Naim streaming fundamentally flawed?

Hi SJB,

I think the critical approach of Woodsman's original set the tone of what was to follow.

However some of us have tried to help him resolve his issues by suggesting the use of a switch.

Having said that I do agree with you to a degree.

Woodsman,

Please do try a switch, they're cheap and it may well sort the problem.  If you still have problems then please get another NAS or fix your existing one.

Woodsman, I also had some issues when I embarked on the streaming road withmy original Uniti.

But with excellent help from Naim Support, great advice from fellow Forumites, and discussion with my dealer, The issues I was encountering were resolved.

Since that point I would say that my network and ability to replay music from my NAS or Uunitiserve has been absolutely rock solid.

With a few simple changes as per some of the above advice in this thread or by taking contact with your dealer or Naim Support, I am absolutely sure your frustrations can disappear.

Full sympathies.

Although I have never had a day's trouble from either my Uniti Qute2 or NDX, I have 15 years experience in network engineering related roles so problems were unlikely as long as the Naim gear didn't have a problem (which it doesn't). But no network device can configure and work around other issues on a network and most home networks are bit iffy.

But I do have complete sympathy for you. While I think UPnP and streaming is the way to go, I don't think most dealers explain the requirements that customers need to get into. More knowledge is needed at the dealer side to explain upfront and preferably set up for you rather than leave you to figure it out.

Care is required at 3 levels:

1. The network setup.

2. The UPnP setup.

3. The redundancy (redundant disks like RAID to reduce (not eliminate) the risk losing your music and needing to re-rip/download again.

When those are sorted, a Naim streamer is as simple as plugging in the network cable and enjoying hassle-free music. But those prerequisites are quite a hurdle. Pretending it is a simple "fit it and forget it" scenario is just going to annoy people when they realise more care is required.

Most comments on the forum show that people are experimenting with varying degrees of success and often giving some fairly dodgy advice to each other based on a rare bit of luck. The number of people for whom this stuff is second nature is fairly low - for the others it is "faffing about". There should definately be more info upfront and more knowledgable dealers that make sure this stuff is installed in a way that doesn't leave a bad taste in the customer's mouth. It would be nice if Naim could exercise some quality control of the service delivery of dealers in this respect.

Streaming is a funny old thing. When it works it's fantastic: instant CD-quality sound, controllable from an iPad or whatever, no racks of CDs, no scratches, fully backed-up, fantastic. When it doesn't work or it's glitchy, it's a total pain. I can use a £10 radio and it makes music when I turn it on, so why won't my very expensive hi fi?

The key is to get the whole thing set up right, and I'm not at all sure that dealers always do that, especially for 'cheaper' (ahem) kit like a Qute where there isn't much margin for them.

The simple truth is that a Qute works best when hard-wired (via ethernet) to a switch, which is then hard-wired to a NAS and a router (or router extension, which works fine for me). The NAS is best if it's QNAP, Synology, Asset and so on, which generally seem suitable. Then keep all the software up to date. If you follow these guidelines then the problems will be fewer . . . but sometimes it still has a moment.

That's the trade-off with streaming - but if you set it up right then the problems will be few, and the benefits great. My system is now (almost) flawless in operation. I would never go back to CDs in a million years. (I do still have a TT though :-))

Talking of which, TTs are hardly trouble free either, and even CDs sometimes fail. And don't get me started on FM radio aerials. The difference is that those are problems we are all used to and understand, whereas streaming can seem a bit more baffling. 

IMHO it's worth persisting, and following the herd on set up. The few people on the forum who have failures have generally not followed the basic set up advice or, of course, sometimes have a faulty unit. Generally they get sorted out one way or another, and the thousands who are happy with their systems you don't hear from.

Hi

This is an interesting post. I have quite an extensive network including NDX, 2 TVs,2x Nas. Pioneer Streamer And 2 x Sky HD boxes. This is al fed from a Sky Hub with 2 Network Switches. All hard ethernet wired. The only wireless is ipad/Naim Ap to Sky hub. This all works fairly smoothly but the vast majority of the time but not always. I was an engineer in my working days,and as such apply my engineering mind to dealing with this sort of thing,and as you would expect find it interesting. However every time I do have a problem with my network the thought goes through my mind is this the sort of problem users in general want. I should think the answer to this is an emphatic no. How to solve this I think is to keep things simple. This is where I think the dealers may be at fault. Naim offer a very simple solution. Forget PCs,Laptops,masses and Upnp servers and use a Unitiserve. Expensive I know but simple to set up and operate, and apart from an occasional reboot perhaps, should run smoothly. Dealers should make it clear that all other methods are more complicated.

Philip

I'm not sure what you mean by 'connected directly to the laptop.'  Connected how?  This'll help diagnose what's going on with your 'direct connection.' 

Effective wifi is largely down to the robustness of your home wifi network, which includes a variety of factors including signal strength, devices in the home that interfere, proximity to neighbors and their wifi and other home devices.  In general, wifi simply is not 100% reliable for streaming music in the home for many people, not limited to Naim customers.  I've had this discussion with my local dealer many times.  They sell and install a lot more than just Naim and it's a constant source of headache for them AND their customers.  If you want the best there is for wifi in the home, there are some suggestions on the forum for brands of wifi access points that really are better than the crap built into your isp's home router.

MY EXPERIENCE:  I have two Naim streamer players, both hard-wired (ethernet), a uServe, a nas, etc.  For several months I was having problems with the music simply stopping, randomly.  It got worse over time. I replaced patch cords; replaced my switch.  Got MinimServer running on a nas to see if it was the uServe (it wasn't).  While home sick for a few days I systematically took pieces off the network one by one.  Want to know what it was?  My Apple Time Capsule.  I did a factory reset on it and the network has been fine.  It was misbehaving somehow.  Since, the music replay has been perfect.  Now I need something else to fiddle with . . . as it's been boringly robust.

This is a good point.  My local dealer will (almost) make you sign a waiver document if you buy a network player and don't want them involved in the install.  Not really, but it IS frustrating for customer and dealer aside when improper setup or improper network hardware gets in the way of it working.  The customer wants their money back and the dealer rightfully wants to just get in the home and make it work for them.  This stuff DOES work.  There are just a dozen variables that differ from home to home, and finding which variable(s) are screwing things up for any one installation is often beyond the interests or patience of the customer.

Actually, this only works if both ends support auto negotiation. Auto negotiation is a 2-way processes, but if one side doesn't support it or has it disabled then the auto negotiation will fail to detect the port speed of the other side and default to something which may not match the other network port leading to packet collisions (resulting in slow or patchy network connectivity). For this reason, it is never recommended to connect two systems directly via a network cable without a switch between them to regulate and buffer the flow.  This is networking 101.

That said, there could be any number of other causes to the problem you are having unrelated to the connection.

Another point for consideration: what happens when the laptop dies? Do you have all your music loaded up and ready to go on something else?

That's why I published a 'simple guide paper' for setting up audio networks.

I have some empathy with the original post....well a lot.

I think the issue is often networking. My Qute used to do all the things that are described and with the help of members here and going down the hard wired route, using a switch, things improved, but the Qute often had to be factory reset. My 172, into the same network is far better and when it does have input initialising issues, this generally comes down to running Twonky and Assest side by side and using Qute Control. Disable one and it works fine.

At some stages I thought about binning it all as playing music should not be so hard and if my family is anything to go by, they would not have the time, patience or interest to try and sort the issues out. In fact none of them can even be bothered to access the music on the NAS.

Mine is mainly stable now, but I feel the frustration. Good luck BWs PG

I'll be the first to admit that I limited knowledge on the real technicalities, and in the past I have been left wondering why n stream would only work for me in compatibility mode.

i think it would be helpful if somewhere there is a list of hardware (apart from the very expensive uniti serve) which are known to work well. Even with the uniti serve you would still have to install a network.

I have had some success with a very modest raspberry pi and portable hard disk (probably not the simplest solution to set up), which is connected wirelessly using various Apple devices. When everything works, streaming music is simply a wonderful way of playing music.

This forum provides this to some extent.  People consistently report being able to work with Synology and QNAP nas devices, for example.  And people report problems most often with certain isp-supplied "home hub" routers.

The "problem" is, who would maintain such a list and keep it current?  Nas companies put out new products at least once a year.  They update their software often.  Any given nas might be able to run a variety of different UPnP servers, each of which is updated from time to time.  And when it comes to Android, there are many many versions, and rapid change.  VortexBox is often sited, but it's an OS that can be installed on a huge variety of hardware.  Just too many variables!  But clearly there are combos that work, and many of us who post here regularly own them.

• Laptops are a poor host for a multi-client media streaming service, even when plugged in to mains power, as their power-management firmware is optimized for lower power consumption at the expense of availability.
• An inexpensive NAS device, on the other hand, can be made to work quite well as a persistent device upon the network, and will not disappear if you turn off, move or re-home your laptop to another network (or network sub-segment, such as Wi-Fi).

Nothing about the previous two statements has changed over the last fifteen years or so.

I'm all up for slagging off a premium manufacturer where its due, but i'm sorry its not due in this instance. If you have a suitably good network all will be fine.

to use the car analogy, if you buy a mini and take it off road don't complain about the ride quality.

Graeme

My Superuinit is rock solid. Never missed a beat. Carefully Took time to set up,the network , switch, Nas , and the ripping software on the laptop , but other than that .. Easy Peasy. its been rinning for a year or more without any hicup or intervention other than an easy firmware update. You do Naim a real injustice with this criticism..  Poor network . Poor dealer support and advice, poor user utilisation. 

And therein lies the potential issue for any company operating in this space.

You buy a Chromecast, Apple TV, Sonos, Bluesound or Roku streaming device, plug it in throw in a password to two and 'it just works'. What people don't expect is to hardwire networks, buy additional network or storage devices and set up media servers, let alone read manuals or visit forums.

Naim, whether it likes it or not will be compared to these examples, more so as they enter the consumer hifi space with products like the Mu-So.

Maybe Naim should repackage a switch, two network cables, a basic NAS and a wiring diagram, and make it available as an 'independent' accessory pack through their dealers at say £400.  Not good value compared to the same components bought off the shelf, but the streamers will be tested to work with that combination.

The instructions would also say that, whilst it's only guaranteed to work if nothing else is connected to the switch (to prevent interfere with it's operation), it will usually operate as normal when other network components are also connected to the switch.

Not a bad idea, maybe they should package it all in one box and call it, oh I don't know a HDX

+1 ingenious

My system is well set up and if works very nearly flawlessly - certainly better than any CDP or TT I've owned in terms of glitches.

If you want streaming to be super-simple, get a Unitiserve and follow the instructions - that's Naim's recommended approach. If you choose to diverge from that, as I have, then there are a very large number of variables in terms of UPNP and network, and I recommend you follow the excellent and free advice of folks on this forum. 

From the OP's post, it seems that it was really a DAC that was required rather than a streamer. A DAC will connect straight to a laptop and to the power amp, and there are fewer variables involved. I think you were not given great guidance or assistance by the dealer. 

A car is a car, you get in it and drive it (or be driven), I get in my lhd drive Twingo put it in drive and it goes, our Mercedes does the same thing. You put your foot on the brakes and they stop. If I had a Range Rover I might expect it to go off road, I wouldn't expect to have to change the drive train and ride height. 

NAIM sell music replay equipment, no different to any other manufacturer. It should just work, and like cars, sometimes they don't, but just getting the replay basics right, is..........a basic.

Having worked in customer service for a German car marque I know how hard just getting a car to work as a customer might want can be sometimes be. 

Who knew amplifiers needed servicing?

My router died.  It went crazy for a couple of weeks before going off the cliff.  The music networking was not happy for those weeks -- not Naim's fault.  CD and LP's played fine, though.  The UQ2 is a great amp, even if you never connect it to a network.

Best of luck.

Nick