Naim Atom -Internet radio app for AAC / WMA format support

Posted by: Roadster on 04 January 2018

AAC / WMA format are adopted by many internet radio stations as the standard streaming format with bit rate varying from 48k to 320k.

It is therfore essential that NAIM ATOM radio app is made compatiable to provide native support for these radio stations which at this present moment is not.

Naim technical support should immediately look into this matter and rectiify the firmware.

Posted on: 07 January 2018 by Freedomsounds

Question : Being in the U.S. should you consider the DAB option on the Nova ? 

Posted on: 07 January 2018 by G. Warminger

From the Naim website specifications for Uniti Atom


“Internet Radio Formats
Windows Media-formatted content, MP3, ACC, OGG Vorbis streams and MMS”

Posted on: 08 January 2018 by Roadster

Trying writing to Naim product support for help and i bet they will tell you the problem is that the radio station wasn't broadcasting suitably for Atom to play !

There are still many internet radio station broadcasting in AAC or WMA format with varying bit rate.  

Trying going to naim vtuner website and add those radio stations - using locations e.g Singapore -> Gold FM90.5FM.

Out of the 26 radio stations listed in naim vtuner, (Singapore) only 11 stations were displayed on naim atom radio app. The remainding 14 stations in AAC format were not displayed.

http://liveradio.toggle.sg/?p=...6101d667&s=905fm

 

 

 

 

Posted on: 08 January 2018 by ChrisSU

Naim can probably sort this out with vTuner. Meanwhile you could use Airplay or Chromecast to send the streams to your Atom.

Posted on: 08 January 2018 by engjoo
Roadster posted:

Trying writing to Naim product support for help and i bet they will tell you the problem is that the radio station wasn't broadcasting suitably for Atom to play !

There are still many internet radio station broadcasting in AAC or WMA format with varying bit rate.  

Trying going to naim vtuner website and add those radio stations - using locations e.g Singapore -> Gold FM90.5FM.

Out of the 26 radio stations listed in naim vtuner, (Singapore) only 11 stations were displayed on naim atom radio app. The remainding 14 stations in AAC format were not displayed.

http://liveradio.toggle.sg/?p=...6101d667&s=905fm

 

 

 

 

Yes. You may add this stations manually and it works seamlessly there after. However, we should not have to do that at all.

Posted on: 08 January 2018 by Claus-Thoegersen

I was also surprised to find that there are many stations listed on the vtuner site that is not listed  on the old servers, until you add them  manually. My guess is that the list is too big to be handled reasonably fast on the  hardware?

Claus  

Posted on: 08 January 2018 by engjoo
Claus-Thoegersen posted:

I was also surprised to find that there are many stations listed on the vtuner site that is not listed  on the old servers, until you add them  manually. My guess is that the list is too big to be handled reasonably fast on the  hardware?

Claus  

I have brought this up since 2014 and there has never been any logical answer to it. Disappointing.

Posted on: 08 January 2018 by Roadster

The trouble with the naim atom radio app is that EVEN if you have manually added those missing radio stations (streaming in AAC or WMA format) via naim vtuner. It just won't show up or play on the naim atom radio app.

This is an issue that naim technical / development has to recognize and fix it and not suggests that the station wasn't broadcasting suitably for atom to play.  

Neither this issue is happening on naim ND5xs streamer or other stream brands e.g. cambridge audio minx xi.

Posted on: 08 January 2018 by engjoo
Roadster posted:

The trouble with the naim atom radio app is that EVEN if you have manually added those missing radio stations (streaming in AAC or WMA format) via naim vtuner. It just won't show up or play on the naim atom radio app.

This is an issue that naim technical / development has to recognize and fix it and not suggests that the station wasn't broadcasting suitably for atom to play.  

Neither this issue is happening on naim ND5xs streamer or other stream brands e.g. cambridge audio minx xi.

Strange but it work on my NDX and Atom. I have used the same approach to add these stations.

May I know how do you add them ?

Posted on: 08 January 2018 by Roadster

Using chromecast, bluetooth or airplay to cast to naim atom is a feasible workaround option.  That said , Naim should not expects that as a permanent long term fix.

The advantage(s) of having these stations (be it AAC or WMA etc) to be played on board naim atom radio app is that you do not need to have a separate device ( e.g cellphone , Ipad etc) running serving as source to naim atom once it should  be integrated to naim atom as a native source.

Doing so will also slow down the overall wifi network performance and also means that you have to leave your mobile  device turned on if you are listening to the radio for a long period of time - which is not practical.

Naim technical support has to fix this limitation or issue affecting naim atom radio app immediately.  

Posted on: 08 January 2018 by ChrisSU

Chromecast doesn’t stream via your phone. Once you have started playback, you can turn the phone off and music will still play, as the stream goes directly over your network to the streamer. 

Posted on: 08 January 2018 by Roadster

I have a naim atom.  What i did to add those stations is to click on the "+" sign next to the ♥️ in naim vtuner web site - "location" - singapore (which will display all the radio stations e.g. gold 90.5fm , class 95, live 93.8 , love 97.2fm and capital 95.8 fm etc).

Just curious , how did you go about adding those missing radio stations to naim atom , as it sounds like you have no issues unlike my case which after adding those stations it still does not display on naim atom apps - "added stations".

Posted on: 08 January 2018 by Roadster

Thanks for enlighting Chrissu...! Wonder if you have issue with internet radio station that appeared on the naim radio app but somehow it just won't play ?  e.g Asiafm Gold Fm , AsiaFM HD music etc (in WMA format)  You can find them under location -> hong kong. 

Posted on: 08 January 2018 by engjoo
Roadster posted:

I have a naim atom.  What i did to add those stations is to click on the "+" sign next to the ♥️ in naim vtuner web site - "location" - singapore (which will display all the radio stations e.g. gold 90.5fm , class 95, live 93.8 , love 97.2fm and capital 95.8 fm etc).

Just curious , how did you go about adding those missing radio stations to naim atom , as it sounds like you have no issues unlike my case which after adding those stations it still does not display on naim atom apps - "added stations".

 Look up my profile and get in touch with me on this.

Posted on: 08 January 2018 by engjoo
Roadster posted:

Thanks for enlighting Chrissu...! Wonder if you have issue with internet radio station that appeared on the naim radio app but somehow it just won't play ?  e.g Asiafm Gold Fm , AsiaFM HD music etc (in WMA format)  You can find them under location -> hong kong. 

YEs. This happens if the radio station limits the streaming destination by geography. I have tested it by getting past a VPN.

Posted on: 08 January 2018 by Roadster

Thanks engjoo. It will be good if you could share  your method here in this forum so that other people can also learn or benefit from it.

Posted on: 08 January 2018 by Roadster

Regarding the playback of a hong kong based internet radio station -> e.g asiafm gold fm.  I really don't think is due to geographical limitation because it is playing on my yahama streamer.  

This is another area that naim has to address or work with naim vtuner.   Did anybody try writing to naim ceo - mr trevor ?

 

Posted on: 08 January 2018 by engjoo
Roadster posted:

Thanks engjoo. It will be good if you could share  your method here in this forum so that other people can also learn or benefit from it.

I have created this doc some time ago. Too much of a hassle to link images in this place.

Can try downloading from here.

https://drive.google.com/open?...MaAUmgpHdiZkGpgMynDP

Posted on: 08 January 2018 by Roadster

Nice work eng joo ! You are the man ! I hope Naim CEO reads this forum thread.

The Naim technical support or product support team need to learn and relearn and not give out unconstructive advice to customer.

Posted on: 08 January 2018 by Adam Zielinski

Correct me if I’m wong but stations are added via vtuner based on thheir locations, rather than a listner’s loations. Nothing to do with a Naim app anyhow.

Further - it;s not the it rate that varies  (it’s wither 16 or 24) -mit’s the sampling frequency.

So having read through the thread, I acully don’t understnd where the problem is, except for some issues with geo-blocking based on IP address location.

Posted on: 08 January 2018 by engjoo
Adam Zielinski posted:

Correct me if I’m wong but stations are added via vtuner based on thheir locations, rather than a listner’s loations. Nothing to do with a Naim app anyhow.

Further - it;s not the it rate that varies  (it’s wither 16 or 24) -mit’s the sampling frequency.

So having read through the thread, I acully don’t understnd where the problem is, except for some issues with geo-blocking based on IP address location.

The issues are:

1) ACC streams are not listed on the station list when you browse the streamer using its interface or the naim app. It has to be manually added through a multiple steps process. I have brought this up to Phil about 2 years ago and it was supposed to have been worked between Naim and Vtuner. 

2) Geo blocking of some station does happen in my case.

In some cases, they are not listed at all (eg BBC HLS stations are not shown on my streamer unless I configure my router behind a UK VPN). 

In some cases, they are listed in the station list but when you attempt to stream it, it does not "play".

Posted on: 08 January 2018 by engjoo
Roadster posted:

Nice work eng joo ! You are the man ! I hope Naim CEO reads this forum thread.

The Naim technical support or product support team need to learn and relearn and not give out unconstructive advice to customer.

This problem is known for some time already. I am not sure why it has to take so long to resolve.

Posted on: 09 January 2018 by Mike-B

I believe its quite simple & nothing to do with the app.  I can play all the various formats but can't play the HK stations mentioned;  I suspect some maintenance needs to be done by Naims iRadio service provider vTuner.   

Posted on: 09 January 2018 by Roadster

These are the 2 URLs for  Hong Kong station which will be displayed on Naim Atom radio interface (App) but it just won't play. 

ASIAFM HD

http://www.vtuner.com/vtunerwe...s://asiafm.cn/asiahd

AsiaFM Gold FM

http://www.vtuner.com/vtunerwe...s://goldfm.cn/goldfm

 

Posted on: 09 January 2018 by Roadster

The method shared by eng joo on how to manually add / configure the radio stations that do not automatically display on naim atom radio app interface is not something that straight foward.

If it is then why Naim product support could not even provide that simple advice when the issue was brought to their attention ? Except to say that the radio station wasn't broadcasting suitably for atom to play !

I have mentioned that 26 stations listed in naim vtuner -> asia -> Singapore. But literally only 11 are displayed on naim atom when you broswed thru the radio app on board naim atom. Those stations which do not show up are streaming in AAC format.

Since Naim rely on vtuner as the internet radio service provider for its hardware - Atom.

Naim should be responsible and work to ensure vtuner radio station listing is up to date unless naim expects the customer to engage vtuner on behalf of them.

Regrettably the recent encounter i had with naim product support team is not just disappointing but appalling.