I’m most grateful to ‘davidhendon’ for identifying both my lack of attention to detail and the out-dated O.S. of my MacBook. I have rectified the latter such that the former became less critical.
Successful outcomes all round; Qute now boasts shiny new 4.8 firmware and MacBook has been revitalised with Big Sur OS 11.6.
Sincere thanks…
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Very good! I’m glad it worked out so well.
Of course Big Sur is about to be replaced by Monterey, but you won’t need to worry about that for Naim update purposes and anyway it’s probably worth leaving it for a few weeks as Apple almost always has bugs in their initial release of anything.
Best
David
Re sound quality, as I posted before, 4.8 with my NDX has a few definite improvements, clarity, dynamics, more space/air & sound stage.
I used it last evening to listen/watch Eric Claptons 2019 guitar fest concert on Sky Arts TV.
OK TV sound is not the best as are Toslink connections, but despite this the same improvements carried through.
Wow that sounds like a big change in sq! I always wonder how this is possible since I presume Naim are doing their very best with the hardware and software from the get-go. How can the sq get better with new iterations of the software, it’s beyond me? I wish someone could give an explanation.
I haven’t updated my NDS yet because I first had to get my Mac up to date. That took the entire weekend because Big sur didn’t get on with me.
Def improvement with Tidal on my QB.
I believe that as far as we know this is the best explanation and all there is to it:
It’s also consistent with info available in the Beta room, and I wish this was public because it would dispel some myths. Just so much: the bits are the same
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Clever stuff - where science meets art.
After several days and a lot of different albums, I really observe a noticeable improvement. More clarity, easiness, and a cleaner, more natural sound vs the 4.6 I had before.
It’s not subtle.
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My Lumin U1 Mini also got better with the latest sw update. And the 272 also now with 4.8. Sounds crazy good here now 
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I’m not really convinced about that explanation, since in the modern streamers there is simply too much happening in the digital area to control this realistically. Network connections are active all the time, audio decoding and routing is as well, and ofcourse display handling etc.
Since there is a DSP in all the devices with a DAC, i assume they use that to tweak the sound, rather than toy around with low level stuff like memory read/write timings.
Just an assumption though. 
It’s a more elaborate version of what’s in the help topic in the beta room. Don’t want to talk about it too much but you can read it. This should be public IMHO
Yes but i’m a bit sceptical… tuning the sound on all the different streamers by micro-tweaking memory read- and write timings etc would be an enormous undertaking, while the same effect could be much more easily reached by using the available DSP…
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An incorrect assumption, all the same.
If you are a member of the beta group you can go and read how Steve Harris explains it, if you want to.
Best
David
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Audio optimization is more than adjusting frequency response
Not allowed to post bits and pcs from such? How do one become a beta tester?
Changing the bits with the DSP would be cheating and I don’t think they are lying. Most likely they compile a bunch of versions with different parameterization (or it’s runtime configurable) and choose what sounds best. It seems to be taking a few days as we know
Ok i don’t really care much about this topic per se, but i’m only referring to this part:
a method of optimising software instruction execution timing such that they can fairly reliably act as a crude tone control
I’m not saying that there isn’t any optimization of electrical I/O taking place at all, there very well might be. I just find it hard to believe that it would be the primary means of controlling the EQ of a firmware release.
Either way, carry on!
The rules are somewhat ambiguous and it’s best to keep quiet. To become a tester email beta@naimaudio.com and ask if they have open spaces
I don’t think Simon meant EQ as such (despite the wording) but influencing the general perception by noise shaping
It is not a primary means of controlling the EQ, they just tweak it when a FW update is released to optimise the SQ with that particular FW version.
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