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

David, well the DSP processor that Naim use is a set of programmable instructions held in a Super Harvard Architecture device.. as it is programmable as opposed to being a fixed ASIC like the DSPs built into DAC chips - it is already FPGA class. So I would categorise it is as an SoC (System on Chip) class FPGA - which is a form of specialist micro controller...

Therefore the FPGA argument is moot as effectively Naim are already there from what I can see... its more about using new SoC technology and FPGA devices that consume far less power for the given processing output. Power consumed creates noise and system crosstalk. I suggest it is the effects of this crosstalk we hear when we hear the benefits or otherwise of different firmware and hardware execution. Therefore less crosstalk is better decoupling - my second point.

Simon

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

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, what I mean is that this is the first higher res streaming service to be integrated into Naim streamers (I don't include Spotify here) which has clearly caused some unique/first time (to Naim) technical issues, certainly issues that Naim would not have encountered previously. I do take your point that some (much?) of the delay will have been caused by optimising the SQ from Tidal streams, and Naim should be praised for this.

Let's not wait for the perfect solution however and some of us might be pushing up daiseys! 

got you - agreed

Not sure I agree with the comments about new difficulties in integrating a hi-res service.  Assuming Tidal is Red Book(?) that's about 1.4Mbit/s which is a trivial data rate, and other vendors seem to be able to cope with this.

On a broader point, without detailed information about the nature of the problem it's pure speculation to suggest a cause.  Maybe Naim have a problem with code-dependent induced electrical noise, and maybe not.

I was suggesting that some of these difficulties might be new to Naim. Anyway, from Trevor's response it appears that the reliability problems with Tidal are (mostly?) resolved and the current focus is on optimising SQ in the FW update, but the technical challenges this entails is of course pure speculation.

I think what is new to Naim is that the path from each Naim customer back to the Tidal servers that are serving them varies hugely depending where they live and Naim have to accommodate all that variability within the firmware that can fit within the  hardware constraints of the large number of Naim streamers out there. The fact that people have 50 Mb/s broadband, or whatever it may be, isn't relevant because it is the limitations across the whole route, not the few km back to their Broadband provider's core network.

Also we must remember that doing a firmware upgrade on a Naim streamer may be trivial to many of us, although we do get plenty of forum members needing help, but for the wider base of Naim customers streamer firmware upgrades are not something to contemplate with glee, if at all, so infrequent, significant and correct firmware upgrades are likely to be preferable to the Apple approach of chuck it out and then issue multiple small increments to mop up the mistakes.

But I do agree that Naim could tell interested customers more about progress and Trevor's posting was welcome for his recognition of that.

best

David

Thanks David,

Had not thought of the travel to Tidal servers being a factor. I do remember a post in Linn forums indicating that Tidal had increased the number of servers to resolve similar problems they were having at one time. Suggested that specific servers were dedicated to Linn which surprised me but then I know very little about this. 

I am thinking Naim updates are not over the air.

Paul

I think they can be over the air so to speak for the muso pair, or at least over ethernet. But for the more traditional streamers, like the NDX et al, NAC N172 & 272 and Uniti family it is a bit of a palaver involving a downloaded updater run on a PC or Mac with special drivers and both ethernet and USB connections to the streamer being updated. Lots of fun or a nightmare, depending on your point of view!

I have a love/hate relationship with computers. I can and do update Naim streamer firmware when I am moved to do so, but I don't look forward to the fiddling about much.

best

David

I would veer towards the 'lots of fun' category (at least initially!) but primarily a Linux user so updating might be an issue. 

Thanks for the information.

Naim only provide the updater software  (which includes the new firmware load) for PC and Mac, so for Linux you would have to run an emulator or borrow a PC/Mac from someone else. But as I say, the 2 musos can be updated without any of that.

best

David

As part of the Beta group I must have updated my previous SuperUniti and current 272 between 20 and 30 times, and it really is incredibly easy once you've done it a couple of times. It's certainly nothing to be concerned about. 

Regarding this whole topic, which (afai.understand) is basically issues with drop out with Tidal.  In some cases there is a case of Naim having to guess what the problems are.  I suspect that 99% of Naim / Tidal users have no issues; which implies there is no underlying issue with Tidal on Naim; the problem is that in the 1% of cases something else on the user's network is interacting and causing the Naim to drop out.  

Thats not to say there isn't a Naim problem; but the problem doesn't appear to be a general issue and therefore is going to be very difficult to track down.

I agree better feedback would be beneficial - perhaps greater openness to beta programmes especially for people who are having issues (though they would also have to accept the risks using beta firmware brings).

Boris786 posted:

I would veer towards the 'lots of fun' category (at least initially!) but primarily a Linux user so updating might be an issue. 

Thanks for the information.

It would be nice to have a little more linux support - both for updating firmware and for playing from a usb stick/external usb hard disk.

I made a backup from my NAS (Thecus N4800) to bring to the summer house to play on my newly purchased MuSo and the first thing I will have to do is purchase another external usb hard disk in order to copy from the ext4 format NAS backup to a FAT format that the MuSo can read.

Eloise posted:

Regarding this whole topic, which (afai.understand) is basically issues with drop out with Tidal.  In some cases there is a case of Naim having to guess what the problems are.  I suspect that 99% of Naim / Tidal users have no issues; which implies there is no underlying issue with Tidal on Naim; the problem is that in the 1% of cases something else on the user's network is interacting and causing the Naim to drop out. 

The problem is that, if I can remember correctly, there have been quite a number of reports from users who had been experiencing severe problems with Tidal on Naim streamers but not with Tidal on other devices in the same LAN and at the same time.

I have been from the very beginning been skeptical towards the approach of implementing functionalities for decoding internet streams at the firmware level. I might be missing something obvious, of course, but I do not see obvious reasons for doing so. On the contrary: computing power and memory limitations, possible bad impacts of the decoding processes on the DAC stage, no way to send back to Naim detailed protocols upon unexpected behavior seem obvious reasons against this approach. And, even if at the end Tidal on Naim streamers will work fine: what about other services?

I think that devices like the Melcos, the Auralic Aries or the new Bryston Pi upstream a pure DAC or streamer are a more viable (and certainly more flexible) proposition for integrating new internet streaming services that inflating the firmware of end-devices. I am not interested in Tidal or other such services, but I very much hope that the current situation is just a transient and that Naim will soon come up with a new range of low-power, flexible upstream devices and relieve their streamers from tasks that they were not designed to perform.   

This seems imminently sensible to me. Naim will have to make a break from what are in technological terms fast becoming legacy devices. 

I have a uniqute and superuniti both fed Roon through SPDIF. It's such an advance it ain't funny. The latest Audirvana by all accounts is excellent with seamless streaming site integration. 

Computing power will be needed to advance in these areas and it's best to keep this out of the actual renderer. 

SJB

I am confused, what exact problem is this new firmware needed to solve. Tidal was mentioned but that has already been added. I always look forward to updates in performance and features, but I can not decipher what glaring bug or missing piece is missing from the current software?

There is nothing wrong with current soft/firmware as such.   The problem is some users are having problems with Tidal,  whereas some are not.    There is better Tidal in the current beta & that was hinted/muted to be on public release around the start of 2016,  but nothing so far,  & that is the nub of this thread I believe.    But per Naim inputs in this thread, its still being worked on & (to me) it sounds like other stuff is wrapped around this.

The issue is that SQ is of prime important. The way the firmware executes within the Naim system has a material impact on SQ. So functionally the firmware now does pretty much what it needs to do - but the challenge is to do this in a way that is commensurate with Naim SQ performance and their exacting standards. This has I am sure required further development and test. 

I am confident Naim are close and am pretty sure their learning and expertise in this area has significantly developed over the last 6 to 12 months, and it shows how far ahead we are with Naim with this level of detail to sound performance .. we are in a very different world from the Sonos or iPhone firmware feature downloads,,

Interesting, Simon. If the firmware update does affect the sound then it becomes somewhat risky. Perception of sound 'quality' level is not linear - what I hear as an improvement, someone else may not.

The only sensible solution is to allow users to roll back to the current version if we don't like the new sound, but I don't think Naim has commonly offered this previously. 

This is true, but Naim are using the same terms of reference for SQ that they use for their product development, whether it be amp, preamps, dacs, streamers etc.

So yes if you don't like the Naim sound, you may be unlikely able to appreciate the effort that Naim has put in to optimising the SQ of their systems

Simon

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

This is true, but Naim are using the same terms of reference for SQ that they use for their product development, whether it be amp, preamps, dacs, streamers etc.

So yes if you don't like the Naim sound, you may be unlikely able to appreciate the effort that Naim has put in to optimising the SQ of their systems

Simon

Agreed; at some point we need to trust Naim to provide "the Naim sound."  Folks here, I know, have experience with firmware changes changing what they hear from the Dac and ND-series players.  Perhaps this is why / part of the reason why / this release it taking longer than anticipated.

Bart posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

This is true, but Naim are using the same terms of reference for SQ that they use for their product development, whether it be amp, preamps, dacs, streamers etc.

So yes if you don't like the Naim sound, you may be unlikely able to appreciate the effort that Naim has put in to optimising the SQ of their systems

Simon

Agreed; at some point we need to trust Naim to provide "the Naim sound."  Folks here, I know, have experience with firmware changes changing what they hear from the Dac and ND-series players.  Perhaps this is why / part of the reason why / this release it taking longer than anticipated.

In his last reply Trevor indicated that the Tidal 'reliability' issues have been addressed in the FW update and now the focus is on optimising the SQ from Tidal streams. I am therefore more than happy to wait for the release of the FW update if we are going to get better SQ from Tidal. Not sure those still suffering drop outs will be as happy though.

Hi SJB,

I agree ROON is a massive advance but can I ask how you get ROON into your unitiqute and superuniti via SPDIF? My ROON Core sits on a Mac but it's getting it into my 272 which is where I'm lost. I'm hoping at some point Naim make their streamers ROON Ready.

Thanks

Flummoxed posted:

Hi SJB,

I agree ROON is a massive advance but can I ask how you get ROON into your unitiqute and superuniti via SPDIF? My ROON Core sits on a Mac but it's getting it into my 272 which is where I'm lost. I'm hoping at some point Naim make their streamers ROON Ready.

Thanks

I use Squeezebox Touch to get Roon to my Uniti family. 

If you"re any good with Raspberry Pi or have proficiency in this area ( I haven't) a Pi with a Hifi Berry is a more modern and current route. 

Chromecast support is on the Roon roadmap and I'm told there were many devices at the Munich Hifi show with the RoonReady logo. 

You can't go wrong with a SBT though and you'd be able to sell it on with little loss as other options become available. 

SJB

Thanks for the response.

I think the Pi is a little beyond me and could cause some serious "pulling out of the hair!" so SBT would appear to be the way to go.

How do you find the SQ from Roon via SBT compared to UPnP?

Thanks