Zone streamers that are both airplay ready and Naim HDX ready

Posted by: djs1784 on 16 August 2015

I have flat earth Naim Music room/home theater set up. I also have additional zones, including a garden, which are  airplay/apple TV and Apple Home/Family sharing set up. All family members are Mac and iPhone users. HDX of course does not see all the share iTunes libraries. That was not an issue since I just ripped every CD twice: HDX and iTunes and I also have an air express on the Naim DAC in the music room. The Airplay zones are a collection of decent bookshelf  systems with small DAC's and  airport express devices. Is there a reasonably priced device that is airplay ready but would be HDX compatible so I could stream from HDX to other zones, but would not have to change the other users experience and conventions? The Mac users  would still just select a named airplay icon on their apple remote or iPhone  music but I could through some app stream to zones from the HDX.

thank you

 

 

Posted on: 17 August 2015 by ChrisSU
I think what you really need is a round Earth Naim setup! Possibly not what you want to hear, as it would no doubt require you to replace your secondary systems with  Musos or Unitiqutes, but you would end up with a great sounding, versatile multiroom setup.
Posted on: 17 August 2015 by DavidDever

Local output on the HDX cannot be synchronized to another zone, so I'd avoid using it as the pivot for other zones' user experience.

Posted on: 17 August 2015 by djs1784

Hi David,

You helped me, years back, in DVD5 days, few times with issues. So thank you again, I still do not get how HDX would, or would not, work as a server of music files it plays locally. Probably best to leave it as an academic issue. Since we are talking again, any idea where to find a used AV2? My started acting out and prompted by a bad advice of it not being serviced anymore, I gave it away. I miss it. David

Posted on: 17 August 2015 by garyi

Surely the HDX can fire out UPNP so you just need a suitable renderer, amp and speakers per room?

Posted on: 18 August 2015 by nudgerwilliams

Don't have an HDX myself, but I think you have a couple of approaches if I've understood what you are trying to achieve correctly.

 

Probably the obvious one is the mu-so.  It is airplay enabled, so your family can play to it using Airplay exactly as they do today.   I do have an mu-so at home in my study, and I think it's a fabulous thing.  I have not used Airplay much as sound quality is better with uPnP streaming, but when I have tried it seems to work fine.  I have a Zeppelin Air in the house also (which the mu-so replaced), and you can stream from a Mac, iPad etc to the mu-so and Zepp simultaneously as well as individually, so I would imagine it would co-exist nicely with your other room players.

 

The mu-so would also obviously play uPnP streamed music from your HDX.  If the HDX is the same as a UnitiServe (they run the same software) then it will support (I think) 8 simultaneous uPnP streams.  So if you have multiple mu-sos then people could play different music on each from the HDX, controlled by the naim app on their iThings (though not a Mac). 

 

What this option won't enable is the same music in sync on multiple systems (like Airplay).  You can do that with Naim's multi-room functionality but that is in the streamers not the HDX.  To make matters more confusing, mu-so does support multi-room as a client, but not a server.  You could get a UnitiQute as one of your room players, and use that as the server to mutliple mu-sos to do the multi-room thing.  But a Qute does not do Airplay so you would have one player without that functionaity.  Still with me?

 

The other option is as garyi suggests - use non-Naim uPnP / DLNA enabled music players.

 

Management summary then is get a bunch of mu-sos if you want to keep this in Naim world (and you have £895 a pop to spend).

 

 

Posted on: 18 August 2015 by djs1784

Thank you everybody. ( sorry for asking about the AV2 leads, I forgot the rules and got carried away)

The Mu-So seem very enticing. I will see where I can demo it. On the other hand, there is the tyranny of the already sunk costs. Early adopters  dilemma.