Naim streaming fundamentally flawed?

I paid a fair amount for the hi-fi (ND5XS + Nait XS-2 + Spendor SP2s) and peanuts for the network (NAS £160, Switch £25, Cables £25, Ferrites £15), and it all failed just the once - when I forgot to restart the NAS after being away on holiday.

And no I don't blame Naim for that.

So Woodsman, don't know if you've put me in the advice or sneer camp, but I'm really interested to know if you've wired your UQ according to the manual and if it works already? If not, just tell and we'll see if we can help you further.

Hi Woodsman,

Sorry to hear you are having these frustrations. Reaching out to the Naim community should be a positive experience, but it is not always the case.

In my experience, the 'please wait, input initialising' message occurs when the Naim is trying to connect to something, and it can't. As many posters have suggested, your network is likely to be at the root of your problems. Of course, identifying which part(s) of it is causing the issues can be much more difficult that we would like.

My suggestion for troubleshooting is to start with the simplest hard-wired setup and see how that performs first.

Turn off your laptop, UQ and router. Connect your laptop to your router, and connect your UQ to the router.

Turn on the router and wait a couple of minutes for it to boot up. Now turn on your laptop, and when it has finished booting, turn on your UQ. Make sure your UQ is set to connect over wired network. You are already using Asset as your UPnP server, which is is a reliable server.

Next try browsing your music using the remote control (this uses the UQ's built-in UPnP client, rather than an external app, so is the simplest most reliable way to connect).

If it connects ok and you can browse and stream your music, leave it running like this to see if it is reliable over a period of time (try choosing different albums/tracks, and see if there are issues playing them. If there are, bear in mind this could also signify a corrupt file). Also, try switching back and forth between UPnP and other inputs to see if it reconnects to the UPnP server ok.

Another test is to restart the laptop while the UQ is connected. This will often cause the renderer (your UQ) difficulties in reconnecting, and you may see the input initialising message. I find this is not an issue with my music on a NAS because it doesn't switch off.   

If you can try these things in a methodical way, you will learn a lot about what works reliably. If you get problems even with this simple wired setup, I would speak to Naim directly.

Best regards and good luck

@Streamz

Incidentally, the manual for the brand new mu-so does not contain any information about setting up your home network, nor does it describe what to do if things do not work as planned. RTFM won't help you here i'm afraid.

Tony_W, he has a UQ, not a mu-so. In the mean time I checked the manual, and the manual clearly described the Ethernet setup. Direct connection with a CAT5 cable is not even suggested. 

So I'm afraid it really is a case of RTFM. 

Maybe not so much reading the manual, but understanding what it says .......

The Quick Start sheet..........

1.7 - To play audio from internet radio stations, UPnP™ servers, Spotify®Connect, or other Naim streamer units the UnitiQute 2 must be connected to the internet via a network router.

Either connect the UnitiQute 2 network socket to your network router using an Ethernet cable, or connect the supplied Wi-Fi antenna to the rear panel Wi-Fi aerial socket.

The Manual .............

2.9.1 - Wired Network Connection
UnitiQute 2 is fitted on its rear panel with a standard RJ45 Ethernet socket. This socket enables UnitiQute 2 to join home networks via a network router to access internet radio data streams or to play audio files stored on appropriately configured UPnP™ servers.

If the music files are stored on a PC/Laptop,  then that PC must have a suitable UPnP Media Server installed - Asset, Minimserver, Plex etc

The most basic wired connection method is shown in Linn Docs

I suspect the issue that started this thread, is that people buy a Naim, or any other manufacturers device, to take care of local and internet streaming, because they don't want to deal with the whole computer, teccy, networky stuff.  Unfortunately, understanding these things is necessary to a degree whether using a hifi streamer, a MAC, Sonos, blah etc.  All I know about UPnP is how to spell it, and have never used it.  Therefore it might seem strange that a PC resides in my main system dedicated to streaming.  And weirdly the fact that I've bypassed the whole UPnP thing, may just be the secret to it's amazing reliability and trouble free music delivery.

My network consists of...

Netgear ADSL Router

TP-Link Switch

Netgear ReadyNAS

Some CAT6 Cables

Two PCs - one desktop, one dedicated to streaming

With the media PC connected directly to a DAC-V1, and hard wired to the network via CAT6 to the switch, I've never had a single failure, dropout, need for a reboot, in a year and a half.

I invited the OP earlier in the thread to describe his 'directly to the laptop' connection, but he hasn't been back.  I could be pretty confident that in that setup his problem lies.

Already discovered that, his direct connection was a Cat5 cable. Which will not work with any streaming device from any brand. Hence my rtfm comment.

When I first set up the streaming system with the UQ we were having real issues with it and the Vortexbox. The whole network period. Finally switched carriers, and then got the local phone company to come out. Lo and behold the phone line from the house to the pole was hanging on by literally a strand. When the wind would blow just right it would sway and we'd lose the internet connection. Naim's fault? 

So like the others have said here set up a solid network connection with switch and NAS and then all will be good. And then feel free to moan about the sub standard control point software, as it is the one thing that is truly Naim's fault. Their hardware for the most part is pretty rock solid. 

Which I think is a problem, people can buy Naim streamers and not know how they work, and although to me it would seems easy, I know my Dad wouldn't have a clue, even though he loves his Hi Fi.

I may be mistaken, but when I was wondering whether to go Linn or Naim, I was pretty sure Linn dealers would set up their products. I think perhaps the dealers ought to offer more advice on this. 

My Naim dealer will install, set up, troubleshoot and give advice on all aspects of home networking infrastructure. They feel it's an area they have to be in, not just for Naim products, because sub optimal set up and/or flakiness here will undermine the whole user experience and cause dissatisfaction. I don't think they are an exception or the rule, but there's bound to be some variance in this area. Even Naim HQ will troubleshoot and give support on equipment which has got nothing to do with them. This is leading by example and I'm sure most dealers do embrace this attitude. As time goes on, any who don't will stick out in sharp relief. 

As far as the OP goes; frustrating as it obviously is, the cause is most likely not poor implementation of a ubiquitous platform and a dealer or Naim HQ will probably be happy to help. As has been pointed out, user manuals and additional information on networking are included with the products and can be downloaded. Lots of help out there and a fix is certain.

I agree with the comment above that the control point software is of a poor standard. But that doesn't seem to be the issue here.

That sound lubricious. It would be funny if it hadn't wasted so much of your time. I hope the purchase was from a different dealer. I had one brush with what I considered to be a rather slap dash Naim dealer. I moved on fast. They don't stock Naim any more.

Pev,

Unfortunately, like all businesses, dealerships come, go, and sometimes change hands.  The service you describe that your friend received was sheer incompetence, either on the part of the dealership as a whole or possibly just on the part of the one individual concerned.  If repeated, the culprit should pay the price of such incompetence.

In respect of the 'All Mac' excuse, they should educate themselves as MACs only account for about 5% of the PC sales market.

Apple have 13% in the US. They are the third largest brand, behind HP and Dell.

I have also had poor experience with Naim streaming at a dealer. The App on the tablet they were using for control had all the meta-data mixed, so you couldn't play what you wanted to hear. It was essentially random. Killed any interest I had in a streaming solution right there and then. Reading about the twonky nightmare of the laughably-named UPnP experience and poor usability of control systems on this forum has maintained my resolve to not go go near it for a long time.

Hi Winky,

It may be 13% in the US, but it's still 5% globally (incidentally I was talking about sales numbers not revenue).

Sorry you've been put off by someone who made things unnecessarily complicated.  If you don't like the issues with the apps, use the remote control instead; it works very reliably.  I also find it easier than storing hundreds of physical CDs and then rifling through them to find the one you want to play.

The hardware set-up isn't really a problem either, a NAS (non-Twonky!) a switch and three Ethernet cables (NAS to switch, switch to streamer and switch to your broadband router).

You are of course most welcome to keep all your bits of plastic (whichever colour they are!).

You think that's bad. It's much worse here in Switzerland. Over 25% I think.

I wonder how it correlates with gun ownership....

Back to the original question. NO!

What we have hear is a interesting convergence of Hi-Fi with computing and home networking, which does introduce a level of complexity never experienced before for manufacturers and dealers.

Naim made the correct choice in opting to go with an industry standard in UPnP/DLNA. It may not be perfect, but it does work. They could have decided to "boil the ocean" and invent their own, but that approach is littered with failures across many industries.

The trouble is "industry standards" are open to interpretation which can result in some challenges.

The networking side is totally outside of Naim's control, but given a decent network all will be OK.

Based on this Forum and the advice of Naim support, I went for Asset running on QNAP.  I already had a decent network and my experience was completely seamless and trouble free.

As for dealer support, when I enquired about ND5XS, he quizzed me about UPnP and my Network. I didn't need his support, but I was confident he could help if required.

I should say that the dealership I condemned is great at setting up LP12s but has consisently failed to convince me over a number of years and on more than one occasion that they have any clue about networks and streaming yet they sell Naim streaming products at full list price. Luckily I am an information systems specialist so I can look after myself but I now deal with James at Tomtom even though he is around 100 miles away.

In my view the OP's problems and 99% of the other issues raised on this Forum are the result of incompetent, inadequate and indolent dealers, There is no way anyone should pay full list price for a Naim product and not have it working to their satisfaction in their own homes.

Naim really do need to address this issue - they don't let all dealers sell Statement; they shouldn't let network incompetent dealers sell streaming products.

Wow and i only wanted to listen to the new Aphex Twin album!

Apologies if i came over as something a twerp over the weekend. I had reached the end of my tether as you might have realised. I’m calm now and would like to thanks everyone for their thoughts & input.

RTFM is now part of my vocabulary….i do feel somewhat foolish, it seems a little bit of knowledge is indeed a dangerous thing.

In my defence over the years I have had the system set up correctly and still suffered connection problems both wired & wirelessly. I did have a NAS drive which contained several terabytes of music, which died.  So I uploaded my online purchase directly to the laptop as a stop gap solution whilst I gathered the will to rip several thousand CD’s again. BTW did you know there are NAS drives and there are NAS drives, apparently the Western Digital version I purchased is not satisfactory, not all upnp servers are born equal it seems…anyway I digress.

So I plugged qute into lappy and the thing appeared to work. When I went into the menu via the remote it seemed that because the connection was wired the wireless streaming automatically switched off. So I thought that plugging in directly seemed to be working, there was music and everything….sounds stupid writing it down but that was the process.

For the time being I’m going to stick to wireless. It’s not convenient to have router, laptop, qute & speakers all in the same location (18 month year old boys do enjoy sticking pens into stuff).

My stupidity apart I still feel (as do a few posters) that these systems need to be more user friendly, I just want stuff to work. Without having to buy a reliable NAS, switch, server……

certainly cant blame my dealer, they have been very helpful when called upon. Maybe its partly the blokes dont ask for directions metanlity at work, and i should have asked a lot sooner.  

Sorry Woodsman, nothing personal and my highlight - but having not seen this descriptor in a long, long time and having read the book ages ago, I had to share what has to be one of the greatest invented definitions of all time.  

"In the novel 'Jailbird' by Kurt Vonnegut, the narrator claims the original definition (of a twerp) to be 'one who bites the bubbles of their own farts in the bathtub'. 

Glad you have calmed down, have tunes and aren't doing the twerp thing anymore - nasty business. 

Cheers and we're all glad you're feeling better!  I hope that you get satisfactory service out of the wireless connection.  If you exhibit drop-outs, well, such is often the case with wireless.  You may be able to optimize your wifi and improve it, if needed.  If you are using the isp's home hub modem/router for wifi, adding in a more robust wifi source such as from Ubiquiti (they are on Amazon) you might yet avoid having to run ethernet cable.  And depending on the construction of your home, it might be less expensive than you think to pay an installer to run the ethernet cable.  Good luck!