Naim Lossless Streaming Roadmap Campaign

legally?

Of course. 

However I am willing to spend the $20 per month TIDAL subscription fee for the "research" and "try out" phase. I can research the COMPLETE album, in full CD quality, and download the entire thing onto my iPhone (again in full quality) and continue my research on the car stereo.

If the album is truly good and a keeper I will then buy the vinyl (if it is well mastered, recorded and not compressed). 

As previously stated - for an obsessive music buyer like myself with so many thousands and thousands of titles this is a game changer in the amount of money I am saving by not purchasing music which I might only have a fleeting fancy for. 

If you want to you should be able to. 

If you don't want to, other alternatives should remain.

That's all I'm saying. When people get all offended and defensive because not everyone want's to 100% subscribe to their brave new world, something is not adding up.

Are you saying you can get free legal access to an equivalent catalogue to that of Tidal or Qobuz at redbook quality? I would very much appreciate details. 

How did you used to get music? Have you forgotten? If the amnesia persists you maybe would be better off with a subscription service and a nurse to work it for you.

I use iRadio, FM, artists' websites, Youtube, Freeview, online databases, Amazon and other online retailers, the recommendations of others and Shazam. And probably more which I will remember subsequently. 

Subscription services are a part of an increasingly interesting landscape of access. They do not automatically render everything else null and they come with strings attached. Any who wish to use them should do so. Any who wish to praise them are free to. Any who say that everyone will only want to use these services henceforth are talking gibberish.

I had a go on the Linn control app last week. The way it integrates Tidal is brilliant. This is a welcome part of the future and when it's done so well it is compelling. If you want to pay for a subscription service. If you don't, then you are hardly stumped.

Harry

That is certainly not what I was saying. I would be prepared to pay a subscription to be able to listen and evaluate pre purchase to a whole CD at a minimum of CD red book standard! the minimum level that I enjoy with my music collection. Your alternatives will remain but do not fully address that personal desire.

As to your final sentence I agree 100%. My primary source is and will continue to be my music collection. Lossless steaming to me will be a useful and interesting addition but not a game changer, at least not yet.

None of the services you mention - iRadio, YouTube etc. - are redbook quality, and online retailers like Amazon only offer snippets, usually at the lowest quality. Your rudeness is utterly uncalled for; but were I to reciprocate I'd suggest it is you that needs a nurse to help with your reading. You seem to me to be incredibly threatened by the end of the music "ownership" paradigm. 

Stop being unruly at the back of the class, you two

I cam across this on the Gramophone website today from a subscriber in Greece.  I've edited it a little but it seems to me a different and interesting take on this issue; credit of course to him

"Look at the broader picture my feeling is that however interesting the existing [streaming] services are, they are held back by being to some extent parasitic on the CD catalogues........ It seems to me that the services so far are being driven by third party providers, drawing on current CD calalogues and dragging the CD companies into their folds with varying degrees of cautious enthusiasm.  They..... are thinking of what part of the CD catalogue is available streamed from each provider.

I think the tipping point will come when the recording companies start to think in terms of streaming first. What do I mean by this:

First, when the companies start to issue recordings for streaming in the first instance, with or without a corresponding CD release.

Second, when they think first of the possibilities of the streaming format, releasing themselves from the shackles of the red-book.

Once company thinking is transformed to streaming-first, a lot can follow:

1. Bit rate.  The 44.1/16 rate was specifically designed for the silver disc to enable 70+ minutes of music to be accommodated on a single disc.  There is no good reason why this should be the standard bit rate for streaming. A modest increase to 48/24 would be a worthwhile alternative, but it's relatively easy to offer streaming at different rates to suit different needs. And there is no 80 minute limit!

2. Presentation..... why should streaming be trapped in the format of the CD booklet. Once free from the constraints of the CD booklet, there is a vast range of opportunities. The scope for interactive 'booklet' information is enormous: texts (and indeed scores) that couple to the music, links to the websites of performers involved and the like. Such approaches are common (look at the Gramophone website) elsewhere and make the present streaming (and downloading) options seem antedeluvian.

In short, I think streaming will really 'take-off' once the recording companies realise its full potential: also when the balance between providers of the material and streaming companies has been properly worked out.  It's already worrying that Qobuz and Tidal have different strengths and weaknesses in terms of material available.  No-one is going to want to have to subscribe to multiple streaming providers.

So let's see."

This seems to sum it up rather well for me.  Using that terrible cliche, perhaps a paradigm change is needed

Any who say that everyone will only want to use these services henceforth are talking gibberish.

"Everyone" is not the logical equivalent of "most people", agreed, but ask yourself what the dominant modes of music listening will be once we are all dead and gone...I have a pretty good sense that my kids will have no interest in Red Book CDs and the space they consume for storage, once they know that they have been ingested into a media server OR are available at full quality without any physical commitment whatsoever. The discs are only media carriers, scratch easily, and those clear jewel boxes crack easily. There is little to no value in a Red Book Compact Disc once you have extracted the data from the media.

Things are slightly different for vinyl records, as one cannot tune in (these days, anyway ) an analogue FM station to listen to an entire album side or two. The experience is different.

Face it or not, on-demand, full-quality streaming services change the game, and the specialist hi-fi industry has to look forward toward its next generation of consumers. The value-add, so to speak, is in the quality of the conversion from digital to analogue to sound, as well (if not more importantly) the user experience.

I agree and a nice viewpoint.

Once the release of new material can fully embrace what can be achieved the 'race' to supply 16/44.1 copies of existing CDs will slowly disappear.

My feeling this is the new paradigm that Bono/Apple have been hawking as their new digital distribution, dedicated streaming based on content and quality surpassing what can be squeezed into a CD format.

Probably .... :-)

Edit : To add, perhaps NAIM are thinking along these lines with their own label of material, enhanced streaming with added content? 

I kind of agree of Dave other than streaming is THIS generation of music lovers. The next generation may have a new way of accessing / consuming / appreciating that we haven't even got yet. You wait, the Internet of things and IPv6 will throw up many new personalisation services / techniques that may transform again how the next generation consume music. Streaming is NOW and is a current media source just like CD, Vinyl, download, and good old FM radio are current media sources.

Simon

Never meant to imply otherwise. I'm speaking, for the most part unsuccessfully, against the mindset which says "it's the future and you need to get used to it". It still (although it probably shouldn't) amazes me that so many people want their choices limited and their behavior dictated to them. That is of course the choice of the individual,  but it should not be made to apply to everyone. In arenas like this, naysayers can be dismissed by the trendy people as Luddites and people who just don't get it.  

But again, when people get defensive and aggressive about their choices, something is wrong.

Like you, I can see nothing but good things coming out of there being so much choice - the operative word being "choice". 

I chose not to pay to own a copy of anything less than CD quality and I chose not to pay for a service which is pay per listen. When I pay, I want at least a file on disc for my money. For some reason some people are really uncomfortable with this attitude. Strange.

The game is changing and it's all to the good.  Anything which gets more music to more people is good. Choice is good. More choice is better. Beware of wishing to embrace the no choice option. 

Maybe I'm not seeing the bigger picture. Spending our way out of a recession could (and increasingly likely will) be facilitated by a music industry which makes you pay again and again and again but supplies you with nothing to show for it. Maybe I'm not the good little consumer I should be. Maybe one day we'll pay the industry for permission to hum something in our head? But strictly on a per hum basis, because nothing is free and unpaid humming will be killing music.

Until now none of the services has gone out of business, but of course it may happen tomorrow. The important thing is to have services with cd quality or better. I am not paying for mp3 played on a quality hifi. But my favorites from wimp is as much my own as my local stored music, as long as I pay. That is different with the download services especially hdtracks where  all is lost if a disk with the files fails, and you have no backup.   

i don't intrinsically disagree with a word of that. Lossless streaming is a welcome 'add on' for me and for the present at least that is all.

Free, as well as fee-based, streaming services have been around since 2007. They are a welcome alternative to the main source of music for most people under 40:  free sites like YouTube, and any one of a number of semi-legal download sites.

Streaming services provide large, curated catalogs of music along with other value-add services (playlists, similar artist recommendations, artist or genre-focused radio sessions, mobile support via download and app-controlled playback, and so on). IMO, their cost is reasonable and the fear of them going out of business is exaggerated. Today, with the relatively recent addition of CD-quality playback (and in at least one instance, even higher resolutions), streaming is clearly a growing business model. Perhaps even more importantly, the growth of music is supported through royalty payments to artists (however small compared to the dying CD and the slowing download sales business models).

Personally, I have never bought into the download sales model as it strikes me as poor VFM. From now on, given how much I enjoy the Deezer Elite/Sonos marriage, I will only be purchasing rare or obscure CDs from bargain bins as an occassional collectable. Vinyl is a different story. While I have made a huge effort recently to reduce the size of my collection (from almost 5000 down now to about 2500 records - still a lot!), I plan to continue to selectively buying original first-pressings as well as high-quality reissues (e.g., the two series of beautifully reproduced 33rpm Blue Notes from Music Matters). Vinyl sounds too wonderful, and is just too much fun, for me to ever consider going "all-digital".

The principle reason I joined this "campaign" is that I feel that lossless streaming a strong win/win for both Naim and its customers. It would help Naim sell more boxes, and it will enhance the value of my NDS and allow me to redeploy my Sonos Connect.  In the meantime, the Connect is a highly functional, easy-to-use, and extremely affordable solution (using Toslink output, and taking advantage of my NDS's buffering/reclocking to remove SPDIF-related jitter).

ATB.

Hook

Meridian's MQA is perhaps the first step in achieving this. Meridian and Tidal's MQA streaming demonstration was very well received at CES last week.

What make/name is your Toslink cable?

Wireworld Supernova 6 (1M).

Hook, I have been experimenting a bit with the Sonos/NDX connection. I rummaged through a bag of hifi odds and sods I have and found  a combined TOSLINK to Coax converter and reclocker. Its circa 1997.

I got curious so I put it in between the Sonos and the NDX/Hugo. Initially the resultant sound had a dull overall sound with a prominent very high end, but over a hour the resultant sound transformed.. The treble became natural and naturally integrated and the bass became beefier, more solid and better defined, and additionally the  mids in the audio became more textured and nuanced. The result was more enjoyable and closer to the native UPnP sound  than using the direct TOSLINK Sonnos connection into the NDX. I assume the clock in the reclocker device was stabilising over this initial warm up time, as I probably had powered it for over 10 years.

But what this has shown  me is that the ND players even in reclocker/digital source switch mode still appear to benefit from a low jitter source... and potentially perhaps what I can expect when Naim do support Qobuz and other lossless services directly.

Simon

the Amazon service is a hybrid one. When you buy most CDs you get the option to stream the CD lossy from the cloud as well for free. Great for the car on 3G. It'll be intersting to see if Apple do an optional CD tie in.. Buy the download, and get the CD as a small optional extra

Simon

The availability of services like this is a good thing in the big picture. I also personally believe that given time and patience your NDS will be able to handle a range of such services. But I want to pick up on one thing; the record industry isn't actually using these services to increase sales. They aren't selling anything, although they are making money out if it. Perfect! Users are paying rent and actually buy and own nothing. It's a huge money printing machine which gives nothing tangible  in return for payment.

I see the future more in terms of rent versus own with most people mixing and matching somewhere in the middle. Within such a normal distribution there will be some who never own a copy of anything and some who never pay to just listen. So long as either extreme doesn't take control of the whole distribution we'll be good.

I suspect that in time the industry will do a vinyl on us and price rented streaming at CD levels, whilst artificially jacking up other physical delivery systems. The lines are more or less drawn already, but until the recession is over they won't be able to make gigantic profits on such a model. Give it time though.  And all it will take is time for people work out how to illegally abuse the system. Nothing changes.

Yeah Allen, I saw your holiday post. I think that even in Western Europe the infrastructure has weak areas. I can't get FM, DAB or a mobile phone signal (from any provider) where I live. And how would you use a streaming service on the move or in the car? What happens if you hit a dead spot? Or worse still, come to rest in a dead spot. A buffer will only hold so much.

If a CD quality (or higher) streaming subscription service offered a physical copy of everything accessed I would jump. Even if it was £100 a month I'd buy a year and get myself several tons of material. I might even be tempted to go 320 at 99p for 3 months so I could amass several thousand tracks for playing in my car and on portable devices.

Back in my yoof and early adulthood, I would spend sometimes whole Saturdays in record shops, flicking through albums. Something would always be playing on the shop system and on occasion I would buy it. Also I'd go to the counter with a prospective purchase and ask them to put it on. Nothing cost anything until I decided I wanted to own it. I suppose Spotify as it is now is a kind of equivalent. It's lower quality and you pay regardless of what you end up liking. But you don't get to walk away with anything. It's not so much having the biggest record collection in the world as paying someone to flick through theirs and occasionally put something on. My mates and counter staff used to do that for free. I guess my generation were the lucky ones.