

What's behind all this moaning about not having Qobuz or Tidal?! and Spotify not being 'worthy' of our precious little sound systems?

Yeah, Don't like Spotify 'cause it's not lossless? listen to your vinyl then!   Spotify is an add-on, an extra, a super nice thing to have! It's the two butter biscuits that you were not expecting with your £5 double espresso, That's all! 

Incorporating Spotify Connect has been a super clever move from Naim, it will make A LOT of people happy ...   Sometimes we sound like rich and spoilt teenagers bitching in front of our £10,000 wardrobe and throwing a fit because we don't have ''those' trainers... . 

What do the critics of Naim's move to include Spotify suggest? Not include it and wait for the market to produce a lossless service as consolidated as Spotify? Qobuz was/is almost bankrupt, Tidal, as a great as it is, is still too new.  C'mon!

I really cannot get my head around this sense of entitlement!

PS: Sorry for the venting, I'm in a terrible mood. Vanessa, my pet llama just died

When I met with some of the Naim designers at the summer event in London, where we saw the prototype Muso and new Naim app, I was certainly told that the intent was to support streaming services such as Qobuz and Spotify.. Certainly it wasn't just one! I later unofficially heard the prioritisation and initial focus was on Spotify.. Almost certainly to best support the Muso target market.. Services such as Qobuz are perhaps more focussed for the Classic series owners.. I know that sounds snobbish.. But it is not meant to be.. Simply a case of priorities.. I am confident, unless there has been a U turn since the summer that other higher quality services will arrive for Naim ... I think it was around today Qobuz had to close if it was not refinanced... I just checked it was very much alive and kicking..

Simon

No issues with a MacMini/Hugo setup, you pay your money to whichever provider you fancy and just get on with the listening. Personally I would rather have the better SQ of Qobuz and pay the extra tenner than use mp3 Spotify. The extra quality can even be appreciated on the Muso.

Ditch the streamers guys and enjoy the freedom.  

Steve, I will give Naim a few months to support lossless public network streaming. If not I suspect I will be selling my NDX for some of the new non-Naim ND players now starting to appear that support a multitude of streaming services including Qobuz . 

BTW Spotify uses the Ogg Vorbis codec which arguably provides a better performance for a given bandwidth than MP3..

Simon

Let me know when your selling your NDX Simon....ha ha.   If the implementation of spotify took this long I wouldnt want to take a guess how long it will take for lossless to appear.   Although I may be wrong.   

I hope you are wrong.. Fingers crossed the architecture is in place now to support other streaming services so hopefully it won't take so long. Unless Naim really had to fight to squeeze Spotfy in the streamers we will hopefully see new services before too long.

As fas the NDX if you are anywhere near Suffolk if that times comes you are welcome to pop by. 

Simon

Well, I’m holding off for a while until Naim gets its right :

Naim Neurone

This thought-commanded brain implant will include a streaming client, phonological volume control and neuroparametric equalizer (for different brain sizes). A 555,000 tap FPGA will handle streaming and digital-to-analog conversion (Rob Watts is on the case). Amplification will be provided by Naim’s 055 organic field-effect graphene transistors that fuse with the auditory cortices to provide left and right channel feeds in a dual-mono, zero-feedback configuration. As expected and repeatedly demanded by Naim’s top customers, the user will be able to simply think of an artist, album, composer, genre, track title, or any other tag of choice to instantly start replay (with zero latency from short-term memory). Humanity’s sum of music will be uploaded into long-term memory (an operation best performed by the dealer). Updates of the music database and firmware will be ensured on an automatic basis during sleep, provided that the user wears the Naim NightCap.

That would be the nu-ron surely, wouldn't it ?

I could use a NightCap, it wouldn't buzz !

nu-ron. Yes, that would work well. So who's in for crowd-sourcing this thing? Spotify is so 2014.

I suppose if Spotify did go lossless then there would be no need for a Nas,  that would meen  two less cables.    

I've got Spotify on trial - when I hear something I like I would need to buy it. I subscribe to Qobuz - when I hear something I like I don't need to buy it as it is always available in excellent quality.

That is a huge difference to me - Spotify is £10 a month wasted, Qobuz saves me way more than £20 a month on music I don't have to buy. If I was happy with Spotify sound quality I wouldn't own a Naim - Sonos, Bose or B&O would be sufficient; but I'm not and I do.

What do you do about music for the car?

What do you do about music for the portable player?

So Naim include Tidal/Qobuz or whatever.

And then the new kid launches a service providing 24 bit or DSD.

I don't own a car (I do own 11 motorcycles but none have onboard music) and Qobuz is available on my Android tablet any time I'm away. If I did get a car I would install mifi and hook into Qobuz.

If there's a new kid offering higher quality I'll switch my subscription with zero loss.

It's the future

I suppose if Spotify did go lossless then there would be no need for CDs,  that would mean two less cables.    T,FTFY.

Common guys. It is not like Naim says you need to pay them to enable Spotify. I know there are better services Naim can explore but if Spotify is there and you like it, you use it, if you don't then leave it.

As an added option, I certainly don't mine. Of course whether Spotify is worth your $10/month is another argument altogether.

I think a lot of this argument boils down to mindset. Some people wish to own the music, have a physical copy that they can put on any devices they wish etc, browse their collection, hold the case, cover. And there are those that are happy to just stream in high quality an not 'own' the music. 

I am currently in the former camp. It is not an age thing, just mindset. My 18yo daughter is purchasing vinyl but uses Spotify to find new music.

Whether one sees Spotify's £10 a waste or not is subjective. And yes, Qobuz is an excellent proposition. I am not doubting that in the slightest! If I could afford it now, I'd go for it.  And like you, I would not buy Naim if my content would only be Spotify, totally there with you. But that is not my point. My point is the criticism towards Naim for choosing Spotify over Qobuz/Tidal at this point in time. What really bugged me was this spoilt teenger stance of 'If we can't have tidal/qobuz, screw everybody else and don't give us anything', this sense of entitlement. 

Anybody who wants to run crap quality rubbish through their systems is at liberty to do so and good luck to them. If it finished there it would be fine, but the crap quality twaddle some then come out with to justify their decision (as if it needed justifying in the first place) is stupid and hilarious.

Someone needs to tell Taylor Swift.

I haven't checked Spotify but I regularly find stuff missing from Qobuz and Deezer.