Re. Swapping over to N272-NAP200/250Dr

Posted by: Artferg20 on 02 July 2017

Hi All,

My current system comprises of a SN2, HI Cap, Rega RP8, Aria,Ania, Chord Hugo 2, Guru junior.

I'm really happy with my system in terms of Vinyl replay and love my Hugo 2, but can't quite put my finger on it not happy with the streaming side of things and faff. I use both streaming & vinyl replay equally even tho I possess more music on my hard drive. 

There several reasons that have prompted me here, a) miss the convienence that I had with my UQ2, one remote or app control to switch inputs and functionality. b) less faffing around with cables and source. c) I now use my TV through my hifi, the N272 idea it would be easier for the family to use like we had with UQ2. c) internet radio etc convience.

Ive spoken to two dealers and both understand my needs, one suggested adding an ND5, which I'm not keen on  as this will be spending more money.

My other naim dealer where i purchased my kit from said he'd workout the numbers out tomorrow that would minimise any cost if there will be any, as the items that would go back will be the amp, power supply and DAC.

I will listen to this combo tomorrow to be sure, I've been thinking about this long and hard, to me, it seems right. It reminds me of a much better UQ2, when I had that system never thought about cables connections, upgrading, just enjoyed my music.

Your thoughts would be appreciated!

Posted on: 08 July 2017 by Huge

You'll find that plenty of other products with what is considered to be less good performance are also based on Linux (or Free BSD), as are most NAS drives.  I don't see a significant correlation here.

The main reasons for using one of the many Linux variants (or to a lesser degree Free BSD) is that they are free for commercial use, can be used on relatively low powered embedded processors and there is considerable expertise in the use of these systems in the electronics and software development communities.

Posted on: 08 July 2017 by No quarter

Thanks HUGE for clearing that up for me.

Posted on: 08 July 2017 by Fred11
Hungryhalibut posted:

I'm glad I got what I did when I had to make the choice two years ago. I just wanted three boxes that did everything, no dacs, nodes, reclockers, funny power supplies and sundry gizmos. If you want the 272, get it. Go with the heart. Cancel the sotm, whatever it is, and simplify your life. 

If you are bored and want to hear it in action, let me know. 

Supernait, hicap, hugo, SOTM-200 is one big, one half-sized and two mini-boxes. Not that much different. You should be able to fit the hugo, sotm-200 and hicap on one shelf. That is almost the same as two big boxes.

Fred

Posted on: 08 July 2017 by Fred11
Artferg20 posted:

SotM arrived this morning! Out of the box, feels like a very solid and well built tiny device, not much bigger than the Hugo 2 in size, but obviously taller.

Set up was a breeze, simply connecting to the Hugo via USB and Ethernet cable to the router and enter the IP address on your browser, this will take you to the device settings and player options.  As I'm a Roon user, this was the player option I selected and attached my USB drive, which indexing my library took no more than 15-20 mins.

I started with a few tracks from various genres I know well and had a good on listen to on the Node 2 from Jazz Matthew Halsall/ George Benson the ghetto, cinematic orchestra to Kate Bush and Dire straits. 

If I'm honest I wasn't expecting too much and had set my expectations very low, in fact the day before I was actually going to cancel it. Glad I didn't! must say from the off, I was completely blown away by the sound In a big way. Much more open and airy in the midrange in comparison to the Node 2, Its signature is very clean, detailed and fast, some may find it a touch clinical or I'd say transparent but this balances well off the Hugo in my opinion, 

Across a mixture of music this little device really does deliver in spades, it's extremely capable and musical. As I understand with the addition of a PSU the sound can be improved further, as it stands I'm a very happy bunny and at 11:45pm I'm still using it as we speak.

At last I'm enjoying the Hugo 2 and the system from a streaming perspective!

 

 

Agree, Art!

I have had a Linn Akurate, NDX alone, NDX-XPS, NDX-NDAC-XPS and lately NDAC-XPS-Teddy USB/spdf from Audirvana the last seven years. The SOTM-200 was much more open than MacBook/audirvana with my NDAC. Like you said the SOTM is exceptionally user-friendly. If you download the Hq-player it will improve further. But you will need a powerful computer or else it will lag. Hq-player is probably a quite heavy program to run. I love ROON. Can´t go back. I have not tried a better PSU yet...

Fred