Upgrade - your thoughts, ideas, suggestions

Would suggest in your example to go for the 272 - so option B.

Is this a double post?

I haven't hard those combinations exactly, and probably very few people have heard both, so it'll be hard to get informed opinion. Of course, it's your ears that should decide, and given the cost you should get a reasonably extended home trial.

My GUESS is that the 272 has a more up-to-date DAC and some folks say the preamp is at least equal to the 202, so of those options, maybe go for the 272/XPS/200. You could sell the 202, NAPSC, HICAP and Unitiserve (in favour of a third party NAS) and probably fund a biggish chunk of the change.

Smog

You could add Sonos Connect (brilliant UI) and stream via optical out to Ndac for great results.

Good decision. Judging by your original post, I'm not sure if you realise that the ND5XS has a built-in DAC. Your N-DAC is a potential upgrade to this, so you could try the ND5 both direct into the 202, and  into the N-DAC, which should sound better. It will be interesting to see what you think of this compared to the simplicity of the 272 playing straight into your 200.

Hi Smog,

One of the things I have disliked about the Naim developments of the past decade has been their adoption of the Meridian philosophy of adding various bits if functionality into a box and making a product. At one point I had three Naim DACs in my system. My hope was that Naim would add a stand alone stream aggregator ("streamer") to their product line, they did but each with added functionality.

Currently there are a number of stand alone streamers available, or coming on stream (sic), from a number of companies, I would recommend trying these. Personally I would not choose the Sonos as my main listening source as I find it rather 'digital', I do use one for checking out various musical offerings via Quboz. It can be upgraded or modified using other products as documented on this forum but my experience is that this is trying to make a silk purse out of a pigs ear; I do enjoy the Sonos for what is does.

In my case I am tracking various streamers from companies such Bel Canto, Simaudio and Auralic. When my NS01 starts to give up then I will look at these, amongst others, more seriously.

If you look to add a stand-alone streamer then you can visit each other part of your system independently. I would then advise exploring a PSU for your nDAC.

M

What I'm about to say is probably heresy to hard-core audiophiles, but here it goes. You should spend your money on a superior DAC and good gear to convert/buffer/reclock USB to your DACs input requirements, not on whatever converts UPnP/DLNA to USB, which is just asynchronous, buffered bits-to-bits protocol conversion that any cheap computer can do. I've used the following successfully: 1) SOtM sMS-100 UPnP->USB server (US $499, unfortunately discontinued) into a good asynchronous, reclocking USB DAC (Schiit Audio Bifrost Uber); 2) CuBox-I (~ US $100) with Volumio (free, open-source) software connected by a good USB cable to a Bel Canto uLink USB>SPIDF (~$US 300) asynchronous converter/reclocker to DAC with a very good Nordost coax cable. 2) sounds subjectively a bit better than 1), and also subjectively better than the built-in streamer in my Unitiqute.

Why not try the Auralic Aries streaming bridge, seems ideal to me in your situation with your existing set. It has a 10uV low noise external linear power supply, "plays" up to DSD256 (also over wifi if you want), has Tidal+Qobuz support and has a really great app. compared to Naim. I have heard and played with it on several occasions for several hours and I think it sounds excellent.

I think it's about 1300 GBP.  See if you can get a demo unit.

I will buy an Auralic Aries Mini when it hits the stores, just to be able to play "all" formats, both HiRes streaming services and have a great controlling app. The future bonus will be the fact that Auralic is working on full integration of all this in Roon.  (https://roonlabs.com)

Good luck.

I started off with the UnitiServe connected directly to the Naim Dac/XPS-2 via a DC-1 cable.  I too wanted to move to streaming, so traded the Dac and XPS-2 towards an NDS and 555.  I got a really great deal; it wasn't cheap, but it was a good deal and I've been totally happy with the change for a couple of years now.

And once I was streaming at home, it enabled me to add a second system (Qute2/NAP100) in another room.