Deezer/NDX 5s

I've read elsewhere that claims are being made for no difference in audio quality between 320kps and lossless, but comparing Spotify to Deezer Lossless through my Samsung Mobile and a pair of AKG NR headphones, the difference is obvious. Would this also not be obvious on the ND5XS? My system also comprises NAC202/NAP200 and the usual power supplies...

If you mean can you hear the difference between 320kbps mp3 and flac on an ND5 XS, the answer is yes.

That's what I thought.  So I assume that the only way to go to get CD quality music with an ND5XS is to buy lossless files and stream them from, say, my laptop? Or buy a Sonos Connect for my Deezer files?

The ND5 XS has access to the Tidal streaming service, which included lossless tracks.

You can also rip CD's to flac or wav format.

I use Deezer. Half the price of Tidal. I don't much see the point of ripping CD's. If I wanted CD's I would've kept my CDX and not bothered with streaming. So, to repeat my question, is there an alternative to either buying lossless files and storing them on my laptop or buying a Sonos?, 

Deezer Elite (i.e. the CD quality version) is only available through Sonos, so you would have to get a Sonos Connect to play it into your streamer. It does appear to be cheaper than other lossless web streaming services, such as Qobuz (also supported by Sonos) and Tidal, but only once you've bought the Connect.

As for MP3, to my ears, it is the 21st century manifestation of the saying "Garbage in, garbage out" and I can't see any point in investing in a nice Naim streamer and feeding it garbage. 

Quite.

Bit irritated that I have to add another streamer so that my streamer can work... 

AHA! Just discovered that Tidal also has a prepaid deal that actually works out cheaper than Deezer in the long run! So, all good then. Phew.

You could make yourself very popular here by spilling the beans on this! There must be quite a few people whose free trial has run out by now, who might be tempted to go back to Tidal if the price was right.

Er. Oops. Not cheaper. Misread the offer. (Embarrassed face emoticon). Tossing the dice here. I could either buy a Sonos Connect and pay the Deezer rate, or just go with Tidal. I see there's hints of NAIM streaming developments next year, so I'm going with Tidal for the time being and waiting to see what happens...

Well worth checking out what you get for your money (preferably on a free trial) with all these services. Naim streamer integration might give Tidal the edge for sound quality, but the amount of material available for a given artist is sometimes much less than with other streaming subscriptions in my experience. I've found Deezer, Spotify and Apple Music all to have more, and some jazz and classical listeners seem to feel particularly badly catered for. 

I listen to a lot of classical and jazz and found Tidal hopeless when I had a free trial. Even on more mainstream music they often have very few albums - I wanted to play some Van Morrison and only found about four albums out of the dozens he's made. And as for sound quality, I find it significantly worse than CD quality rips streamed from a NAS. I certainly couldn't even consider using it as a sole source of music. 

Odd. I found the Van M. selection very comprehensive and also, if the sound quality is as bad as you say, why are NAIM so pleased to offer the service? According to the NAIM page on the subject, they seem positively aglow with pleasure!

Mike1951 posted:

Odd. I found the Van M. selection very comprehensive and also, if the sound quality is as bad as you say, why are NAIM so pleased to offer the service? According to the NAIM page on the subject, they seem positively aglow with pleasure!

Because people were CLAMORING for the service.  "It doesn't sound that great" is something those people did not want to hear and/or could not accept because "bits are bits."  There was a revolution brewing; some here were skewering Naim for not offering 17 different streaming services.  So Naim added Spotify, and then Tidal.  Now they want Qobuz.  I thought that Tidal lossless sounded like shiite compared to lossless cd rips from my home server.  Others like the variety and convenience (I guess). 

Interesting. When I've got the ND5, I'll have a lusten to Tidal and see where to go from there....

Mike - also when Naim are finally ready to release the firmware in development - you might find the sound of Tidal improves by a worthwhile margin - they have been busy optimising the code to make the internet FLAC streaming sound pretty close to local FLAC streaming - as all things being equal it should sound the same or at least a lot closer than it does currently IMO. 

Mike1951 posted:

Odd. I found the Van M. selection very comprehensive and also, if the sound quality is as bad as you say, why are NAIM so pleased to offer the service? According to the NAIM page on the subject, they seem positively aglow with pleasure!

These are the Van The Man albums I can see, which is not comprehensive in my book. Maybe I'm doing something wrong...

Have you pressed the little button saying "more" next to the list of albums?

That little 'more' took me a while to notice too when I first started Tidal.

52 Van 'albums'.

G

Durr. Call me Mr. Stupid. 

Hungryhalibut posted:

Durr. Call me Mr. Stupid. 

2 tracks of that name, Mr. Stupid, by Richard Thompson...

G

If you have to add an extra device for another streaming service solely to keep the cheaper service, I ask you: how many months do you have to keep that cheaper service to regain the investment made in an extra device?

Naim will add other streaming services, because they simply will loose out on new customers if they don't. The market place will force them. 

I have been on Tidal now since its introduction in the new firmware and I have to admit that my listening habits have changed. For classical music I use Tidal to check things out, but I find the sound quality lacking (thanks for the heads up Simon ). I have found the eclassical music store to be a better store than Qobuz.

For rock/pop I tend to add the albums I like to my music. The tidal app on my iPhone acts as the music player while travelling, since you can download albums for offline listening. The huge catalogue of Tidal offers enough choice to rotate albums on the phone.

Tidal sounds crap on the phone with a decent pair of (AKG)  headphones. That's why I use Deezer and would like to on the home system as well. Also, Deezer has a bigger catalogue.

So now I'm thinking of using Deezer on my mobile just to investigate new albums I haven't heard before and if I want to keep, buying lossless/FLAC files to download to my laptop and stream them to my ND5XS using Window Player on my laptop. Is that technically feasable? I really want to avoid having to add a Sonos Connect. I guess I could buy from Qobuz? Load them on to my Windows Player?