Qobuz, Deezer Elite, Tidal and all other HQ streaming support?

Thanks John

Sorry, I should have clarified that I don't believe their Elite (i.e. HD service) is available in NZ.  

Cheers

KS

That's a pity - I was looking forward to trying it out.

Tidal is available in 30+ countries

Deeper is available in 180+ countries

Admittedly not all countries have HD services currently but it won't be long.

Why do you focus on Europe?

Do you really think that the vast majority of the population of China is going to be interested in streaming music in the next few years?

This is why it's i important to support a multitude of streaming services easily without extended development. i expect there to be continued regional and culturally oriented streaming services.

China has approx a quarter of the world's population (or did have) and one of it's prominent streaming service is Ximalaya. Ximalaya is completely in accessable from a language point of view to me and it's music is mostly a passing curiosity for me.. But I am sure it's very relevant and of great interest to Chinese users.. Just like Qobuz is here for me being a western European user. It's about embracing diversity of the different streaming services.. After all music is a cultural medium.

Simon

PS Ximalaya is probably more equivalent to SoundCloud

I agree with Totemphile, it is crazy that i have invested a large some of money into a streaming device that can't be updated as easily as an Auralic Aries or the Sonos. If buying new you look at features and SQ, and i'm afraid Naim are starting to fall behind. how many people have moved away from the nDac and are also moving away from their streaming options.

Graeme

Graeme, I do enjoy my Naim streamer.. I do appreciate is electronics design and low noise clocks ... for me this is it's saving grace at the moment... It just sounds second to none into the Hugo.. I anticpiate  the next firmware to introduce DSD with additional DoP support for external DSD compatible DACs and HLS container support for the new UK BBC web radio streams. This is some progress.

Thereafer I am expecting lossless streaming support of at least one or preferably more of the more established lossless services .. I give it July / August.. If nothing firming up by then then I will start to look for alternate front ends.

To be blunt life is too short, and there is so much music and creativity as well as obscurity  accessable via high quality streaming now... If you truly love music it seems crazy not to enjoy and appreciate it.. why be constrained to vinyl, CDs, lossy downloads  and radio?

Simon

PS recent streaming 'discoveries' in the last week:

Appenzell yodelling... ( Inspired by The Grand Budapest Hotel)

Amiga demo/tracker music... ( didn't realize this was still going.. Superb.. ) 

Many  of the above recordings I have streamed and enjoyed are not on Amazon or itunes.

I think I posted about software as Naim's Achilles' heel several years ago to the chagrin of many in these forums. There is no doubt that Naim is an accomplished engineering company that is focussed on providing beautifully made electronics with the highest quality components. However, the speed of change in a digital world means that it is always struggling to catch up. Product development cycles are too long and Naim appear unable to adapt to the changing ways people source their music. In a world where music is essentially software, they retain an analogue mentality.

In the meantime other vendors are able to adapt, opt for Linux based solutions and open source software frameworks and develop digital amplification platforms. If you have heard Devialet's or Chord's latest offerings you will know that things are moving very quickly. Naim's latest streamer pre looks fantastic but is two years too late; Naim's integration of streaming services will no doubt come to some of its products in time but by then the world and many of its customers will have moved on.

Tog

If I ran a prison, I would be sure to require access to streaming services for the areas housing the most recalcitrant inmates.

I wonder if the guys at Naim are reading this thread

 lol

There is an upside to the slower progress: quality. I have been looking at different offerings before plunging into the digital age. Devialet is very interesting, but I don't know if they will survive in the long run. Naim has.

I have had my brush in with wonderful sounding equipment, but with a lot of repairs and leading to a non existing dealership. Naim's dealership and the quality of the equipment has been proven.

I do like streaming music, but most of my time I run music from my NAS. We will see how it plays out. in the end, you can always put another device up for the streaming services and use the Naim equipment for the DAC and the amplification, but I'd rather hold out on that.

Yes it is suprisingly good, and not at all what I am used to yodelling sounding like, more like a cappella  male choral music with wonderful harmonies.

Simon

That said, for the best playback quality, download and play locally is still the way to go. Streaming is a big part of the playback by music servers and streamers: convenience.

Diamondblack, why do you say this? Surely a network streamer cares not whether the source of the lossless media is 50 fset away in the study, or 5000 miles away, possibly in a different continent.. thanks to the wonders of TCP/IP and network data transfer... It's the same.

Simon

...........  plus the geostationary satellites,  thats 22236 miles (35786 km) each way (straight up & down),  so probably more than 50,000 miles assuming they use just one satellite to get Radio Paradise to Europe at faultless 320k.

Wat, completely confused by your above statement. Can you please define what you mean by 'bit'?

True bits are bits, just like elephants are elephants... But what has it got to do with audio?

Luckily most of the Internet is connected using fibre optic, and so is immune to the vagaries of consumer boutique patch leads.

Wat, I agree that most data network architectures we use are based on the OSI 7 layer model, and works on the principle that higher layers provide the required data presentation and reliability based on less and less reliable lower layers. Your DSL link is a physical and link combination and is inherently unreliable with much data resend and correction... and that's before it even appears as network data many of us would recognize... at the frame and transport level. The transport level is where the UDP and TCP data is managed, but even UDP has had a degree of underlying recovery on a DSL link.

However I don't agree the Internet has been cobbled together using 1970s technology... Unless you are talking basic concepts like packet switching etc.. used back then in the PSTN as well.

the Internet grow out of the deliberately very robust ARPA net and the NFSNET. TCP / IP and Ethernet were invented in the 80s. The RFC protocols hugely matured through the 90s with the massive growth of the Internet.

That evolution and continued development has not stopped. The BGP routing protocol is the essential element to the operability of the internet.. And that has been reguarly evolving.

i think the Internet RFC model has allowed great innovation, and has allowed standards to evolve rather than be set in the past, and is probably as democratic as a global network can be. I certainly can compare the freedom and innovation the Internet RFCs give to the more rigid ITU largely PTT/Telco based Recommmenation standards which have largely been eclipsed. I was a standards Rapporteur for the ITU earlier in my career.

But yes these are all a means to an end to enjoying music... and I also do enjoy purchasing and storing my music.. Buts that probably more to what I have been used to...

Simon

Also, using Qobuz you can store music files locally on your Mac etc and if you go 'offline' and play these files there is no dependency on an internet connection at all.  

Simon, having read so many of your posts, you must disagree this notion, playing back music stored in computer files is more than just "bit-perfect".

I don't have the scientific sophistication to explain so just treat mine as an opinion. All I have concluded so far from trial-and-error over the last few years is that even a change in the optical fiber in the house LAN while downloading music files to local storage will change the quality of the sound produced during playback.

Ok if I might help and draw an analogy. Data networks can be used for transporting data files.. Which is indeed what we use them for when we stream media files over the Internet and/or our local home networks.

Therefore think of a CD. you could order it via Amazon, HMV, or carry it yourself from your local shop. As long as that CD gets to you undamaged in one piece so you can put it in your CD player it really matters not who provides it and how it arrives with you.. It will sound the same.. The same is with data files when sent and transported via a data network..

Hopefully that makes some sense for you..

Simon

Indeed thinking further of this analogy, if the CD is slightly pressed out of balance, or variation in thickness of the disc and variations of the centricity of the guide hole, (as with most CDs), this can be considered equivalent to network transport parameters such as window sizes and sequencing. In both cases the media should be recoverable, but there may be side effects heard in how the data is recovered... Whether be imperfect CD or imperfect network transport path.

And still not any word from Naim. I'm so disappointed it hurts.

+100