Dear Naim...

Hi Charles - the old iPhone is filling that very purpose - why would i get another device? It is a remote that also has internet through my home network. Am I missing something?

My network options are limited to AT&T and TW Cable - both suck. Since i may be moving soon, I do not want to re-invent the wheel and get embroiled in a new contract which will cost me dearly for a possible premature termination. I have found a web page on how to set this particular AT&T (actually Arris NVG589) router to bridged or pass through mode (not sure the difference or which is preferable), and it is not straightforward. (With AT&T involved, this should come as no surprise.)

I hear you on At&T - haven't been with them in years. Our home is Century Link - not the greatest service but at least they let us buy our own modem ($40 at Fryes if I recall). 

If the iPhone works for you that's great. I do find the Naim app (or other control apps - I currently use Lumin or Squeezepad for my microRendu) to be a much better user experience on an iPad.

Glad you got it working though. I hate it when things go south with the network and one is left with silence, esp if no cd player anymore!

Yeah I would buy a Rega CDP used for times just such as this, but since I might move overseas not logical to get something that runs on the "wrong" electricity...better to wait & see how things shake out first.

DrMark posted:

2) The router and Vortexbox are way over on the other side of the house in a spare bedroom - probably only about 25 linear feet, but I would need about 50 foot of any cable to get to it...so I will hold off on that option, but it is a possibility if needed.

 

Hi Mark.  My router and server are on the 3rd floor of my home and my NDS is on the first.  It's a long way.  But I paid my local hi fi shop to run ethernet cable thru the walls.  It was just a few hundred dollars total.  I highly recommend this approach!!!

Second, while you are "stuck" with AT&T, note that AT&T need not own an iron grip on your home network.  Forget about putting their router in bridge mode.  I really really recommend that you do what I do, which is keep the provider's router, but turn off wifi on it, and get an Airport Extreme to do your wifi duties.  I can (almost) guarantee that if you had a wired connection, and used an Airport Extreme for wifi, you'd have no issues.

DrMark posted:

Thanks to everyone who has posted (I just got up and tried - still can't get more than 20 seconds of music.) And I thank the forum that no one jumped on me with both feet for criticizing Naim - part of the reason I do is because having owned many Naim boxes through the years (about half new, half 2nd hand) I have come to (a) expect top level product from Naim, and (b) know their reputation for caring about the customer experience.

Were this another brand, I would likely just ditch the damn thing and be done with it.

Some points to factor in:

1) I would LOVE to get a different router, but with AT&T U-Verse, this is the only one that can be used (and that they can charge me $7.95 a month for...pricks). And I would even consider switching providers, but with a potential move overseas in the offing, and my only other option being Time-Warner (been there, done that, got the t-shirt) it's just a case of swapping one horrid company for another.

2) The router and Vortexbox are way over on the other side of the house in a spare bedroom - probably only about 25 linear feet, but I would need about 50 foot of any cable to get to it...so I will hold off on that option, but it is a possibility if needed.

3) There was a Nougat upgrade that came in for the Nexus phone I use 2 days ago - I read carefully the alleged scope of the upgrade (which was small and quick) and it claimed to be limited to "security and bug fixes." However, as detailed, the 272 no longer even works with just using the Naim remote. (Is it possible that the app could be interfering "uninvited"?) Prior to the upgrade is was working reasonably (if not annoyingly) well...i.e., I could make it work, but the fact that the default state of the 272 when you go to use it is "No Network" is a suspicious thing to me.

4) I actually have an old iPhone 4S - back a month or so ago when I first got bit with upgrading to Nougat, Simon-In-Suffolk had recommended getting an iPad or old phone to use as a remote, and I remembered that I had it - went to install the Naim app and there isn't enough room (I have a s**tload of music on it) - so getting that sufficiently "cleaned up" has been a project to be done in all this, but finding the time has been at issue. Once Naim got the Android app working to even some degree the imperative had diminished. (Plus a trip to Italy and then NY, so there was a period where I was only home 4 of 18 days.) Now I have my employer asking (demanding) a lot of time so I can dig my own grave like a concentration camp victim, so some offshore resource can shoot me in the back and let me fall in...so time for this nonsense is at a premium. (Plus my second job is very busy this month as well with 14 ice hockey games to officiate...oh my aching back.)

5) I am going to read Huge's post a few times and try to log in to the router and see what I see - maybe I can post a screen shot. I am not strong in that area at all. I am also not adverse to someone seeing something in the setup and saying "Oh you nitwit, it is X, just change it to Y!" All I want to do it listen to music.

6) The 272 sees both LMS and the DLNA server - it has been that way since I got it, and for the most part it has worked - is there any issue in this. I mean, they reside on the same box, but of course are essentially 2 different servers using the same hardware.

All this notwithstanding, for all the litany of things Naim does well (and I think we all agree that they do) this software/firmware thing is a pretty big Achilles heel for their product line. I see enough posts complaining and having issues with it that it is clearly not where it should be, especially inasmuch as other company's products are not experiencing the same level of angst inducing behavior.

I hate that this current system is making me miss the SBT + SN combo.

DrMark,

I also live in NC but have TWC 200 down. I had horrible experience with my (former) UnitiServe SSD. Updated the modem/router, TWC installed premium coax to the house. However, me, my local rep, APS nor Phil Harris couldn't fix it. Along those lines, I must reboot the NDX two or three times weekly to re-establish connection with iOS devices and NDX. Hopefully, the new app releasing with the UNITI products will be the savior and is probably is the reason delaying release of the TIDAL drop out fix.

Like you I can stream (in my case) SONOS without issues. NDX is flawless streaming FLAC and DSD from my NAS. iRadio and TIDAL is another matter.

M

Bart - I am leaning strongly in that general direction, although getting cable to that spot could really be a mother. From what I have read, even using the AE for wireless streaming removes the pain as well. Again waiting to see what is in my future - very STRONG rumors of a layoff this week at work from sources who are not prone to spreading rumors...would ground my overseas plans for a while - I want to leave, but I need some continuing financial runway to take off.

Mack - thanks for that info - makes me feel better about sticking with the "devil I know" - had TWC at my last apartment - I recall literally screaming at them on the phone at the top of my lungs one of the many times I had to call them because of their incompetence. Besides, with the news this AM they may end up being the same devil anyway with the proposed merger/buyout. (Although I tend to think regulators will stop it - hell even Donald and Hillary both came out against it...which come to think if it, might mean it is a good idea...)

DrMark posted:

Bart - I am leaning strongly in that general direction, although getting cable to that spot could really be a mother. From what I have read, even using the AE for wireless streaming removes the pain as well. Again waiting to see what is in my future - very STRONG rumors of a layoff this week at work from sources who are not prone to spreading rumors...would ground my overseas plans for a while - I want to leave, but I need some continuing financial runway to take off.

Mack - thanks for that info - makes me feel better about sticking with the "devil I know" - had TWC at my last apartment - I recall literally screaming at them on the phone at the top of my lungs one of the many times I had to call them because of their incompetence. Besides, with the news this AM they may end up being the same devil anyway with the proposed merger/buyout. (Although I tend to think regulators will stop it - hell even Donald and Hillary both came out against it...which come to think if it, might mean it is a good idea...)

 

Mark,

Hang in there. Networks are can be very fickle. I do have all my stuff hardwired with Bluejeans certified Ethernet CAT6 via high speed switches. A must for ultimate quality data transmission.

M

Dr Mark, one thing I don't think you've tried (sorry if I've missed) is the UPnP player. It wouldn't cost anything to trial a different one, and you could always revert if it doesn't solve and you prefer the present one. A bit of a long shot I know, but you seem to have tried so much else.

Also, have you tried simplifying the network to just the NAS, a switch and the 272 with nothing else connected? If that works then it is some interference, but if it does it gives you a starting point, and maybe even an option, connecting a direct link between the switch and router/modem when you want internet access, and disconnecting when playing just from the NAS - perhaps not ideal, but infinitely better than you have. And you may learn whether your slagging off of Naim programmers is justified.

As a more fundamental alternative, personally I advocate removing the network entirely from the local music streaming, by using a music store/renderer combined. Solutions include Mac Mini + AUdirvana, that I and quite a number of others have found excellent, Melco, which has also received very favourable comments on this forum, and, possibly, the new Uniti Core, although its sound quality is yet to be assessed. 

Dr Mark

1. Ethernet cable is cheap so you could buy a 50 yard cable or whatever on eBay and just run it on top of the carpets across the house to see if that fixes the problem. If it does then you worry about hiding it.

2. Second idea I suggested before but I don't think you tried yet is to lift your 272 into the room with the router and plug it in to the router with an Ethernet cable. Obviously you won't have a power amp or loudspeakers but you will discover in a day or so whether it still loses the network connection. You could use headphones plugged into the 272 if you wanted to check on the music.

3. If you have closed the Naim app completely on your Android phone by whichever method you like then you know it is now no longer in the mix. The 272 won't remember there used to be an android app controlling it. And if you reboot the router, the NAS and the 272 then all of them will forget it ever existed. If the 272 still forgets the network then it's nothing to do with the app controlling it.

And I still think you should call Phil at Naim. You can agree a time to chat with him by email and if you use Skype, it will cost you very little to call the UK.

best

David

DrMark posted:

Bart - I am leaning strongly in that general direction, although getting cable to that spot could really be a mother.

...

You should definitely run a cable, at least to make sure that, in a wired network and with your NAS and your 272 connected via a switch, everything works fine.

If, on the long term, you cannot (or, as in my case, do not want to) wire your network, then a network streaming solution is perhaps not the most meaningful option.

I know that many Naim dealers tend to suggest solutions in which a UPnP server and a media renderer run on different machines, typically a NAS device and a Naim streamer.

These solutions tend to work well in a wired network. But, as you have experienced, on a wireless network they can be problematic.

On a wireless network, and assuming that you do not care about multi room replay, it is more convenient to run both the UPnP server and the media renderer (or a single player application) on the same machine and have the latter directly connected to a DAC or to a streamer.

In your system, you could implement such solution in different ways: by  connecting e.g. a Naim UnitiServe (Core), a Mac mini or any other (fanless, headless) microserver to the BNC or optical s/pdif input of your 272. Or you could use a Melco directly connected to the 272 via ethernet cable. See also INNOCENT BYSTANDER's post above.

These solutions are not fully equivalent. Some support internet radio and streaming services, others do not, for instance. Costs are quite different, too.

But they all use your wireless network only to control replay (select what to play, start, stop, pause, etc.) in contrast to using it for actually transferring the music data.

I have been running one of these solutions for about three years in a reasonably big flat and on a wireless network without any problem.