Thinking of abandoning Naim after 35 years

Hi Allen, yes I've heard the NDS but not in my system. The usual rules apply - listen for yourself in your own system.

+1

Ken

I use the same set up as Wat, who advised me along the way. The MacMini, now upgraded with an SSD and 8Gb of RAM, is used solely for music duties. I use iTunes for file management and store the files on a WD 2x4Tb HD in RAID mode. I have Audirvana 1.5 which I used to use exclusively in iTunes Integrated Mode but the SQ of iTunes has improved with Yosemite and upgrades that I can't hear much difference between them now with 16bit files. I still use Audirvana for playing high res FLAC and DSD files. I rip my CDs using a Samsung SE-208 (about £20 on Amazon).

I control the headless MacMini with Screen Share on a MacBook Pro and use the Remote App on the iPad to play music wirelessly on the Muso. 

The SQ, as a number of other forum members have heard, is very good and there are no unexpected glitches. 

If you're ever in my neck of the woods you're welcome to see and hear for yourself.

ATB

Steve

I have been using a MAC Mini for three years with vanilla iTunes.

I use the DAC V!. It is considerably more enjoyable than my best system from years back including a CDS 2 and 52 ...

I was never convinced by the streaming solutions of either Linn or Naim, though without question the sonic quality is there. But the user point of contact always seemed impossible when considering classical music. 

By a process of evolution I went from a second hand PC with Windows 98 and a £100 no-name USB DAC to where I am now, and I have reached a happy resting place.

It will soon be two years [end of the month] till I have had the V1 and NAP 100 and almost three years since the MAC. The ESLs slightly longer ...

Never been happier with my replay. I sense a resting place that will be based on how long these components last!

ATB from George

Yosemite upgrade, a crock of SH1T to say the least!

I always thought it a bit odd to put the streaming circuitry in with the DAC to create e.g. the NDX or the NDS.  Must add some unwanted electrical noise in the box. Streaming digital data is commodity stuff so why not use a commodity computer to do it?  Suggest @AllenB uses his NDS as a DAC with e.g. a Mac Mini and bypasses the Naim streaming limitations.

Expensive DAC Noogle!

A very good suggestion for testing the Mac route. Whenever I've done it, it's always reminded me just how much more musically involving the UnitiServe is vs a Mac. I imagine that Allen's NS server might be even better.

That can't be so, but we should bypass that religious argument to avoid spiralling into the "bits are bits" black hole.

Ken, don't beat about the bush. Say what you really mean!! 

The Linn apps (Kinsky, Kazoo) are not perfect in my opinion too. There used to be an ecosystem of 3rd party apps (Chorus DS, Songbook, PlugPlayer), which were quite good, but it seems their businesses were effectively ended by Linn when they gave away Kinsky for free. And I still think iPeng for Squeezebox was the best app I've ever used for controlling my music.

BUT the Linn apps work, Songcast is great, streaming is elegant and sounds so good that I would never want to go back to CD replay or have a (more or less clunky) PC in the living room. And Linn have shown some foresight in so far as all models have supported 24/192 from the beginning and one can still use the current firmware with their first streamer from 2007 AFAIK.

That's the point. Nowadays hardware and storage capabilities are terrific but most of the apps which are thrown at the market are embarrassingly poor. From the point of view of software design, nowadays apps are often worse than ncurses-based programs which have been around for more than a decade. Their lack of customizability is insulting. I am convinced that the main reason why streaming has become so popular is that many people find iPhones, iPads and the likes really cool devices. And not even God knows why this is so, I guess. Best, nbpf 

And that is why I have made my decision.

Naim supplied us a make do and mend offering to appease the old customers with old tech and little room to advance . i have now decided to move to a Forward thinking company that produces a product based on a proven and improving platform from a company that doesn't see the future in mega bucks amplifiers, or an over engineered sound bar, because the parent company has , in my opinion prioritised its future developments..

Naim audio is no longer a British company... It's DNA yes absolutely.. It's future is firmly French from a company that makes mediocre Speakers .. What have things come to ?..

regards

ingenius

iTunes with AIFF on a MAC is rather nice with a good DAC. Good user interface too.

Keep it simple [to use]!

ATB from George

I would add that another advantage of the computer route is that you can run room correction. I use Dirac Live; Naim also uses it in the Bently audio system, and find it excellent. Best value upgrade to my system by far.

Thank you very much for this Paulin ! Exactly what I need as I have a SqueezeBox Touch in a second system. I'll look into this.

Or run a SBT into the Naim DAC.

currently listening to Tidal through my Naim system via ickstream.

through the iPeng interface.

really the Naim app and functionality is so far behind the curve one would worry and hope Niam wont go the way of Nokia.

SJB

Thanks to everyone who has shown an interest in this post.  A couple of comments from me as the OP.

First, there are quite a few posts along the lines of 'well I can select and play tracks with the app, so the problem must be with you / your upnp / something else'.  I'm sure these are sincere and well intentioned views, but I feel they miss the point I am making.  Contrary to some of the amusing and occasionally patronising jibes I'm pretty computer literate and I am perfectly capable of using n-stream to select songs and play my music.  That doesn't make it a good app.  As I said in a previous post, we pay for a premium product and it's a shame we get a second rate app to operate it.

Second, I've learned that I can change the name of unnp to something more meaningful and I will do that.  It will still be a second rate app afterwards, but it will be a small irk resolved.  I have sometimes coached my colleagues that if you try and supplement a strong argument with a weak one, the distraction will be counter-productive.  I need to listen to my own advice.

Third, thanks to a few of you who have posted very balanced and thoughtful replies and taken the trouble to get to the heart of my complaint, especially those who think that abandoning Naim is the wrong choice to make.  Maybe the freedom and control that comes with streaming really is just an illusion and the complexities of storage, networks, interfaces and apps means we are never going to get the quality and flexibility we want - with any system.  Still, there are apps available that deal with similar complexities very very effectively so I have to live in hope.

Finally, a special mention to Southweststokie for a balanced and thoughtful reply AND for knowing what Ram 150s are.  I'd forgotten the ABR terminology but thanks for reminding me.  Am I right in saying the speakers had KEF tweeters as well?  Those Ram 150s really stood the test of time - three times I went back to Studio 99 with the speakers and declared I was looking to replace them, and three times they sent me home with something different - a new arm and cartridge for the Linn, an auxiliary power supply for the amp, the Valhalla upgrade for the Linn.  The Ram's were never the weakest link.

Not sure I agree that Naim don't deserve a bit of blame about the app though.  True, their budget must be small, but all the more reason to think creatively.  Open source.  Strategic alliance with an existing product.  Even a more thoughtful starting brief - the functionality and ease of use was better on the old app than it is on the new one.  Naim can't be blameless for that can they?

On the contrary, that's exactly what I would expect. We buy tons of iPads and iPhones because it's cool. And we buy iMacs because we need iTunes: without iTunes, iPads and iPhones are just bricks. We do not care that to get data on a USB stick into our iCraps we have first to transfer the data to an iMac or PC and from there (if iTunes likes the data we want to transfer) into the iCrap. Why should Apple care about a crap OS if we do not ? 

Dunstan, I do not think that streaming gives you more freedom or control than a solution based on a MPD client-server architecture where the server is directly connected to a DAC and the client runs on a control device of your choice.

I also do not think that streaming is inherently more complex or less reliable than a system based on an MPD server or on a mac mini running a player of your choice: when I was testing streaming (before settling on a MPD-based solution) I managed to set up a UPnP server (minidlna) and connect a client in about half an hour. It was then running for months and I never had troubles with the server.

The reason why I decided not to adopt a streaming solution were definitely not complexity or reliability concerns. It's just that I wanted to avoid cables and that I found Naim's streaming solutions inadequate: I could not understand, for instance, why Naim was not offering a bare streamer (that is, a plain UPnP client device without a DAC on board) to be used as a source for their well established nDAC. Furthermore, I had the impression that Naim streaming solutions implied quite a lot of redundancies in device components. And I was looking for a system with no or minimal redundancies.

After about two years with a MPD based solution, I do not see any point in streaming. Even if I was interested in multi-room replay, I would put a small fanless computer (much smaller than a Naim streamer) running an MPD server in every room. These servers could access local copies of my music collection on external USB drives (storage, even SSD, is meanwhile very cheap and I would have as many backups as servers or rooms) and I could control all them from the same MPD client: no wires, no switches, no data transfer over the network during replay. I would keep the local copies of my music collection in sync with a simple rsync script.

Best,

nbpf

I am admittedly a Naim neophyte but moved up to a Nait 5si after wasting way too much money on other gear that just didn't do it for me. I never understood the premium Naim garnered until I finally moved to a city where I could audition the brand.  I get it now and would be reluctant to let it go over a user interface issue in a segment of our industry that changes at seemingly "the speed of light".  

I have just begun to gather information to try and make a decision on computer audio, streaming audio, NAS, AIFF, FLAC, WAV, MP3, ALAC, PCM, DSD, tagging, ripping........Tidal, Spotify, Beats, Quobuz, Deezer, JRiver, iOS, PC......that's a lot of competing standards to bring together on a platform. 

i have been on the manufacturing side of the consumer electronics business for over 30 years, a hi-fi aficionado and almost-audiophile for more time than that. I've been around long enough to know there is no such thing as UPNP (universal plug and play) and grimace every time SONOS loses a connection and won't stream.  UPNP is an illusion that should work in theory but just because the gear can talk to each other, it doesn't mean they communicate well.  Each has a slight dialect of the same language as it presents theor user interface to the consumer.  Manufacturers push the envelop of how much they can add because they can, not because it is useful.  

Changes continue in this segment at a pace that most brands can't sustain. I hope Naim keeps their focus on the music while moving steadily forward with streaming. I applaud Naim's partnership with Spotify. They didn't try to build an advanced system on their own (or did they?).  I can add high quality computer audio and streaming functionality from any number of companies.  But I'll bet Apple can't make a great sounding, musical amplifier.  I've owned some pretty nice gear but none have communicated the nuance with PRaT like the 5si.   I'll surely purchase more Naim but for now I am a neophyte with entry level Naim, but now that I get it, I hope Naim keeps their focus on why most buy it. 

And while we are there.

Standard APIs for streaming services so that hardware makers don't have to build interfaces for each and every provider.

CORRECTION  - Reference the RAM 150's. That was J. N's excellent post, not mine, I was merely agreeing with J N's statement that you could go out and buy a decent CD player rather than suffer all the confusion that streaming appears to cause for some forum members, myself included.

Ken

Absolutely Greg. I didn't mention it in my previous post but I also use the Dirac built into Amarra iRC. It's really good!

MikeT, UPnP is a library  of functions and DLNA / UPnP is subset of those functions optimised for audio and video streaming.

A common mis understanding is that UPnP means plug and play at an application level.. It doesn't, although the DLNA profile goes some way to specifically address app interoperability. The UPnP term here refers to inter connectivity at the network and and lower layer protocol/function level. Here it is plug and play, as you can see devices registering and discovering each other (when monitoring the network). 

However succesful user operation is down to the application design and the implementation of the UPnP functions chosen for a particular task.

An example of a very succesful consumer system using its application software on top of UPnP is Sonos. It's probably fair to say that is plug and play at the application level as well the network level within the context of a Sonos system.

Simon