Why Naim's failure to update firmware actually does matter....

I have Tidal but don't use Nain equipment for streaming, that's why I don't understand the details.

Also like others in the forum I was a software developer in all the dufferent positions one can be: from programmer to owner of software company, member of the board of important co, etc., all very serious and responsible companies as I think Naim is.

Every time I participated in a software release (new or after important changes/improvements) I was absolutely conviced that the users were going to have the best we could deliver. At the same time we knew that bugs were in it  (even after thorough testing) and immediately after release we should invest a lot of time fixing them (users have an incredible capacity/imagination to do things in a way that bugs appear). For some functionalities with problems the developer/supplier can suggest a bypass, some critical problems can have temporal partial solutions,  etc, etc, all highly appreciated by users.

The more innovative, the more functionality, the more flexibility (all also highly appreciated by users)...  higher the risks of malfunction.

What I find difficult to undersand is why you user have received nothing (solutions, even partial, communications... ) in more than 6 months?

The message above in the forum  from a Naim person say nothing give nothing.

Regards.  Erich (very happy with all my Naim devices)

Well ALL software has bugs in it (as I am know that you know) but there is an "acceptable" level (i.e. mainly comprised of ones that have escaped rather thorough testing) vs a level that is not only unacceptable but just plain embarrassing.  This not only has to do with the escape percentage, but also the severity of the bugs.  No in-house testing can ever replicate the rigors of actual use on a wide scale by real users, but of course the idea is to get as close as one possibly can.

There is also the nature of what the software does. Nobody will die or be maimed for life if Naim gets it wrong (although perhaps some forum members will need counseling - JK), as opposed to medical applications or software that will navigate a plane or someday drive your car for you, where bugs can result in very serious consequences.

On the plus side e-mailed Naim support yesterday and received response within half an hour. Impressive.

I pay for Tidal every month and find it fantastic in my car and on mobile devices but it is, for me, a complete waste of time on my Naim streamer.  I am very lucky to play a song without a dropout (something I do not experience on mobile devices, or when I used Spotify for that matter) and playing a complete album is something I can only dream of. It tends to be more reliable during the daytime but completely useless on an evening. I will wait for the next update but if it does not improve I may consider changing to hardware that is more reliable. Such a shame as I love my Naim system but if a £2000 streamer can't reliably stream from the Internet then it's time to look somewhere else. 

Interestingly Naim have suggested I join the Beta trial so that does suggest that Naim believe my experience will be better. Again impressed by Naim's support.

My Naim dealer is saying he is unaware of any Tidal problems and says I am in a minority of one. My experience is very similar to Ommadawn to date. 

Hi all, 

We've  been focussed on getting the release ready and i've been tardy on maintaining you on status, for which I apologise. At present our testing shows our product is more reliable under most conditions, backed up by the findings of the beta team so far. And whilst general feedback is it sounds good, we think we can achieve a little bit more magic to achieve the  sound quality we expect of Naim products. I appreciate your support so far, and clearly understand your frustrations, we are working hard to get this one resolved, it's been a very complex one, far more than expected.

Rest assured, we are on it, and I will endeavour to give more regular updates as we go, this one was never expected to be as tough as it has been to get the product blend right for you. I really appreciate having so many customers that are vocal and care about our products and releases

regards

Trevor

That's good to hear Trevor.  I probably fall into a similar group of problem users as Boris786 & Ommadawn. Although I have posted elsewhere on this forum that I personally have seen a huge improvement in reliability recently.  This has been without any changes to my system - so I was wondering if changes have been made at Tidal's end ?  Anyway - keep us posted please !  Thanks N.

Thanks for the update Trevor, much appreciated. Fortunately I am now not suffering with dropouts but would very much appreciate enhanced SQ from Tidal streams.

I wait with patient anticipation.

As the OP, can I also thank Trevor warmly for his update. Pleased to hear we will eventually get a better sounding product. But I think this exchange has proved that the lack of communication has risked an impact on Naim's future sales, both from (a) people who are affected significantly by poor Tidal performance at the moment, and (b) people like me considering a Naim upgrade path from my current SU (with which I am happy, by the way!). Communications really matter!

Goon, we could have released months ago and screwed the sound in all your homes, not a good call! my 10 cents worth for you

Which is undoubtedly true! But my point about communications still stands - remember we had been led to expect this pre-Christmas. It was 26 Celsius yesterday!

Paul Stephenson posted:

Goon, we could have released months ago and screwed the sound in all your homes, not a good call! my 10 cents worth for you

Missing the point I think, the issue is more with communication about the delay rather than the delay itself. 

Ther is a strong "Le Carré " tendency in Naim that isn't always in Naim's best interest. 

It's one matter to keep us guessing and salivating about upgrades and new products, another thing entirely for a "fix". 

My measly 2c. 

SJB

Paul Stephenson posted:

Goon, we could have released months ago and screwed the sound in all your homes, not a good call! my 10 cents worth for you

Yes fine but when you sell a product and state Tidal streaming is available does that not mean Tidal is "released"?

May be a MAC, for a fraction of the price of a naim streamer,  has not the  intended sound of the latter, but works.

Consider this second way out while naim reach a point that don't "screw the sound in all your homes".

Rgards.  Erich

call me old fashioned but Trevor's conciliatory response is more likely to engage and placate Naim's customer base Paul than yours; if that's important

Paul Stephenson posted:

Goon, we could have released months ago and screwed the sound in all your homes, not a good call! my 10 cents worth for you

What a bless!

AndyL posted:

call me old fashioned but Trevor's conciliatory response is more likely to engage and placate Naim's customer base Paul than yours; if that's important

I can only agree

Tidal dropouts are totally annoying. It just dropped out for me every 5 seconds. Using a playlist with 3457 items (actually imported from Spotify's Star-Playlist) it also takes 20 seconds to stop a song. Looks like Tidal is not for me.

(Video streaming in full HD is totally stable for me using Amazon Fire TV. Bandwith shouldn't be an issue.)

A nice response from Trevor with an acknowledgement and a gracious apology about the lack of communication about the what is happening with the delayed FW update followed by a clear explanation for the delay. Just what most of us would expect. Then, oh dear, Paul belatedly jumps in completely missing the point partially unravelling Trevor's excellent response. I can only think Paul saw red and leapt to his keyboard.

As I said in an earlier post the three most important things when handling customer disappointment are communication, communication and communication.

Everything's fine with me. Very rarely do I have any dropouts on Tidal or anything else. I never knew we had to be constantly updated on updates. I'm very happy with what I have. 

Honestly, I love my Naim hifi. It works flawlessly for me (sorry, just lucky I guess) and brings me pleasure every day. I don't expect updates about the updates, and I recognise Naim is a small company and sometimes its good intentions go awry. In this case, arguably it was advance communication that has CAUSED the problem, since without a promise of pre-Xmas we wouldn't know what we didn't end up getting. Surely, the message here is to communicate nothing until you're ready to ship.

HOWEVER, I will say that Paul's response surprised me. I'm sure he didn't mean to sound peevish, but he did. I don't think anyone suggested shipping a bad product, so his terse reply was arguing against a point no-one had made. 

Yes, in retrospect probably better to have not made that pre-christmas commitment in the first place. Trouble is you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. The problem is that many Tidal users, me included, were having real drop out problems at that time and were eagerly anticipating the fix with the new FW as indicated by Naim. Then 4 months of silence. I don't need updates about updates but having raised hopes of an early solution some communication I feel was necessary, particularly to the those still suffering drop outs. We are all grown ups and would completely understand when significant unexpected technical issues delayed the FW update.

Remember we are the lucky ones who are not suffering drop outs, for many out there Tidal is unlistenable. Not exactly a third world problem I grant you, but irritating if you have paid a lot of money for kit and one attractive feature is 'unavailable'.

I would like to acknowledge the inevitable challenges faced by the technical staff at Naim and Tidal in overcoming the problems in getting the FW update sorted. Some of the issues they are dealing with must be 'new territory' and as such they must be learning as they go.

Nigel, I think technically the areas being dealt with for network communication are as almost as old as TCP/IP itself. But its probably fair to say it's a newer set of expieriences for Naim to master... IE optimising network state machines in small systems with limited resources.

I suspect the other big challange is the effect of the streaming software on SQ. if we can hear the difference between FLAC and WAV then it stands to reason we can hear the difference in different network stack configurations. ... there will be much time consuming trial and error of optimising firmware builds.

Perhaps future Naim streamers will mitigate this by having better system decoupling or the higher end having separate boxes between streaming and DAC audio components.. Like we have for PSUs now.

Simon

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Perhaps future Naim streamers will mitigate this by having better system decoupling...

Simon

 

...or they could dump the DSP processor and use an FPGA instead, which allows for massively parallel DSP processing and great flexibility. Would you like some help, Naim? I am a (recently retired) electronics design engineer of 40 years experience and have experience of designing with FPGAs.

David