Spotify Connect Arrives for Naim Streamers

+1 

All working flawlessly. No drop outs. No Hiccups. No nuthin' (50Mbps broadband with Virgin helps I guess) but the whole thing, regardless of broadband speed,  just worked from the word go.  The whole process, from downloading firmware and drivers to finish and reboot has been smoother than PTFE! 

I've been playing for hours last night... I could not be happier... 

Also. I downloaded Spotify Beta onto the Macmini that is attached to my tele and works as a media centre (although that is not my default source) and now one can control Spotify on the Naim streamer via Spotify Connect running on a computer (in addition to the mobile devices we already know about), regardless these 2 are in the same network! 

No, actually not. I sorted out the other issues, however, this one remains. I'am somewhat "glad" I'am not the only one.

Hi, I can say that it defnitely does sound better (more detail & life), but it's not neccesarily a fair comparison as I was running the connect into my supernait dac rather than the one on the NDX which is now employed in the integrated solution. I actually sold the connect a couple of weeks ago pending this update so cant do a direct comparison now.

In general I found the sonos acceptable but a bit flat sounding even when streaming flac files - I'm not sure the connect feature itself makes any difference but I'd expect the higher quality power supplies and digital signal in the naim streamers to be making much of the difference over the connect.    

I have a lowly rural broadband ADSL access at often around 3.5 mbps sync speed. No drop out on Spotify or Qobuz for that matter. I am a BT customer.

I have just heard from Suffolk County Council we should have Superfast possibly using the new remote node cabinet technology for rural communities  by 2018 at the latest.

i haven't noticed a difference in Spotify sound quality depending on time of day, but complex compressed music sounds noticeably poorer than sparser less complex music.. Which is not that suprising given how the lossy codecs work.

Simon

I've found the sound quality of the Spotify Connect integration into the NDX superior to the Sonos Connect via Toslink into the NDX digital input.  This seems especially true when sound quality is set to "Extreme" within the Spotify app (which is necessary to compare apples to apples). That said, I've always preferred the SQ of UPnP direct into the NDX vs through the Sonos device - the Sonos loses a significant amount of dimensionality and PRaT in comparison. So, I'm not surprised. 

That said, while better with Spotify Connect, I'm still not sold on lossy streaming for anything more than auditioning an album prior to purchase or for background music.  Now lossless Spotify... That would be a game changer for me. 

I was looking forward to having Spotify on my UQ1. Unless I missed something there was no mention before release that a Hardware Upgrade was required for older machines and  even the announcement  suggested that 2011 models would be OK. Needless to say mine unit is not compatible even though I bought it in September 2011.  £350+ for upgrade.

Disappointed Dave

Simon, my broadband speed is 0.5Mbps! so still noticeably worse than you and obviously makes the difference for me in not being able to stream Qobuz. After much lobbying BT have just completed the cabinet upgrade so hoping things improve very soon... 

Gary - there were a number of changes made in the firmware for improving streaming in general (eg. optimum packet sizes, timeouts etc.) that will be of help beyond Spotify use.  These were identified during the beta but should also improve reliability of iRadio too.

On that basis, if the update will run on an older Uniti, I would go for it.

I don't use Spotify premier service as I subscribe to Qobuz , but I'm listening to Naim radio 320K and there is definitely an improvement in sound via radio after the upgrade or is it just  My ears/placebo effect! of the upgrade

Fueller, if that was all I was getting I would seriously consider satellite broadband - though you will need to be careful with data limits - although there are some good packages. But might not be necessary after the Openreach upgrade.

Simon

Would be nice if someone from Naim would comment about the unavailability of spotify on early Uniti products.( without an expensive hardware upgrade )

A friend in my village has just this week gone from 6 to 12mb/s copper up to 60++mb/s now they have fibre optic with BT Infinity.  As I understand the BT fibre optic service, provided the cable from the local cabinet to your property is OK,  you will get double digit Mb speeds irrespective of how bad your old service was.

Mike, yes Superfast is not/should not be available for line speeds that would fall below 10mbps after VDSL enablement for various reasons. New cabs are used for Superfast - where as the telephone exchange is typically used for ADSL. The interesting news is that BT are now or about to start deploying new small remote cabinets for very small communities / villages supporting up to 96 lines - which until recently would not have been far too expensive to provide service for.

Clive, If you are a rural community - that is not deemed economically viable for commercial infrastructure then I believe it falls to your County Council to lobby funds from UK Gov and the EU for infrastructure fill in. Talk to you local parish councillor - and they may be able to look into it for you - by liaising with county council

Simon

Simon, I'll look into that although hopefully not required for long. We are on a new estate and very lucky we were eventually able to persuade the consortium of developers to pay for the cabinet upgrade. Without that we are not classed as rural for prioritisation (edge of town) and would have really struggled.

Many Thanks

Chris  

Question for Simon...looking for some advice Simon...I would like to have access to Spotify on our Uniti,unfortunately it's an early unit...my question is this can I stream to an Apple Airport Express from the I pad and then connect via optical to the Uniti WITHOUT the Airport Express being hard wired to our network?

cant seem to get a straight answer from Apple.

my thought is the airport will connect to our wireless network wirelessly ( does it even need to do this?)

you may gather the computing side of things is not my strong point!

Yes I believe you can - Airplay appears as an option on the Airport Express when acting as a wireless relay.

I haven't tried this - but I see no reason why it shouldn't work.

Just bear in mind the wifi will have I suspect a fair amount of dog legging media data so the chance of drop outs might be higher

Simon

Yes.  This works.

Nick

Thanks for the replies guys..will have a go..only realy want this for the background stuff/finding new music.

Ok, so I followed the instructions carefully, eventually found a usb driver for my iMac and having installed the new software on my Qute 2 I got the big green tick that everything was ok. 

But nothing has changed  My Spotify app doesn't list my qute 2 as a connect device!

Any suggestions greatly appreciated. 

Have you activated the input via the app?

And it needs to be a hand held device...unless you download the beta version of Spotify

*ONLY* when using an ND5 / NDX / NDS so that you're not scaling the volume on the ND's line out ... if you're using a Uniti or NAC-N product then setting the volume to max will simply be full volume loud!

Phil

No ... Streamers only.

Phi