Lost on Lossless

Is the Sonos limiting even with a dac in place?  I've not done the listening comparison, but you should.  My guess is that Naim make a much better sounding streamer player than the Sonos, but it depends on the rest of your system and whether you can hear the differences in the context of everything else.

What's a UPnP server?  There's a good Wikipedia article on it -- lots of detail.  For starters it's a (relatively) industry-standard protocol for serving music files over a computer network, especially home networks that use common consumer network items such as routers and switches and the like. 

Keep reading, and even more importantly, listening

Sonos will be a limiting factor, but Sonos has never intended it to be a Naim or even Apple beater ... It concentrates on playing streams from CD rips in any format lossy and lossless all round the house using wireless networking and it is superb at doing that. So no hires and the digital out is adequate rather than great ... I'd be surpised if the CS chips cost more than 10 pence .. Apple now uses a custom version which measures considerably better ... however, the vanilla Sonos still sounds pretty good. 

You can get a Wyred 4 Sound Sonos Connect which has a superb digital out and will produce wonderful results with a Naim DAC .. It won't do hires, but for normal CDs it is every bit as good as a Mac Mini, which in turn is my transport of choice. The Cullen board in the W4S Sonos Connect has state of the art measurements and a sound quality to match. 

So yes the Sonos is limiting ... No DSD, no Hires, No iPlayer. No .... But if you are just lokking for a CD playe d replacement then it is fine as is and can be superb with quality mods.  Don't forget we are comparing a £300 device with a £3,000 one when we compare Sonos to NDX. The NDX, of course, measures very well and is superb transport. 

Using a Mac Mini or Sonos in to a Naim DAC i would be astounding if you could hear the difference between uncompressed formats like AIFF or compressed ones like ALAC. In both cases you send the same PCM data along an optical connection which isolates you from electrical noise. With a Naim streamer, i understand this is different and the user is advised to deliver WAV to the streamer. This is what Simon has pointed out in his posts. 

So no need to forsake your Sonos if you really like it ... It'll sound very good with a Naim DAC and its wireless capability is just about as good as it gets. 

With apple and Sonos you avoid the hassle of UPnP ... Though some folk do not find it a hassle ... i'm just not a UPnP fan .... If you really want UPnP then i'd strongly recommend the Vortexbox as a low cost very high quality solution that supports Sonos, Squeezebox, ITunes and UPnP. 

Sorry can't answer questions about QNAP as I've never used or even seen one. Similarly i know nothing about Asset Control as it only runs on Windows as far as I know. Don't think you can run it on a NAS. You'll need other forum members to help with this. 

However, the W4S is indeed only useful if you intend to use the Connect to feed a high quality DAC. The DAC in the Connect is not something I have seen upgraded ... though Audiocom claims to be able to improve it, but I have never used any Audiocom product so no idea if it works.

If you can drive the QNAP Twonky then it should be as functional as a VB. I did try Twonky on a Mac, but couldn't get it to work... but that was ages ago. There are QNAP users on the forum so perhaps they will comment. 

You could use a Mac Mini to feed the Naim DAC and keep your iTunes Library on the QNAP ... not sure if this is of interest. 

Thanks. Looks like the main remaining question I need to get to the bottom of is whether I can feed direct from the QNAP NAS to a DAC and control it with software on a tablet or PC (and obviously a USB cable between NAS and DAC). I'm guessing from what i've managed to understand so far that it is not possible without a Sonos/PC/Mac-mini type device to act as a Streamer between the NAS and the DAC. If anyone can confirm this I'd appreciate it.

I believe that you can do this with a Synology NAS, I will try it later with the USB out of the NAS into my little NuForce USB DAC/Headphone Amp and see if it works.... Watch this space....

Thanks Rich, much appreciated :-)

I believe that Synology's Audio Station app will do this, but I've never tried it -- it has a music player and supports some sort of USB output, but it may well be analog, not digital.

I'm beginiing to think that the answer is *very* dependant on the specific components involved. Having read the manual for the Naim DAC (why didn't I do this before!) I believe its capabilities are different than that of the new DAC V1, in that the latter can pull data from a PC (for example) whereas the older (but in some ways higher spec) Naim DAC can only read memory sticks or i-Devices on its USB, and is primarily expected to be fed from a Naim (or other) streaming device. Similarly a QNAP NAS may not have the same options as a Synology NAS? I am, however, not absolutely sure of any of these assertions!

Ian you are very correct that the usb connections on the Naim Dac are only for using usb sticks as storage devices.  The Naim Dac and new V1 are VERY different animals in that regard, with the latter supporting asynchronous USB from a computer as a source.  The V1 is what people now-a-days truly call a "USB dac," which the Naim Dac is not and never was.

Hope that helps!

Ian P - wouldn't the absolutely simplest thing be to go for an NDS. Plug your Sonos into one of it's s/pdif inputs and you should be up and running in 5 minutes with an interface you are completely familiar with. Then, without messing any of that up, you can gradually switch over to streaming directly to the NDS using a variety of possible UPnP servers and NASs, including the one you've already got.  Retire the Sonos, or use it in the kitchen, when you've got streaming sorted. Don't bother with 'upgrading' the Sonos itself - Naims streaming must give a better result.

Bart, yup I'm beginning to realise it's even more complicated that I imagined!

I assume the Naim DAC is head and shoulders above the DAC V1, given that it's twice the list price and "just" a DAC, despite being a 4 year old design.

Likesmusic - life in this regard would be very simple if I could afford an NDS!

Sorry .. meant to say NDX or really any of the Naim things with both s/pdif and streaming capability. The s/pdif means you can use your old sources - cd player, dvd player, Sonos or whatever, and migrate in your own time to full Naim streaming. The nDAC option means there will always be a third party thing in the way - either your Sonos, or a USB to s/pdif converter. I'm suggesting it would be better to go with a Naim streamer than upgrade the Sonos, or go with a V1 if USB is your preferred solution.

Ah, I see, that makes more sense! As I think is true for many the more I read up here and elsewhere there is almost too much choice, Oddly the NDX boasts up to 32bit support, whereas the nDAC only 24-bit - what's that all about?!

I remain very unsure where to go with all this, the danger (or benefit?) is that I may just stick with what I have - but that too has its own frustration as I feel I've not got a source that makes me want to sit down and just listen to the music

Ian I know the feeling as I was there 2 yrs ago.  I just 'jumped in' and I am glad I did!  You owe it to yourself to WANT to sit down to listen, assuming that you love music as much as most of us

24 vs 32 bit does not worry me too much as there right now is very little 32 bit music, and frankly ripped redbook cd's sound fantastic.  Hi res music is not totally revolutionizing anything to-date; I own some hi res music that does not sound great, as it's as much the mastering as the data resolution.  And frankly some of the hi res files you can buy are simply upsampled.  So do not fret that. 

Given that you already own a nas that will function as a UPnP server, a Naim player (ND5XS, NDX or NDS) would make a perfect source.  Each has a dac built in and each is further upgradable with power supplies IF you want to go that route.  You just need to listen to them.  Similarly, something from the Uniti line also would be fine to use with a nas/UPnP source.  You can't go wrong; just see if you can listen to a few of the options. 

Bart, I am very much in the "loves music" camp! I have actually decided to dip my toe in the new digital waters,with a Teddy Pardo DAC, of which I've been reading good things, and will post back before too long.

Thanks for the encouragement to forge ahead - I really have been missing my music.

Ian