Thinking of abandoning Naim after 35 years

Posted by: Dunstan on 05 February 2015

Virtually all my musical audio pleasure since leaving University has had Naim pre- and power- amplification in it, from a Sondek driving a 42-110 combo in 1985 (then another 42-110 when the first one got stolen) Then an CDX2, XPS2, 202, 250-2, NAPSC, HICAP2, subsequently upgraded to HDX with DAC in place of the CDX2. Now a SuperUniti graces a small second property.

It's all lovely stuff and it is a privilege to be able to afford it and enjoy it. My daughter inherited the 42-110 and still sounds good sitting at the back end of her apple mac and driving my ancient Ram 150 speakers.

By any standard I have been a faithful advocate of Naim hifi for over 30 years, but now I'm just about getting to the end of my tether and I am seriously thinking of heading for a different 'manufakturer'. The sad thing is this frustration has nothing at all to do with hardware, no, it's that irritating little interface called n-stream that acts as a constant and frustrating barrier between my 400 albums and being able to listen to them.

There is plenty of screen 'real estate', even on my iPad mini, so why can't I have an omnipresent area for controls (volume and input), a playlist, the album list and some info on the current album? Why do I have to press un named buttons in the corner for the screen to flip over, or swipe left and right to swap from upnp to the television? Why is my music collection even called upnp, my wife has no idea what this means? Why can't I random play my whole music collection, or just my chosen genre or artist? Why were all these things better on the previous version of n-stream than they are on the new version? There are plenty of fantastic little music player apps out there so why is Naim creating rubbish software from scratch when an alliance that leverages someone else's skills would be simpler and provide a better result?

My wife is no technophobe - she plans London journeys with Citymapper (just about the best app you can imagine), reads the news on Flipboard and trades shares on the HL app. However, without me there she never listens to our own music on the SuperUniti because she can't figure out the n-stream app - she just puts on Radio Paradise from the remote control.

Isn't that just a ridiculous situation? Naim products have an enviable reputation for revealing the music, but the software is doing its best to hide it.

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by Jan-Erik Nordoen

Originally Posted by hafler3o:

Originally Posted by Jan-Erik Nordoen:

... but still not as musically engaging as my repackaged PC...

That will be the Bryston 'house sound' coming though loud and clear!

Which leads me to wonder what ultimately determines the *house sound*. One is Windows, the other Linux. One runs Digify, the other MPD. Is it the hardware, the firmware, a combination, or simply implementation?

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by PhilP

Originally Posted by andarkian:

Originally Posted by PhilP:

Devialet have announced a box similar to the one that nbpf describes. Called "Dialog" it provides a mesh network to link their Phantom active speakers, and together with their "Spark" control app supports streaming from hard drives and on-line music services. It is rumoured to use i.MX ARM-designed chips for core processing. Knowing Devialet I would expect the hardware implementation and sound quality to be excellent but would also expect some interesting early s/w 'features'.

To quote Devialet 'Dialog is entirely evolutive and continually upgrades itself to remain the best acoustic pleasure center imaginable'. i.e. updates are handled automatically on-line.

Deliveries start this month. The price .... €299

He! He! I mentioned the Devialet Phantom much earlier as I believe it presents an image of future high end audio. Personally, I think that all the stuff about who is streaming what and all the protocols involved is so much smoke.

Apparently the UK launch of Phantom presumably with Dialog and Spark is going to be held in Harrods at 10:00 am this Friday 13th February.

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by hungryhalibut

Originally Posted by PhilP:

To quote Devialet 'Dialog is entirely evolutive and continually upgrades itself to remain the best acoustic pleasure center imaginable'. i.e. updates are handled automatically on-line.

Deliveries start this month. The price .... €299

Evolutive? What sort of stupid word is that?

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by PhilP

Originally Posted by PhilP:

Originally Posted by Hungryhalibut:

Evolutive? What sort of stupid word is that?

I thought it must be a bad translation from the French évolutif but several (on-line) dictionaries list it as a real word and you can use it in scrabble

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by Huge

Originally Posted by Hungryhalibut:

Evolutive? What sort of stupid word is that?

Mis-translation from French?

Just like the modern use of 'Performant' (a mis-translation attributable to Jacque Villeneuve)

Used correctly the word refers to one such as a street performer or circus artist and is similar in use to the word informant.

They've both been adopted into English.

It's been said that English doesn't so much borrow from other languages,as pursue them down alleyways hit them over their head and rifle their pockets for new vocabulary.

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by nbpf

Originally Posted by Noogle:

@nbpf -

Also, once you open the box up to adding additional programs/applications/browsers etc. it would become a support nightmare.

I disagree: all Naim would need to do is to certify the box for one open source distribution. This is easy to do, costs almost nothing, implies virtually no support responsabilities and provides Naim with a flexible, stable and open system on the box side. With no memory or whatsoever limitations and with a rich set of tools. And Naim could take advantage of those tools to interface to their renderers and to their control applications. I honestly do not see any disadvantage for Naim from pursuing such strategy. And I am afraid that their current approach will lead to a dead end.

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by hungryhalibut

Come to think of it, the 'best acoustic pleasure center imaginable' puts 'evolutive' in the shade. Someone gets paid to come up with this nonsense.

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by Simon-in-Suffolk

Nbpf, I agree, I would also, if not a dead end, it will consume more resources to develop that Naim can economically provide..

Simon

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by Bananahead

Originally Posted by Hungryhalibut:

Evolutive? What sort of stupid word is that?

adjective

relating to, tending to, or promoting evolution

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by GraemeH

I'm none the wiser myself. I don't understand what is actually being proposed.

Meanwhile I'm feeling horribly spoilt by the Sonos Connect integrated search and very good sound quality from an extensive Qobuz lossless library.

Could I go backwards now I wonder...?

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by nbpf

Originally Posted by Jan-Erik Nordoen:

Originally Posted by hafler3o:

Originally Posted by Jan-Erik Nordoen:

... but still not as musically engaging as my repackaged PC...

That will be the Bryston 'house sound' coming though loud and clear!

Jan-Erik, I very much hope that my nDAC and my SN2 make the "house sound", but I might be wrong, of course. And if Naim would come up with an open box I would certainly check it against my current system. Best, nbpf

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by PhilP

Originally Posted by Hungryhalibut:

Come to think of it, the 'best acoustic pleasure center imaginable' puts 'evolutive' in the shade. Someone gets paid to come up with this nonsense.

Yep, I believe its a US-based marketing company called J.B. Stanton Communications...

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by Bart

Originally Posted by Hungryhalibut:

Originally Posted by PhilP:

To quote Devialet 'Dialog is entirely evolutive and continually upgrades itself to remain the best acoustic pleasure center imaginable'. i.e. updates are handled automatically on-line.

Deliveries start this month. The price .... €299

Evolutive? What sort of stupid word is that?

And I know where my "pleasure centers" are and no bit of hi fi kit is getting close to them.

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by likesmusic

I wonder if Focal are wishing they had bought Devialet instead...

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by nbpf

Originally Posted by Noogle:

Having said that, I imagine Naim has made a lot of money out of the UnitiServe, which is just a repackaged PC running Windows (XP) Embedded and Digify.

As regards "poor quality SPDIF" from commodity PCs - if you choose e.g. SPDIF optical you have great electrical noise isolation and the output jitter doesn't matter since an asynchronous DAC has its own master clock. Similarly, USB and electrical SPDIF inputs have galvanic isolation in most DACs. I know this is heresy and the naked Emperor will have me beheaded, so I shall stop forthwith.

Noogle, I agree one can quite easily setup a decent system from commodity parts. I am now settled on a very stable MPD based system I am quite happy with. I am not interested in whatsoever streaming and do not personally care which functionalities can be added to the NDS firmware. But I do care about usability and customizability in general and the control applications I have seen so far, no matter whether open source or proprietary, are quite disappointing: as George has pointed out, if you are interested in classical music, what is currently available is barely usable. And old open source clients like ncmpcpp or gmcp are conceptually more advanced than Naim's current control applications. At a certain point I was hoping Naim would tackle this problem but meanwhile I doubt the company has even recognized it.

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by Simon-in-Suffolk

Well despite what some people most insistently say, I find a clean highly stable clock for a digital source sounds best irrespective of the DAC's de jitter capability. i have still yet to hear a zero cross talk de jitter capability other than in science fiction. Cascaded decoupled reclocking can get close though.

Simon

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by andarkian

Originally Posted by PhilP:

Originally Posted by andarkian:

Originally Posted by PhilP:

To quote Devialet 'Dialog is entirely evolutive and continually upgrades itself to remain the best acoustic pleasure center imaginable'. i.e. updates are handled automatically on-line.

Deliveries start this month. The price .... €299

Apparently the UK launch of Phantom presumably with Dialog and Spark is going to be held in Harrods at 10:00 am this Friday 13th February.

Yep am looking forward to seeing all of that at the Bristol HiFi show in a couple of weeks. Heard their 110 and 200 stuff for the first time at last year's show and was very impressed. Someone said that Focal should have bought Devialet, I suspect that it might end up the other way round if they could actually be bothered.

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by Jan-Erik Nordoen

Originally Posted by Bart:

And I know where my "pleasure centers" are and no bit of hi fi kit is getting close to them.

Too late Bart, you directly stimulate your acoustic pleasure centre every time you press play... I've not (to my knowledge) heard cascaded decoupled reclocking, but I'm always open to try something new.

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by Clive B

Originally Posted by Adam Meredith:

Originally Posted by Clive B:

...... I saw and heard Tidal through a Linn streamer. This is what I want from my NDS!

Why, when you were buying, didn't you buy a Linn streamer?

There was nothing really to persuade me to step away from my allegiance to Naim Audio. Linn has only recently offered Tidal as far as I'm aware. I would like to enjoy that facility (the large musical library, the user interface and the audio quality) through my NDS. Linn can do it, so will my NDS be able to do this soon too?

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by MikeT.

Originally Posted by andarkian:

Originally Posted by PhilP:

Originally Posted by andarkian:

Originally Posted by PhilP:

To quote Devialet 'Dialog is entirely evolutive and continually upgrades itself to remain the best acoustic pleasure center imaginable'. i.e. updates are handled automatically on-line.

Deliveries start this month. The price .... €299

Apparently the UK launch of Phantom presumably with Dialog and Spark is going to be held in Harrods at 10:00 am this Friday 13th February.

I am thinking that some level of cooperation is being made between Devialet and Naim. Focal, Naim, Devialet and Cambridge Audio were sharing a very large display space at the CEDIA show last year. The gentleman I spoke to from Focal told me they were in a "process of review" of all of their Naim dealers in North America. I suspect they are doing the same worldwide. I believe they are all using the same distributor in North America.

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by Simon-in-Suffolk

Future of high end HiFi.. I think not... Apparently uses ethernet over Powerline... Instantly smacks of lifestyle electronics and convienience over scrupulous quality and musical replay insight to me.. I can't help thinking it's aimed more at the Bose user... and good luck to them.. but it clearly is not a Naim...

Simon

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by andarkian

Originally Posted by Simon-in-Suffolk:

Simon

Simon, ease up on those prejudices mate. If you would have a look at the technical documentation of the Devialet Phantom you will see that they have done a huge amount of work on reducing the signal paths and wiring within their hardware, something that should whet your appetite for technical exploration. Mind you, no idea what it sounds like yet myself ��

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by Simon-in-Suffolk

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by zincalloy62

Originally Posted by Simon-in-Suffolk:

Simon

Simon - not entirely accurate. Powerline is only one of the 3 networking technologies supported - the others being dual-band wi-fi and Ethernet. Uniquely, all 3 can be active at the same time, minimising drop outs and providing a level of streaming flexibility that I haven't seen from any other manufacturer.

As an ex-Linn tri-Aktiv customer who swapped 6 Linn boxes for a single Devialet 200, let me be very clear that this is not aimed at the Bose user. It is squarely aimed at music lovers who appreciate very high quality sound without faffing around with cables, power supplies, power cables, "special" hi-fi racks ......and all those other distractions that audiophiles seem to love ....

Just my tuppence worth - can't wait for my Dialog to arrive!

ATB, Ken

Posted on: 09 February 2015 by Simon-in-Suffolk

Ok fair do's let's reserve judgement until we can hear it.. Its just seen to many issues from Powerline adapters and disturbing emission test reports from that technology that make it hard to keep an open mind... I must try harder. If Devialet have found a way to mitigate the conducted and radiated RF EM emissions and the corresponding intermodulation distortions to minutely low levels to the extent it becomes undetectable on a highly transparent wide band audio system, I suspect they will make far more money elsewhere rather than in manufacturing consumer Hifi.

Simon