Guess the line being discontinued!

DrPo posted:

I’m not very optimistic... my reasoning:

...

i may be wrong but the new Uniti platform only touches (and improves) WiFi  and buffering but does not touch the above two key areas. 

That does not mean the current products are not good -what HiFi uses NDS/555 as the reference digital source after all- but I don’t see how NAIM can compete with the digital source leaders at this point.

Even if Naim was not anymore at the leading edge in matter of DAC design and technology, I think that they still could deliver meaningful (and due) upgrades to their classic line of products. For instance, they could take advantage of their expertise on power supply and system integration and deliver a single-box solution where other companies require users to play around with long chains of network players, dedicated switches, USB to SPDIF interfaces, reclockers, decrapifiers and their associated PSUs! Or they could come out with a modular design that allows owners of the new classical range to upgrade components of, say, as network server/player as new technologies become available. In this domain Schiit has demonstated that modular designs can improve user loyality and generate win-win solutions: think of their gen 5 USB interfaces. If Naim are not ready to come out with a really innovative DAC design right now, they could still push through a new DAC interface and a first upgradeable DAC module based on the technology that they master now. There are really many excellent devices around and I think that what users are expecting from Naim now are advances in system design, modularity, upgradeability and interoperability.

DRPO, I think you can be optimistic. I can tell you from the number of our customers recently trading in or selling off their stand-alone "DACs" and other components mentioned in this thread to replace them with Atom and Nova, Naim most definitely does have IP and side by side the superiority of Naim's technical and product designs is clear for the Uniti range, both in streaming usability and digital filtering as well as every other aspect of an audio system. Roon is integrated as well as 80+ streaming services via Chromecast or airplay. Naim is clearly competing and winning in streaming integration and sound quality in every side by side comparison I'm aware of. The only real issue I see is customer awareness of Naim in the first place and the opportunity to hear and use a system in a suitable environment. 

Well I enjoy the current Naim streamer transports with their very high quality SPDIF outputs that can drive third party DACs to great effect, absolutely first class and yet to hear it bettered. When I was talking to some of the Naim design engineers several months ago  they were advocating the importance of desperate box decoupling  and isolation for the best  performance (and this is whilst we were having the new Unitis demoed to us) ... and that lines up with my experience of many years ago too 

DrPo posted:

 

- on the “front end” front NAIM is behind when it comes to Roon and streaming services integration

 - on the DAC front itself NAIM has no IP of its own (contrast this with the NOS school of Metrum or Totaldac, the “ring” approach of dSC or the FPGA school or the DSD approaches of Meitner or Playback Designs); as others have said, the “unique selling point” of NAIM in the digital products is the analogue stage implementation.

i may be wrong but the new Uniti platform only touches (and improves) WiFi  and buffering but does not touch the above two key areas. 

 

The new Uniti platform does work with Roon, integrates other services via Chromecast, and can potentially cope with other developments such as MQA if it takes off.. It is significantly  different from the old platform which has inherent design limitations (AFAIK) which makes it extremely unlikely that existing classic range products can be upgraded to the new platform which is designed to be more future proof. I would be surprised if Naim has no IP of its own relating to the new platform.

The existing products still sound wonderful and will continue to do so but my understanding is that there are hardware reasons why there is limited scope for upgrading. Naim are committed to supporting the legacy products in terms of app compatability and multiroom interoperability, but I believe that developments such as Roon and Chromecast are beyond their capabilities.

Hi Basil, well I think it is the day of the year most befitting  being optimistic so I will heed your advice! 

While I totally understand the impulse many consumers feel to make sure they are getting the latest and the greatest, and thus, achieving good value with their investments in audio, there is always a risk that shopping by features and specs can sometimes overwhelm the listening part of the process.    If you choose high end audio products on features and specs alone, you can choose something up to the moment in design features which may not appeal at all intrinsically based on the style of sound engendered.   That is not to say that nothing new ever emerges in the high end audio world, but many of the finest products and systems are actually composed of products and solutions which are the result of careful, pain staking evolution over many years.    This is often true for Naim, and many of their engineering peers who have been doing good work over the span of decades.     This type of long term commitment does not always result in instantaneous course correction if a new trend has emerged in the field.    Newer, younger firms are often far more likely to jump more quickly into things, which has some strengths as well as some weaknesses.      For purposes of an example, I can't think of anything more relevant than Naim's slow adoption of the CD medium in the early days of the CDS.    While it was certainly not an overnight product introduction, the careful and systematic work Julian encouraged from the Naim team lead to some of the most musical CD players of the whole era.

Good listening,

Bruce

I'm not sure if Naim is still able to move more of its classic digital range for both existing and new customers. 

Existing customers like myself who would love to move from NDX to NDS would naturally hold. No consumer likes to buy a product that is obsolete yesterday, no matter how good it sound especially for the premium. 

New customers will not even look at it just by features. There are so very many options out there for the high,mid and low end prices. Unless these are ill-informed consumers or the dealers pushed the product really well; I would think in this case, the dealers is not exactly being forthright about its limitation. Not good for the dealer and Naim.

So how does the current classic digital range sit now? IMO, in a very awkward position with its price standing high and might. The classic digital range should not even be listed in the website since Naim had communicated they are not going to add more functionalities and the streamer architecture is already dated in 2017, not to mention 2018.

However, if there is a plan/road-map to upgrade the internal board or a trade up program for the existing owners, then all the above is ill-founded. Unfortunately nobody knows and I doubt board upgrade will happen as it is complicated for both R&D and logistics. Don’t make business sense just to retain customers’ loyalty. For the trade up program, what do Naim do with all the boxes? Again don’t make business sense. 

It makes sense for the streamer line to be revamped.  Hopefully they introduce an entry level like a nd5si priced product.    Lets see what happens in 2018.

Bart posted:

It'll be interesting to see if Naim decide to separate the dac from the renderer in high-end devices.

To my relatively uneducated brain, renderer features and dac features seem rather independent of each other.  Stuff like Roon (and brand of the day online music services) come along and we want our renderers to be compatible.  The dac could care less.  I understand why many have gone to separates, but as I posted earlier its too much for me to wrap my hands around presently - reading reviews, trying, and really not being able to try without purchasing. 

I think that the crucial issue is not so much separating the dac from the renderer but deciding which interfaces to support and how to do so. The old Naim DAC supported SPDIF only (albeit via 4 Toslink, 2 RCA and 2 BNC connectors). The DAC-V1 supported SPDIF and USB but the USB interface was, to the best of my knowledge, non upgradeable. Meanwhile we have, beside SPDIF and USB, AES/EBU, i2s, Ethernet and perhaps other interfaces I am not aware of.  I think that users that buy a DAC today expect to be able to order it with an interface of their choice. They also expect such interface to be upgradeable. Same for other hardware components and, it goes without saying, for the software. This is a domain in which, unfortunately, we have witnessed regress rather than innovation: it is meanwhile not uncommon to see OSs distributed by snail mail and mixed open/closed source system that are thrown at the market with no or with incomplete documentation.

DrPo posted:

- on the “front end” front NAIM is behind when it comes to Roon and streaming services integration

 - on the DAC front itself NAIM has no IP of its own (contrast this with the NOS school of Metrum or Totaldac, the “ring” approach of dSC or the FPGA school or the DSD approaches of Meitner or Playback Designs); as others have said, the “unique selling point” of NAIM in the digital products is the analogue stage implementation.

i may be wrong but the new Uniti platform only touches (and improves) WiFi  and buffering but does not touch the above two key areas. 

You are wrong ... as others have said ... the "new" Uniti platform allows for Roon and by offering Chromecast and Airplay allows better integration of any random streaming service.

On the DAC front, while NAIM have no "DAC" IP ... they (in the streaming products as well as the nDAC) utilise off the shelf DAC chips in a (pretty much) unique way by using DSP to upsample to the "native" rate of the DAC chip so as bypassing the DAC chips internal oversampling.  NAIM also rely strongly on the analogue section of the DAC units to offer something different from their competition - take 3 DAC units utilising the same DAC chips and they will sound different due to differences in power supply and analogue components / design.

nbpf posted:

I'm very curious to see how Naim will upgrade the "Classic" range building on the experience they have gathered with the Uniti range. The current Naim classic line consists, among others, of NDS, NDX, HDX, CDX2, DAC, DAC-V1 and NAC-N 272.

I can't see anything being fundamentally different ... the NDS, NDX, ND5, NAC-N272 will likely be replaced with MkII (in some cases MkIII) versions offering the same functionality as the existing models but mixing in "new" Uniti streaming functions.  

HDX is a dead end product built on a no-longer supported platform - I suppose a Uniti Star based product could replace it but I think unlikely.

Apart from that CD players will remain as CD players.  Standalone DACs will remain as standalone DACs (for those who wish to go a different route than streaming).

On the other hand ... the ideal product might be if Naim could design a standard streaming section which could be mounted in a range of DACs / NAC-N products at different levels ... perhaps in a stand-alone "digital" head unit for the top of the range product.  A streaming board which could be upgraded wholesale if required at a later date.

kaydee6 posted:

However, if there is a plan/road-map to upgrade the internal board or a trade up program for the existing owners, then all the above is ill-founded. Unfortunately nobody knows and I doubt board upgrade will happen as it is complicated for both R&D and logistics. Don’t make business sense just to retain customers’ loyalty. For the trade up program, what do Naim do with all the boxes? Again don’t make business sense. 

I doubt until the product is finalised anyone knows if there is likely to be an upgrade possible ... Naim aren't designing the new streaming with the idea of upgrade, but who knows what might be possible when the product is available.

Trade up and/or upgrades can make business sense ... customer loyalty can be a strong motivator (especially when a companies competition - think Linn for starters - offer "loyalty" upgrades).

surely the old black box design is so out of date. all new models will be based on the uniti look. the sooner the better .   will make 2nd a good buy   

audio1946 posted: all new models will be based on the uniti look  

I wonder how you know this, particularly as Naim have previously said that the classic look will be retained. 

Pev posted: 

The new Uniti platform does work with Roon, integrates other services via Chromecast, and can potentially cope with other developments such as MQA if it takes off.. It is significantly  different from the old platform which has inherent design limitations (AFAIK) which makes it extremely unlikely that existing classic range products can be upgraded to the new platform which is designed to be more future proof. 

This is no doubt true to some extent - but also on the higher end designs consideration is kept on keeping digital and processing noise down - a real curse for high end audio - and so functionality has been limited so as to focus on SQ. On the Uniti series the balance was slightly adjusted to offer increased consumer functionality... horses for courses.

To that end it will be interesting to see what changes Naim do to the DSP reconstruction  processors in the newer higher end designs - as that is where a degree  of processing noise can creep in and relatively significant  compromises have traditionally been made... and if Naim focus on better digital filter reconstruction which seems to have really advanced certain designs in very recent years and of course  is now a realistic option given new ultra low power high density processors that are available - it could be an interesting development.

nbpf posted:

Meanwhile we have, beside SPDIF and USB, AES/EBU, i2s, Ethernet and perhaps other interfaces I am not aware of. 

On a technical level... Ethernet is not really an interface to a DAC.  Ethernet is an interface to a “computer” built in to a DAC.  A computer which turns files streamed to it into digital audio data.  It could be argued that modern “professional” standards such as Dante allows “true” digital audio data via Ethernet but there is still complex processing to connect to the network and convert to a form the DAC itself can understand.

AES/EBU is simply SPDIF converted to a balanced form.  The main advantage of AES3 (the correct name for AES/EBU) is that is can be run over common or garden microphone cables found in abundance in studios and other professional environments.  Yes supported distance is greater with AES3... but less than AES3id which runs over proper 75ohm BNC connectors / coax cable. The 110ohm XLR connectors used are very rarely truely 110ohm (arguably its impossibly to make true 110ohm connectors in practical terms), and SPDIF over BNC / coax at least technically is superior.

Finally i2s... well i2s is used in every DAC - it’s the internal interface between various digital parts of the DAC unit.  i2s (which stands for inter-IC sound) is designed for only a few cm internal connections.  Now you say i2s can run externally via HDMI (and other connectors) and this is true, but this is not i2s but a “bastardised” form using differential signalling.  There may be some advantages but there is also no standard to work to.

nbpf posted:

Same for other hardware components and, it goes without saying, for the software. This is a domain in which, unfortunately, we have witnessed regress rather than innovation: it is meanwhile not uncommon to see OSs distributed by snail mail and mixed open/closed source system that are thrown at the market with no or with incomplete documentation.

I addressed another part of your post above, but will address this part from the point of view of how I see Naim vs (some) other companies.

The problem for Naim is that they need to have a platform they can support now, in 5 years time, in 10 or perhaps even 20 years time.  As Alba says above, Naim built their reputation on long term support and people still expect that moving to the era of digital.

Small (so called) innovative, companies can respond to the market and new technologies, new ideas; but they also drop products and ideas quite quickly.

dave marshall posted:

Bart posted:

 

 

I solved that by buying the "best" Naim had on offer (NDS/555) and love it and am decoupled from the 'what to buy' process henceforth! 

Likewise, the music couldn't sound better, chez Dave, and no matter what might be round the corner in the planning stages, I have respectfully withdrawn from any future upgrades ................ honest! 

Dave….just saw on the news…a pig in full flight over North Yorkshire...

Eloise posted:

nbpf posted:

Same for other hardware components and, it goes without saying, for the software. This is a domain in which, unfortunately, we have witnessed regress rather than innovation: it is meanwhile not uncommon to see OSs distributed by snail mail and mixed open/closed source system that are thrown at the market with no or with incomplete documentation.

I addressed another part of your post above, but will address this part from the point of view of how I see Naim vs (some) other companies.

The problem for Naim is that they need to have a platform they can support now, in 5 years time, in 10 or perhaps even 20 years time.  As Alba says above, Naim built their reputation on long term support and people still expect that moving to the era of digital.

...

I am not sure that Naim has been providing long term support on such long time scales for their servers. When did the US and the HDX receive their last system updates? It is relatively easy to provide long term support for devices that do not have a full fledged SBC on board, like DAC, DAC-V1 and NDS. But for devices that rely on a SBC, things are a bit different.

The moment Naim decides to upgrade their classical range by adding the functionalities of the new Uniti range to the streamers, they will have to equip these new devices with more or less full fledged SBCs. This implies some compromises, e.g.,  in isolation and, I am afraid, in long term support.

In terms of long term support and flexibility and from a user's perspective, I think that currently it makes sense to invest into DACs (with long term support and good value preservation) and network streamers (with full fledged SBCs on board, best support for current and upcoming internet streaming services, Roon, Airplay, CA, MPD, etc. but relatively poor value preservation and long term support).

Of course, a clever modular design with options for upgrading single components could very much change this picture.

nbpf posted:

Eloise posted:

nbpf posted:

Same for other hardware components and, it goes without saying, for the software. This is a domain in which, unfortunately, we have witnessed regress rather than innovation: it is meanwhile not uncommon to see OSs distributed by snail mail and mixed open/closed source system that are thrown at the market with no or with incomplete documentation.

I addressed another part of your post above, but will address this part from the point of view of how I see Naim vs (some) other companies.

The problem for Naim is that they need to have a platform they can support now, in 5 years time, in 10 or perhaps even 20 years time.  As Alba says above, Naim built their reputation on long term support and people still expect that moving to the era of digital.

...

I am not sure that Naim has been providing long term support on such long time scales for their

servers. When did the US and the HDX receive their last system updates?

In fairness I think we should see support and adding new features as 2 different things. The support for the servers is  still there, both in terms of hardware and software, but the development on the platform clearly has stopped.

Claus

Claus-Thoegersen posted:

nbpf posted:

Eloise posted:

nbpf posted:

Same for other hardware components and, it goes without saying, for the software. This is a domain in which, unfortunately, we have witnessed regress rather than innovation: it is meanwhile not uncommon to see OSs distributed by snail mail and mixed open/closed source system that are thrown at the market with no or with incomplete documentation.

I addressed another part of your post above, but will address this part from the point of view of how I see Naim vs (some) other companies.

The problem for Naim is that they need to have a platform they can support now, in 5 years time, in 10 or perhaps even 20 years time.  As Alba says above, Naim built their reputation on long term support and people still expect that moving to the era of digital.

...

I am not sure that Naim has been providing long term support on such long time scales for their

servers. When did the US and the HDX receive their last system updates?

In fairness I think we should see support and adding new features as 2 different things. The support for the servers is  still there, both in terms of hardware and software, but the development on the platform clearly has stopped.

Claus

 

Fair enough. But then, in this restricted sense, support can be granted, if Naim wishes to do so,  no matter how the computing platform looks like.

MUSO things were a diversion from the Naim ethos and will be walked back from having not gained enough ground in a crowded market.

G

The Naim Muso, got me back into music more importantly, then NAim again. It’s a bargain, compared to anything else in the stable, streamer/dac amp and speaker......and the house sound, often overlooked or looked down on.

If ND5/x/s are not upgradable to the new platform then some day Naim will not have an iPhone app for these streamers.

Kevin Richardson posted:

If ND5/x/s are not upgradable to the new platform then some day Naim will not have an iPhone app for these streamers.

Wow. What an expensive paper weight it will be!