does the HDX/US/Core 'stream'?

Don't worry, Stefan, streaming is streaming - as long as it works, you're just fine!

S.

Not everyone agrees that all streaming is the same - or in this particular case rendering the file to a digital music stream, the term 'streaming' having more than one meaning. Otherwise the most basic and unoptimised computer renderer would suffice, subject only to filtering out the inevitable RF noise. For example, I know from experience that Audirvana on an optimised MacMini with RF rejection sounds better than the rendering stage of an ND5XS,  which sounds better than Foobar under Windows 7 on an Acer laptop computer, all feeding Hugo, while Melco N1A is indistinguishable from that Audirvana setup (all to my ears and in my system other than Melco/Av which was a different system and through Dave). Whether the NDx and HD sound the same used in this mode I leave to people who have compared.

and I am all ears as to whether the new Core will match the best, as that would be a direct competitor tomthe likes of Melco, for people who appreciate the benefits of keening from streaming across a network - though subject to other questions also like portability of files if metadata is stored differently.

In some of the common parlance, "streaming" refers to delivery of the music files over a network.  So Spotify and Tidal "stream" over the internet, and a UnitiServe or Core when acting as a UPnP server engage in music streaming over the home network.

I do not use the "streaming" word to refer to an HDX/uServe/Core when they act as a player connected directly to a dac, etc.

Thanks, Bart, I fully agree with you, though I'm still curious to understand the technical differences between the NDX receiving streamed music via UPnP, and an HDX/uServe/Core playing music from a NAS (for simplicity let's assume that both NDX and HDX feed an external DAC via their digital outputs). More importantly, is one superior to the other musically?

S.

Stefan Vogt posted:

Thanks, Bart, I fully agree with you, though I'm still curious to understand the technical differences between the NDX receiving streamed music via UPnP, and an HDX/uServe/Core playing music from a NAS (for simplicity let's assume that both NDX and HDX feed an external DAC via their digital outputs). More importantly, is one superior to the other musically?

S.

I'm not sure why understanding the technical differences will give you the 'is one superior to the other musically ?' answer Stefan. Only you can answer that one. 

I'm very confused- surely if a UnitiServe is playing music from a NAS, then it is getting the music over the network, and simply passing the music to the NDX. That's what happened when I had one - the Serve scoops up the music on my son's computer and serves it just like it would its own stored albums. So is the question about whether the Serve 'improves' what it's getting from elsewhere? 

Bart posted:

In some of the common parlance, "streaming" refers to delivery of the music files over a network.  So Spotify and Tidal "stream" over the internet, and a UnitiServe or Core when acting as a UPnP server engage in music streaming over the home network.

Yep. Which has a potential to cause confusion. But that's half the fun. Sometimes.

When I say I stream people think of things like Tidal. Which in my case couldn't be further from the truth. And what a subscription streaming service might describe as a high resolution file I would describe as low resolution.

Hungryhalibut posted:

I'm very confused- surely if a UnitiServe is playing music from a NAS, then it is getting the music over the network, and simply passing the music to the NDX. That's what happened when I had one - the Serve scoops up the music on my son's computer and serves it just like it would its own stored albums. So is the question about whether the Serve 'improves' what it's getting from elsewhere? 

Correct HH - It's down to the quality of the S/PDIF output and whether it's affected by downstream activities in the player (noise from the various activities occurring during the playback) and also how sensitive the DAC itself is to the quality of the S/PDIF signal it's fed. It sounds like Naim has optimised the Core to try and minimise what is going on during playback of a track (load into memory to minimise network access etc) which will all affect the S/PDIF output to some extent, however carefully the player design is implemented. 

james n posted:

It sounds like Naim has optimised the Core to try and minimise what is going on during playback of a track (load into memory to minimise network access etc) which will all affect the S/PDIF output to some extent, however carefully the player design is implemented. 

Isn't that just buffering? 

Of course, the proof will be in the listening. 

Harry posted:

james n posted:

It sounds like Naim has optimised the Core to try and minimise what is going on during playback of a track (load into memory to minimise network access etc) which will all affect the S/PDIF output to some extent, however carefully the player design is implemented. 

Isn't that just buffering? 

Yep - but done differently in each say the Core compared to the NDX.

Could someone possibly draw a flowchart for each of my two scenarios in the original post?

You could look at it this way - both do the same thing (when streaming music from a NAS) but in a slightly different way (NDX more in hardware, Core more in software). Without knowing exactly how Naim have implemented the core drawing a flow chart wouldn't be completely accurate. If you want to understand how the NDX works then the White Paper gives a good overview.

I'm still not sure what this will give you compared to listening to each method ?

Stefan Vogt posted:

Thanks, Bart, I fully agree with you, though I'm still curious to understand the technical differences between the NDX receiving streamed music via UPnP, and an HDX/uServe/Core playing music from a NAS (for simplicity let's assume that both NDX and HDX feed an external DAC via their digital outputs). More importantly, is one superior to the other musically?

S.

There is no superiority per se of one method over the other.  There are of course hardware differences, and differences in hardware can and often do result in systems being 'musically' different.

To me, the more relevant differences are how one maintains the system, and whether it can be set up with one music library being available to multiple systems in the home.

Thanks, James, I had forgotten  about the NDX white paper. The NDX' spdif output branches off the all-important sharc processor (though I'm not clear which aspects of the signal processing affect the spdif output). In contrast, circuitry in the HDX appears less sophisticated (no sharc to start with!). Thus, there is clear scope for sonic differences, and much has been written about these. Which makes me wonder about the implementation in the Core?!

S.

One question is how do they stream to their SPDIF outputs, the other, and more important to most people, is do they sound any different doing that and if so which one sounds better and in what way? (The how might hint at or explain why.) has anyone compared? 

Stefan Vogt posted:

What's the difference between

- an NDX streaming music from a server to its sp/dif output, and

- the HDX/US/Core accessing music on the same server and outputting this to sp/dif?

E.g., are there different buffering schemes in operation? I'd be most grateful for a tecchie explanation!

S. 

A very interesting question. A slightly different way to phrase it would be to ask what are the technical specifications of the NDX, HDX, US and Core sound cards and replay software. We know some very basic specs for the new 50 EUR HiFiBerry Digi+ Pro sound card (galvanic isolation, 22.5792 MHz and 24.576 MHz clocks) but it seems very difficult to get even the most elementary data for components that are 100 to 1000 times more expensive. A particularly bad example in this respect is Melco: a lot of marketing noise and very little technical specifications. We also know very little about the new Naim Core. I guess that the common wisdom is that so-called music servers shall be made out of unspecified components and be very expensive!

Well, when we know so little, here is my best hunch: Whilst the NDX family adopted the innovations in digital signal processing from 2009 nDAC, the HDX has a possibly less sophisticated processing layout (e.g., no sharc). I'm still keen to hear further reports if this is audible when using the NDX / HDX digital output. On the other hand, streaming is more complex, and using the HDX / Core digital output has a rather short 'signal path' in comparison (where shorter might not mean better sounding).

Talking about the Core, Andrew Everard said in his original report on the four new unitis: "At the heart of all the new models is the same kind of SHARC processor used in the NDS, now in fourth-generation 40-bit form" [emphasis mine]. Could someone at naim possibly confirm this for the Core, please? 

(sorry, I'm just obsessed by that SHARC processor and even followed its facelift from silver in the ND series to black in the 272 and new unitis...).

Is streaming happening at all when a thumb drive is played directly by the Naim DAC?  I would vote Yes, but concede it is less complex than what the NDX does with files served to it over a network.

I would also say the NDX streams into the DAC, if I used them together.  Am I correct?

Nick

Nick, I'd say not , but the definition of streaming is very broad. I.e. The sound is played as it it appears or arrives at a renderer as opposed to the the entire medium containing the sound being used to play the sound at a source and renderer combined. FM radio is another example of streaming. LP, CDPlayer, NDX playing from USB stick, HDX playing from disk is not.

Grey areas are SPDIF and DACs. If the transport and DAC are coupled together in close proximity (which is definitely the case with USB)  to act as a single unit then the transport is not streaming, if you are in an older studio using long runs of AES/EBU SPDIF streams that can switched to a monitor DAC then it could be referred to as streaming.

Stefan Vogt posted:

Well, when we know so little, here is my best hunch: Whilst the NDX family adopted the innovations in digital signal processing from 2009 nDAC, the HDX has a possibly less sophisticated processing layout (e.g., no sharc). I'm still keen to hear further reports if this is audible when using the NDX / HDX digital output. On the other hand, streaming is more complex, and using the HDX / Core digital output has a rather short 'signal path' in comparison (where shorter might not mean better sounding).

Talking about the Core, Andrew Everard said in his original report on the four new unitis: "At the heart of all the new models is the same kind of SHARC processor used in the NDS, now in fourth-generation 40-bit form" [emphasis mine]. Could someone at naim possibly confirm this for the Core, please? 

(sorry, I'm just obsessed by that SHARC processor and even followed its facelift from silver in the ND series to black in the 272 and new unitis...).

Stefan, the Analog Devices Super Harvard processors (SHARC) processors are in their fourth iteration from AD, and can offer 32/40 bit floating point signal processing arithmetic.

http://www.analog.com/en/produ...ctural-overview.html

Naim use these devices to prove the oversampling and reconstruction filter functions for their DAC converter chips as opposed to using inbuilt converter DSP or fixed chip DSP like in their CDPs. This approach appeared to start with the NDAC, and was copied into the NDX, then NDS and other devices.

So any device directly driving a converter DAC perhaps through i2s  and requiring reconstruction DSP might well use  the Analog Devices DSP processor. Does the Core have internal DACs? If it doesn't I can't really see what it would use the DSP processor for, unless it's being used as some sort of genereal processor engine .. in which case its use is quite  different from supporting the DAC converter chips with DSP  ... and it is acting as a simplified signal routing engine, such as used by the current streamers when in SPDIF transport mode....  but if that is the case it's not in my opinion using much of the benefit of the SHARC processor other than perhaps allowing cheaper, more modular Naim design.

Simon

I've used HDX & NDX SPDIF out to Ndac - No discernable difference to my ears.

G

Yes, one interesting question here is the meaning of 'streaming', which has been complicated by the evolutionary processes at play in music storage and play.

My understanding of the term in this general context is that technically it relates to feeding data in real time across ... something - typically a network, whether local or wide area as in the internet. So on that basis playing from a local drive direct to a DAC, whether or not in the same box, isn't streaming. However, at the same time in common parlance the term 'stream' or 'streaming' seems to have become associated with playing music stored as files on local media other than portable optical discs like CD, whether that be drives in a NAS or computer, or specialised device such as Unitiserve, and the term does often end up being used even with one-box solutions. And of course it is blurred further when people have, say, an a US or similar, feeding an attached DAC and also streaming from it across a network to other devices in the home. It is further confused by the description 'streamer' currently applied to devices like NDX, because in fact they don't stream anything, it is the UPnP server in the store that actually does the streaming. And finaly, if a device loads each file fully into memory before starting play, including from a store across a network, then is not streaming, although to the user unaware of the actual process it can appear identical to another setup that is streaming the file across the network, so the user can't recognise a difference.

For all,these reasons I personally have tended to just refer to all as streaming, except when the context requires differentiation, say between local playing and streaming to or from anothervdevise, or when addressing purely, say, the rendering stage. However I'm not sure if that is strictly the right thing to do?

GraemeH posted:

I've used HDX & NDX SPDIF out to Ndac - No discernable difference to my ears

Same here. I've also found the same using analogue out on both players. The HDX and NDX seem to perform at the same level. I've never been able to tell them apart.

Cool, thanks for all coments, I'm much clearer now, also about the unknowns!