Introducing Uniti, our revolutionary new streaming platform.

"It goes without saying that users that take advantage of 2) would have no rights to enjoy support from Naim"

I'm not even sure that this is legally possible under consumer law.

"But, of course, it would be nice if Naim would share part of what they have learned on open source systems with the open source community."

Why? Why should Naim give away very valuable IP to its commercial competitors?

jon honeyball posted:

Why? Why should Naim give away very valuable IP to its commercial competitors?

Open source software is not license free. Most licenses follow the copyleft principle, which is to say you must offer the same license/right to the modifications you have made down the line. Where private use is allowed it's nearly always for internal or non commercial purposes.

jon honeyball posted:

"But, of course, it would be nice if Naim would share part of what they have learned on open source systems with the open source community."

Why? Why should Naim give away very valuable IP to its commercial competitors?

Because of two reasons: the first one is that they cannot really prevent competitors to have a close look at the way they have optimized the open source GNU/Linux system that the Core relies upon if these wish to do so. Thus, there is no real advantage in not sharing. The second and most important reason is that by making their findings available to the community that has developed the Core's GNU/Linux system, they will be able to take full advantage of that very same community, e.g. for to spotting and correcting software errors, closing potential security holes, implementing exploratory solutions, etc. Of course, making Naim's own software developments open source may or may not be meaningful, depending on the specific software considered.    

nbpf posted:

jon honeyball posted:

"But, of course, it would be nice if Naim would share part of what they have learned on open source systems with the open source community."

Why? Why should Naim give away very valuable IP to its commercial competitors?

Because of two reasons: the first one is that they cannot really prevent competitors to have a close look at the way they have optimized the open source GNU/Linux system that the Core relies upon if these wish to do so. Thus, there is no real advantage in not sharing. The second and most important reason is that by making their findings available to the community that has developed the Core's GNU/Linux system, they will be able to take full advantage of that very same community, e.g. for to spotting and correcting software errors, closing potential security holes, implementing exploratory solutions, etc. Of course, making Naim's own software developments open source may or may not be meaningful, depending on the specific software considered.    

I know that nbpf is only replying to a reply to him so I'm not singling him out and jumping on him ...

It's been raised by a couple of forum members that this particular discussion is just going round in circles and is swamping any others so, as I believe that we have covered the points that nbpf has raised, can we consider this particular branch all discussed out, have a group hug and carry on with any other questions.

Cheers

Phil

Phil Harris posted:

nbpf posted:

jon honeyball posted:

"But, of course, it would be nice if Naim would share part of what they have learned on open source systems with the open source community."

Why? Why should Naim give away very valuable IP to its commercial competitors?

Because of two reasons: the first one is that they cannot really prevent competitors to have a close look at the way they have optimized the open source GNU/Linux system that the Core relies upon if these wish to do so. Thus, there is no real advantage in not sharing. The second and most important reason is that by making their findings available to the community that has developed the Core's GNU/Linux system, they will be able to take full advantage of that very same community, e.g. for to spotting and correcting software errors, closing potential security holes, implementing exploratory solutions, etc. Of course, making Naim's own software developments open source may or may not be meaningful, depending on the specific software considered.    

I know that nbpf is only replying to a reply to him so I'm not singling him out and jumping on him ...

It's been raised by a couple of forum members that this particular discussion is just going round in circles and is swamping any others so, as I believe that we have covered the points that nbpf has raised, can we consider this particular branch all discussed out, have a group hug and carry on with any other questions.

Cheers

Phil

Amen to that!

Phil Harris posted:

Guy007 posted:

Phil, can you confirm what the Ethernet speed is on the range 10/100 or 10/100/1000 ?

Atom, Star and Nova are 10/100, Core is 10/100/1000...

Phil

thanks Phil

Guy007 posted:

Phil Harris posted:

Guy007 posted:

Phil, can you confirm what the Ethernet speed is on the range 10/100 or 10/100/1000 ?

Atom, Star and Nova are 10/100, Core is 10/100/1000...

Phil

thanks Phil

So no change there from the existing Uniti and Unitiserve. I can't imagine the lack of Gigabit capacity would be a problem - perhaps it even helps - to quote a recent post on this by Simon, who unlike me, actually knows what he's talking about (I think!)...

"Chris - indeed - 100Mbps is all that is required for Naim streamer devices. There are I say electro magnetic interference reasons why 100BaseT is preferable to 1000BaseT (less twisted copper pairs used)- although a gigabit switch will negotiate down to 100Mbps for Naim."

Maybe Naim understand this, and stick to 10/100 for that reason?

More interesting to some might be the change to 802.11ac wireless, which might make the use of WiFi a more realistic option than it was.  

I can't believe I'm the only one on this forum excited about the eminent launch of  Warner's Records entire catalog to HiRes Music Streaming (MQA). When the other big labels follow suit, this will mark the end of the perfect sound forever ... CD era. (With MP3's swept under the rug where they belong)

This my friends ... is the News of the Century!!!

 At RMAF 2016 I had a chance to hear a CD play, then CD rip, current Tidal flac stream, and finally the unfolded "corrected" HiRes MQA Stream. While I could imagine audiophiles foolishly arguing about the merits of the various CD versions, only an idiot would argue the superiority of the corrected MQA HiRes Stream. 

Before one gets bogged down on the ownership and quality of the MQA process, consider this analogy. When you go to a movie theatre do you concern yourself with what compression surround process (Dolby, DTS, Sony SDDS) is in use. Only an extreme videophile would base their movie selection on what technology/process was in use. On the other hand, how long would a theatre survive that provided no surround process these days. This "process" is so ingrained in us only an idiot would not notice the surround system turned off. The same could be argued once HiRes MQA (or whatever acronym) streaming becomes mainstream, only an idiot would not notice the sound quality difference. You see its not a matter of people "not caring" about sound quality, its case of human conditioning.

I imagine a day in the near future when the ownership and storage of music will seem an almost unbelievable construct. 

Phil, this brings my first question to you.

Will the new Naim Uniti components be capable of MQA playback?

Bill Allen posted:

Phil, this brings my first question to you.

Will the new Naim Uniti components be capable of MQA playback?

Hi Bill,

The current Uniti platform is capable of MQA playback from a hardware perspective and so is the new platform ...

... but neither currently support the MQA format itself.

MQA support can be (and has always been possible to be) added by a firmware update should it be decided that it is appropriate but at this time there have been no announcements made as to whether MQA will be supported or when and until such time as an announcement is made then that's all I can tell you.

Cheers

Phil

Excellent News ... for all concerned!

Thanks Phil

ChrisSU posted:

Guy007 posted:

Phil Harris posted:

Guy007 posted:

Phil, can you confirm what the Ethernet speed is on the range 10/100 or 10/100/1000 ?

Atom, Star and Nova are 10/100, Core is 10/100/1000...

Phil

thanks Phil

So no change there from the existing Uniti and Unitiserve. I can't imagine the lack of Gigabit capacity would be a problem - perhaps it even helps - to quote a recent post on this by Simon, who unlike me, actually knows what he's talking about (I think!)...

"Chris - indeed - 100Mbps is all that is required for Naim streamer devices. There are I say electro magnetic interference reasons why 100BaseT is preferable to 1000BaseT (less twisted copper pairs used)- although a gigabit switch will negotiate down to 100Mbps for Naim."

Maybe Naim understand this, and stick to 10/100 for that reason?

More interesting to some might be the change to 802.11ac wireless, which might make the use of WiFi a more realistic option than it was.  

10/100 is more than sufficient for use for streaming even high resolution audio without requiring the suppression of unnecessary electrical noise.

As for WiFi, even 802.11g has bandwidth to spare for 24/192 use and WiFi performance on the outgoing range was more than sufficient for high def audio streaming.

Although we always recommended that WiFi was not suitable for >48kHz audio this was based on practical experience with typical networks, we never actually capped the supported sample rates at 48kHz although it was sometimes erroneously reported that we did (although that would have required the UPnP server to cap the sample rate and not the streamer).

WiFi does tend to suffer from environmental influences (whether 2.4GHz or 5GHz) and so you can never guarantee that you will always be able to use WiFi but the introduction of 'ac' wireless increases the options for WiFi use.

As always though, we continue to recommend that wired Ethernet is used for the most reliable performance.

Phil

Just back from holidays and catching up on all the news of the new launch.

when will naim be issuing the brochures / literature on the new range?

regarding the core storage, would it be possible to buy multiple units  as storage capacity is needed, and the system see them as a single source?

thanks

Bill Allen posted:

I can't believe I'm the only one on this forum excited about the eminent launch of  Warner's Records entire catalog to HiRes Music Streaming (MQA). When the other big labels follow suit, this will mark the end of the perfect sound forever ... CD era. (With MP3's swept under the rug where they belong)

This my friends ... is the News of the Century!!!

 At RMAF 2016 I had a chance to hear a CD play, then CD rip, current Tidal flac stream, and finally the unfolded "corrected" HiRes MQA Stream. While I could imagine audiophiles foolishly arguing about the merits of the various CD versions, only an idiot would argue the superiority of the corrected MQA HiRes Stream. 

Before one gets bogged down on the ownership and quality of the MQA process, consider this analogy. When you go to a movie theatre do you concern yourself with what compression surround process (Dolby, DTS, Sony SDDS) is in use. Only an extreme videophile would base their movie selection on what technology/process was in use. On the other hand, how long would a theatre survive that provided no surround process these days. This "process" is so ingrained in us only an idiot would not notice the surround system turned off. The same could be argued once HiRes MQA (or whatever acronym) streaming becomes mainstream, only an idiot would not notice the sound quality difference. You see its not a matter of people "not caring" about sound quality, its case of human conditioning.

I imagine a day in the near future when the ownership and storage of music will seem an almost unbelievable construct. 

 

Phil, this brings my first question to you.

Will the new Naim Uniti components be capable of MQA playback?

 

 

I subscribe to the Dr Aix blog, he was at RMAF also, but has a different perspective......

RMAF: Show Report

Dr. AIX 

Earlier this afternoon, I got the chance to drift around the show and check out some of the rooms. I made sure that I got to the MQA room to get an update how things are going with their initiative. I met my friend Jeff Dean and asked him whether I would ever get some of my files in the MQA format. He doubted that it would happen. Never mind that they told me to send them some files 20 months ago. I did learn that there are about 250 MQA titles currently available. They are primarily jazz and classical fare from 2L and other audiophile labels. Nothing from the mainstream companies yet.

I asked about the status and throughput of the encoding process — specifically the WB Records catalog that has been promised in the MQA format. When I first learned about WB getting behind the MQA format, I thought it meant that they would mine their catalog and create MQA versions of everything. That's not the case. According to Jeff Dean, only the 3500 "high-resolution" albums that have already been transferred from analog masters to high-resolution PCM digital files are being targeted for MQAing. I imagined that WB mastering would have to redo all of the original transfers from the analog masters so that the details of the conversion could be included in the process. I was wrong. They took the exisitng PCM files and encoded them into MQA files.

The question is whether the standard resolution analog masters digitized to high-resolution bit buckets will benefit from the MQA process? There is little — if any — frequency information about 20 kHz and we know that the dynamic range is much less than the capabilities of a standard CD, so what could MQA possibly elevate the fidelity? There are no ultrasonics to tuck under the CD bandwidth. They claim it's all about the "temporal blurring". I remain unconvinced.

A number of people came by my table as asked my opinion on MQA. I could look through the ballroom door and see a poster of Bob Dylan next to the MQA logo in the hallway (they certainly have done a great job marketing their new format!). I told them that real high-resolution albums would only benefit from the process in the world of streaming but otherwise it's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist. Until I can evaluate my own recording before and after the MQA process, I just don't see how it can possibly matter to companies like mine — and Warner Brothers. I can understand what it means to hardware manufacturers, traditional record companies, and MQA — more money.

SJB

[@mention:53097172979470722]

I’m pretty positive about MQA, but there is at least one sonic tradeoff that’s making it quite unattractive for some manufacturers. If you have developed a house by sound by tuning your DACs and streamers with a series of digital filters, you can’t use it/them with MQA.

MQA uses digital filters/signal processing to match your DAC to the original encoder, thus creating the end-to-end chain key to the MQA philosophy.

MQA’s solution is for a manufacturer turn on their own signal processing/filters for non MQA material. For MQA material you must use theirs, i.e. you get the ‘Naim sound’ when listening to a cd rip, and the ‘MQA sound’ with MQA recordings.

This is possibly one of the reasons there hasn’t been much open A/B testing of the same material in CD, Hi-Res and MQA.

[@mention:1566878603985147]

It’s great to hear Naim, is keeping an ear on MQA.

[@mention:1566878603876139]

I like Dr Aix’s blog, but I get the impression he feels that unless he’s recorded/mastered the material himself, it’s not worthy of being called hi-res.

Here's what Michael Lavorgna at Audiostream/Stereophile had to say; I think somewhat motivated, by the post of Dr. Aix.

Here's what I can tell you about MQA from the press conference they held on the first day of RMAF 2016:

- The entire Warner Music catalog has been converted to MQA (yea, the whole thing)
- If everything goes according to current plans/contract negotiations, the other Big Two label's (Sony and Universal) catalogs will be converted to MQA by next Spring
- Tidal, as well as other streaming services who shall remain nameless at this point, will be streaming MQA content. When? I don't know.
- MQA offered A/B comparisons

In reference to his third point. There are some rumours that with Warner, Universal and Sony having significant stakes in Spotify, MQA could be available on Spotify.

GregW posted:

[@mention:53097172979470722]

I’m pretty positive about MQA, but there is at least one sonic tradeoff that’s making it quite unattractive for some manufacturers. If you have developed a house by sound by tuning your DACs and streamers with a series of digital filters, you can’t use it/them with MQA.

MQA uses digital filters/signal processing to match your DAC to the original encoder, thus creating the end-to-end chain key to the MQA philosophy.

MQA’s solution is for a manufacturer turn on their own signal processing/filters for non MQA material. For MQA material you must use theirs, i.e. you get the ‘Naim sound’ when listening to a cd rip, and the ‘MQA sound’ with MQA recordings.

This is possibly one of the reasons there hasn’t been much open A/B testing of the same material in CD, Hi-Res and MQA.

[@mention:1566878603985147]

It’s great to hear Naim, is keeping an ear on MQA.

[@mention:1566878603876139]

I like Dr Aix’s blog, but I get the impression he feels that unless he’s recorded/mastered the material himself, it’s not worthy of being called hi-res.

Here's what Michael Lavorgna at Audiostream/Stereophile had to say; I think somewhat motivated, by the post of Dr. Aix.

Here's what I can tell you about MQA from the press conference they held on the first day of RMAF 2016:

- The entire Warner Music catalog has been converted to MQA (yea, the whole thing)
- If everything goes according to current plans/contract negotiations, the other Big Two label's (Sony and Universal) catalogs will be converted to MQA by next Spring
- Tidal, as well as other streaming services who shall remain nameless at this point, will be streaming MQA content. When? I don't know.
- MQA offered A/B comparisons

Read more at http://www.audiostream.com/con...#jWUXw1CZfhfEcd3e.99

In reference to his third point. There are some rumours that with Warner, Universal and Sony having significant stakes in Spotify, MQA could be available on Spotify.

Read this alternative perspective carefully,  it's akin to looking backwards into a pair of binoculars and reporting what you see. I'm reporting what I saw & heard using the same binoculars ... but from the end that provides a much wider field of view. 

The MQA process is not important in the long run, no doubt more formats will follow just like they did with movies. The start of the record companies releasing their catalogs in a cleaner higher quality formats is the real prize. Even if they start releasing mainly CD quality streams, MQA offer the immediate opportunities to offer higher resolution releases. On the contrary ... we can only hope that the record companies can make more money by steaming HiRez. 

I really , really , really don't want to discuss the differences I heard from the various CD playback formats. While I could hear the MQA encoded CD layer provided slightly more air than CD rips & current Tidal streaming. I will not be held to the mat by other's who think or hear differently ... a totally pointless argument.

The cup is way over half full from my perspective.

Bill, Greg & Sloop et al., if you wish to discuss the merits or otherwise of MQA then by all means do so but please start a new thread rather than continue on this one.  Thanks.

Oh then by all means let the Core talks continue...

Hi

Will it be possible to connect the muso to the new uniti atom or novo as a speaker?

Thanks I'll check

Pcd posted:

I would think so through multiform check website.

I take it you meant multiroom? 

does anyone know if there will be any trade in offers for these units, i.e. superuniti for nova, or because they are not the same named device it wont be possible

Longmanjon, optimistically, I hope so as I'd like to compare my 'Qute2 to the Mighty Atom - and if the improvement worthwhile I'd seriously think about switching boxes.