SuperUniti - Performance - Airplay

No it doesn't. It's supposed to be 'coming', but no one is holding their breath.

Well that is just the feeling i got from reading around the forum..

I just can't understand why Naim have to try and invent the wheel one more time?

Airplay with iTunes and the Remote App for iPhone and iPad is just great (avaliable for Android too and works great also), why even think about NOT having it from Launch? Excuse me but that is just stupid, Apple is everywhere and everybody else is implementing Airplay..

But if they make it avaliable, anyone wanna take a bet they will charge 99 pounds for it?

As far as my experience and looking at the forums, upnp just demands alot of work for the end user, and problems both now and then seems to be normal. I do not want to come home from the office and put in a few hours work to get basic stuff like music streaming to work, not once.

iTunes, just mark the AIFF files you want to add, drop them in iTunes, named, taged and complete with coverart, all done-> press play.

R&D to implement Airplay? Well i guess with competent engineers they will have that fixed before lunch, if Apple can sell that little Airport Express with bit-correct output for 99 dollars i dare say it is not that much big of a deal to implement in a good way, Hi-Fi is far from rocket sience..

"Bit perfect" (bit-correct) is the buzzword once again. If it's "bit correct" it MUST sound great and identical to other sources right? (??)

I don't have a strong view one way or the other about Airplay, but I WOULD expect Naim, if they implement it, to either make it sound as good as other sources, or somehow advise the consumer that it does not.

Frankly, I am glad that in many aspects, Naim do treat hi fi as "rocket science;" I appreciate their r&d and believe it sets them apart from other companies in this field.  Naim's approach is not for everyone, but I don't think that they try to be, either.  I trust their commitment to the sound, rather than believing that they are simply sitting on their collective thumbs, thinking up schemes to confuse the consumer and deprive them of their right to Airplay..

I have a UQ and had the discussion with my dealer about Airplay.  From what he had been told by the Naim Sales rep the issue is in the licensing of Airplay, so it is probably tied up in the legal aspect.

Unfortunately for those of us with the earlier models (before the 24/192 upgrade) this is a required upgrade in order to get airplay.

I have given up on Apple and iTunes as I don't like feeling like I am being held hostage with my music.  FLAC encoding is much more widely used, UPnP is available for free and sounds better than any of the other encodings that Apple deems important for them to support.  That's too bad as iTunes is very easy to use, if they would just come to the party and support FLAC and offer a UPnP server then it would be the hottest item around, IMHO.

Use an Airport Express on any Naim unit's digital input and you have Airplay for 99$.

Right now the problem is Apple, they want to licence Airplay to all-in-one units only, not to streamers or sources components...

Many early adopter manufacturers have only embeded an airport express into their unit...

Not something Naim will do...

Thank you, Manu.  That sheds considerable light on the issues involved.

As mentioned an airport express on one of the digital inputs will do airplay. It sounds like shit, you will have a play with it, realise it sounds shit and not use it again.

Good news is you can use an express for other duties or get most of your money back on ebay.

in the mean time you can control your streamers from a mac with 'qutecontrol' or from i devices with the free naim software.

Manu, that was good information, just hope Apple can make up their mind and sort this as soon as possible.

Just imagine a NAC-N 222 with full AirPlay support, INSTA-BUY

garyi, that kind of thinking will only make you wallet and ears suffer..

This 2012, many music lovers with Hi-Fi commitments have started to think for themselfs, not buying into every single rubbish-statement that comes out of a sales-person, no matter if they sell Cars or Hi-Fi...

Have a free mind, get toghter with any of you frinds that also likes music and hi-fi, play around one evening with level-matched blindtests, that will open your eyes, it sure made mine wide open...

The force of placebo is very strong, unbelivable actually..

ps. just because it is expensive doesn't automatically make it good, remember that, always.

Gary I am tempted to do this as an experiment.  (I can use the Airport Express elsewhere any way.) Can use my wife's ears if need be, to remove the placebo effect. Have you had a listen?

Bart, what makes you think that your wife can avoid placebo? Beeing Tired after work? Not really interested? Just picking one to make you shut up?

And maybe the most important factor, experienced listers can detect differences better, so do it yourself.

Only real way of doing this without fooling yourself i a good old blind test, levelmatched with a multimeter at the speaker post. This takes two persons, i bet you wife can switch source without telling you whats playing, just cover all revealing diods

ps. This thing with the "Wife heard all the way from the other room" thing and Hi-Fi is just absurd

Agreed.  Was running Spotify on my iPad, and AirPlaying to a newly purchased AE connected via Toslink to my Naim DAC. The sound quality was mediocre, but I convinced myself that it was good enough for trying new music.  Then I started having reliability issues, and was regularly forced to reboot my iPad and/or AE to get any sound at all.

Then I learned that my Asset UPnP server could do PC sound capture, and stream via UPNP.  This is not only more reliable, but sounds considerably better! Nothing subtle about it. Am using PocketCloud on my iPad for remote server connection, and it works a treat.  Spotify runs nearly as fast as when using a local connection. Bye-bye AE!

Hook

PS - Am quickly approaching two years of 100% uptime with my NDX/Asset UPnP setup.  Zero problems -- not one moment of unplanned downtime.  The only time music has not been instantly available were the two times I spent 20-30 minutes updating firmware on the NDX (which also went very smoothly).  If Naim delivers Airplay, i'll give it another go, but if they don't, that's fine by me. Am not missing AirPlay and/or the AE one bit!

PPS - With the help of Mrs. Hook, I've conducted quite a few blind tests over the years. I always feel better about an upgrade when she can hear the improvements it is supposed to bring. Will reconnect the AE tonight, and ask her opinion of AirPlay via AE versus UPnP-based PC sound capture, and then post the result. That is if I can get the AE working of course...

I would do it as a blind test where I switch the components and she listens.  That's the only way I can think of to do it.  Seems easy to me.  Her ears are at least as good as mine; I "trust" her ears 1000%  We've listened to plenty of music, and equipment, together, and discussed the same, for me to reach that conclusion.

Bart, when testing sources there is no connecting involved, just hook everything up to different inputs? 

I'm glad that you share the Hi-Fi interest with your wife, mine sure likes to listen to music but could not care less about SQ more than "it sounds good"

Remember that Level-matching is utterly important.

When Hi-Fi dealers are hosting a show for demonstrating a line of products they always start with the entry-level kit and by every step the go up in the food-chain they adjust the volume by a very slight amount upwards every time, just as little that you can't really tell but the music seems to "come alive, more soul, my feet started tapping like insane etc etc..." Yeah you know, the music most often sounds better when the volume goes up.

With this clever procedure they can make you think that there are way bigger differences SQ-wise than it really is..

Salesman is always a salesman, whatever he tells you

Not when using AirPlay - still sounds shite 

Prubast, and others..

I now realise that you have missunderstood me somewhat, probably my fault because English is not my native language, obviously

When i talk about using Airplay it is NOT to stream directly from the iPad or iPhone to my Stereo, this is very important that you understand, this way everything sounds more or less shite, agreed.

No, i use Airplay in this way: Fileserver with iTunes running -> Wired Ethernet in the house down to my Livingroom -> Airport Express -> Optical -> DAC -> NAC.

My dream would be a Reference "NAC-N 222 A" with Airplay built in, by this way i can throw out aaalot of various boxes..

The iPad and iPhones are only used with Apples Remote-App, that does just that remote controlling iTunes on my fileserver.

I now realise that you have missunderstood me somewhat, probably my fault because English is not my native language, obviously 

Eargasm, no need to "apologise" for your English. It is excellent and so are the points you are making on this topic. I agree with you 100%  about some of the techniques  and comments  made by dealers to promote the differences in SQ in order to sell the most expensive equipment.

Regarding Apple Airplay, like many others on this Forum, I find the SQ, not to mention the convenience, to be the equal of UpNP ( via EyeConnect ) streamed from an iMac.

Last night, I also did a direct SQ comparison of Internet Radio broadcast between AirPlay and iRadio with my Uniti. Linn Jazz ( at 320 kbps), tuned directly from the Uniti's iRadio, was compared back to back with Linn Jazz tuned via iPad2 / Tunein Radio and streamed to the Uniti via Apple Airport 2. Neither my wife nor myself could discern any difference ! 

Maybe our speakers are not as analytical as those who are so dismissive about Airplay SQ but we both regularly attend live  classical concerts so we have a pretty good understanding of what is close to the "original" sound and what isn't.

+1

AirPlay discussions aside, I'd have thought bthe NAC-N 172XS is what you're looking for - just add to NAP250. If you want airplay, add Airport express to one of the digital inputs And use the Naim dac In the 172.

I don't understand why Naim hasn't added Airplay ... I think they will in future products. 

There is now a version of Asset that runs on a Mac with no need for any Windows software at all so I'll give that a go, but it doesn't do what Airplay does in making it possible to just send sound from an iPad/Pod to your system.  

However, I want to check out if Asset can transcode ALAC to WAV on the fly and if it makes any difference to the sound quality. I have my doubts, but if I don't try it I'll never know. 

I use an Apple TV MkI with an iMac in charge sometimes and I find it works well.

Jono