Muso QB travel use?
Posted by: Dan43 on 08 June 2016
Might be a daft question.
I travel a fair bit and also while at the old desk would like a bit more quality, for those who have purchased the Muso QB would it be ok as a take-away unit via a Laptop to play at work and while away? Maybe in a NAIM travel bag.
Assuming via Bluetooth or similar I could stream from a hard drive via Laptop, or ethernet in and get HiRes playback from same Laptop. Mac OS X on MBP, Thunderbolt 2 - Ethernet adapter.
Might go to local Audio T and test also.
Depends on your tolerance for "portability." It weighs 5.6 kg. If you're traveling by car to a summer home . . . sure. If you're traveling by air . . . seems way too big for me.
It seems that there's always a trade-off when thinking about 'travel speakers.' Size vs. sound. I don't travel with a speaker these days. If I want a little background music in my hotel room, I just move my iPhone near a wall or corner and get a slightly more expansive sound that way. My bag fills up and gets heavy, and a little speaker is just one more thing I don't need to keep track of.
Thanks Bart,
Hmm sounds a bit excessive then, but might test. It is mostly a work thing in UK while pootling about and at the desk, sounds though it isn't really a portable device but more a second room install type design.
What you need is for Naim to make a Ghetto Blaster. With a carry handle...and green LEDs.
ChrisSU posted:What you need is for Naim to make a Ghetto Blaster. With a carry handle...and green LEDs.
Ah yes back in the day. I had something like that wired up into my first car, a Ford Escort from the 70s, took a wire from the battery to power the blaster at 12v, all my mates at the time loved it, and old style cassette too.
Now I think of it I need a Sony Walkman...
Dan43 posted:ChrisSU posted:What you need is for Naim to make a Ghetto Blaster. With a carry handle...and green LEDs.
Ah yes back in the day. I had something like that wired up into my first car, a Ford Escort from the 70s, took a wire from the battery to power the blaster at 12v, all my mates at the time loved it, and old style cassette too.
Now I think of it I need a Sony Walkman...
Good idea, the current digital Walkmans are excellent - I never travel without mine.
Long time lurker, first time poster.
I bought a QB on launch day for a similar purpose to the OP's, hotel room use when travelling for work. When registering my Muso I commented that Naim might consider making some kind of travel bag available; much of what's on the market is either slightly too small or twice the size of a boxed QB. I bought a Lonsdale boxing equipment bag from a controversial sports equipment retailer's website, which is big enough for a boxed QB but won't zip up completely. Not really an issue, though, 'cos it means I can use both the box and bag handles when carrying. I have to walk my Muso the ten minutes between office and hotel twice a week, which is just about the limit of doability for me: it's a hefty lump, but I'm a weakling. The packaging isn't flimsy, but probably not specced for repeated use. I keep some gaffer tape handy for patching up the splits that are starting to appear.
I mostly use mine to play MP3s via Airplay from my iPhone, which I appreciate is probably squandering its capabilities. I tried using Bluetooth briefly but to my ears Airplay sounded appreciably better. Although I've read elsewhere on the internet that Airplay can be used in a peer-to-peer fashion like Bluetooth, I couldn't get this to work with my Muso, so needed a wireless network. I tried:
- hotel wi-fi, which failed due to the reqirement to validate logins using a browser, which the QB doesn't have;
- a travel router, piggybacking on hotel wi-fi for internet connectivity, which also failed;
- using my iPhone as a hotspot, which wasn't up to the task of simultaneously providing internet connectivity, acting as an Airplay source and controlling the QB via the Naim app.
Eventually I bought a 4G mobile wi-fi device, which allowed me to do everything I needed, i.e. use Airplay and provide internet connectivity to the QB for internet radio use. The advantage of this for a mobile Muso is that you can set it up permanently to use your personal, portable wi-fi network wherever you pitch up: to change the wi-fi network the Muso uses as you wander from location to location involves resetting it with the appropriate prodding stick, which can be a faff.
Recently I've discovered that my QB really comes alive soundwise with the volume at the 11 or 12 o'clock mark, which might not be totally compatible with hotel room use (although I haven't been complained at yet!)
Hope this helps the OP.