Apple Music HiFi Tier incoming?

Streaming Audio
1215

This seems like a great “critical use case” scenario… and I’d guess the M1 plus large size Liquid Retina screen options would be determining factors. Not my thing, so cannot give any insight… I don’t even use the pen, never mind do free hand drawing! Envious of your skills. That said, successive upgrades might not be your best bet: jumping in at the (expensive) end will give the most representative experience and, should worst come to worst, I bet you’d recover more from your investment if you downgraded than from moving on an older, lower spec (especially non-M1) model. Worth checking used price history if you can.

Agree that “any old iPad” provides a great user experience as a music controller, whether via Naim app, Roon, or whatever else. To be totally transparent, though, I almost always use my iPhone for this and have never really had complaints or wanted (much) more.

It is fantastic, and again an extravagance that is under used chez moi. I enjoyed it as a night table headphone amp, fed by a Raspberry Pi running RoPieee as a Roon endpoint, but I don’t do that very much any more. I use it as a DAC driving powered Dynaudio monitors on my (NUC + Windows, soon hoping to be Mac mini) desktop but also have the MOTU M2 for that, which sounds equally great and is also an input audio interface. I am going to use it in place of my Topping D30 (first inexpensive standalone DAC I purchased to explore Roon streaming via RPi into an old analog NAD receiver) in my bedroom system (overkill, and temporary while our Atom is at a second home during my wife’s posting abroad).

My goal today is to put it into the main system Nova and compare vs native Nova performance. I’m not bothered by the ADC-DAC cycle, as that’s an obviously well-solved problem in DSP for systems that own both halves of the conversion: the Nova is a great digital preamplifier, no doubt. The Topping D30 was noticeably more grainy and less satisfying when I tried that out a couple / few years ago… whew, glad it was obvious at the price difference! The RME is higher priced (about $1500Cdn vs less than $150 for D30) and comparable to some fraction of a Nova - say 20%? - putting the cost of a Nova DAC at about $1200 - $1500… but it reviews and in my experience it performs extremely well … so I’m interested in this more apples-to-apples comparison. I have no serious intention to upgrade from my Nova to, say, an SN3 plus NDX2… but this experiment might point out what might or might not be on offer with a change. The loss of family useability is a non-negligible consideration of course, so even though I’m not convinced that Naim streaming DACs are necessarily the best price/performance here in Canada, the integration and reliability are also value-for-money factors to me. For today, though, just a bit of streamer+DAC fun (including a chance to compare Apple Music vs Roon+Tidal, and iPad vs RoPieee).

Long winded yet again! Thanks for reading this far. Very interested in your own thoughts and priorities for next steps both with your iPad and streaming music in general.

1 Like
1216

Again, that’s just brilliant Alan, very much appreciated you taking the time for such a detailed reply.

Yes, it’s very much early days exploring streaming so far as I’m taking advantage of an Apple six month free trial. I have no interest in Spotify, Tidal or Qobuz at the moment, as I just wanted to investigate Apple Music due to the seamless integration and syncing across devices, and iOS platform reliability. Hence the use of a basic Topping E30 DAC loaned off a friend (who’s since upgraded), so it’s streaming at the most basic level, but even with this modest set up I’ve been genuinely surprised at how good it all sounds. I started off using Airplay playing to my old Apple TV3, which worked well but the App was a little laggy, but is now lightning (pun intended) fast. Playing high-res it sounds so much better than CD quality via Airplay, and all for a ridiculously cheap set up too. Next comparison will be Apple Music against ripped CD files, that should be interesting.

Yes, it is the drawing capabilities of the iPad Pro which is compelling over the standard iPad as it will cover multiple bases, but I just want to tread carefully first, so an M1 is probably down the road I think, especially as I need to update a family i7 Mac mini too.

Very interesting use of your RME and how that fits into the overall grand scheme of things. I do like simple systems keeping box count minimal - ‘all in ones’ or source plus integrated systems really appeal to me these days.

I have a few DACs I’m going to research, the Rega Brio-R (as I really like Rega!), Denafrips Ares II and the forum favourite the Chord Qutest, so lots to think about on that score. I’m hopefully after a more organic (whatever that means) sound as opposed to a hyper detailed clinical sound, so the Denafrips looks promising. No urgency though. Hopefully Naim will produce a stand alone DAC in a half width shoe box case, and that would be just perfect!

1218

Hi again @YetiZone

I had a fun day yesterday (and so far this morning) exploring the iPad as a streaming source into the Nova, via the RME DAC.

My major conclusion is that there is honestly not that much difference in it: I cannot identify a systematic sonic differentiator between the RME into Nova Analog 2 input and the built-in streaming on the Nova.

When I used Apple Music in hi-res lossless on the iPad, it sounded great. For “lossless / cd quality” albums on Apple Music, I didn’t have a preference or notice a different listening experience compared to cd quality Tidal directly on the Nova. I spent yesterday afternoon bouncing back and forth, mostly an album at a time, sometimes trying a single track and trying to identify differences. It surprised me how equivalent these very different source options sounded. I played a lot of familiar nice sounding albums from Sade, Knopfler, Sakamoto, Davis, Steely Dan, etc. Nothing much in it between the two, and an equal number of “wow, that caught my ear” moments with each source. At one point, during the amazing drum break by Steve Gadd on Aja, I thought “wow, that’s amazing this time… was it like that on the other source?” When I checked, I decided “yes, they’re both amazing” and put it down to my level of distraction - reading or getting another coffee or whatever. I know it isn’t real audiophile deep listening or describing, but I want to say that the overall level of engagement and enjoyment of the musical day was not noticeably different using Apple Music on the iPad + RME versus Tidal on the Naim.

This morning, I substituted my iPhone 13 Pro for the iPad Pro 12.9” and again, to me everything is the same. The iPad Pro, with USB C, is not a better source than the iPhone with Lightning.

I also used Tidal streaming through Roon and detected no reliable difference between Nova as the Roon endpoint and the iPad + RME. This offered a much better user experience than with Apple Music, since I didn’t have to keep getting up to manually interact with the iPad to select music… but the iPad wasn’t really happy as a “public” Roon endpoint, and at a certain moment I seemed to crash out the local Roon app on the iPad: it was controllable from my iPhone (for start/stop, track selection, library browsing), but it got “stuck” locally in the “now playing” screen and no local interaction with the iPad would take me back. I will look on the Roon forum to see if this is a known bug… I had to delete and re-install the Roon app to clear this weird state error.

One user experience limitation on the iOS device as streaming source was the interruption when I received any alerts - such as new mail or iMessages: the notification sound comes through the stereo. You could change settings to avoid this, of course, but I did not. Another disadvantage is that when the iPad sleeps, you lose the screen display of what’s playing (even though the music continues). No big deal if having a nice display isn’t what you want (lots of people set their Nova display to switch off after a few seconds), but I see no way to keep the iPad display on forever… probably it’s in the Settings somewhere (screen or power perhaps) but I didn’t bother.

Given that the new iPhone and iPad had equivalent performance as streaming sources through the RME, my suggestion is to ask yourself what you’re really after: it would be much cheaper and possibly better overall to get an older-but-current iPhone (edit: used purely over wifi, without bothering to get a SIM card) to use it as a source into your DAC than to get an older or lesser iPad than the one you might ultimately want for drawing and general content consumption. I used a simple Lightning to female USB A adapter, so your existing Lightning Camera Adapter would be all you need. I’m not 100% sure, but I believe you need an iPhone running the latest iOS to get the Hi-Res Lossless output from Apple Music. If so, that’s an important first step to check and upgrade compared to your old SE. Then you’d be free to explore high quality external DACs at your leisure. There are lots to choose from, and you can reach great quality very quickly around $1k, which is far below the cost of even the most modest Naim offering (taking the streaming half as not relevant without Apple Music integration, of course).

I recall chatting up-thread about using your iPhone into the USB input on your UnitiQute via the hack of starting local content playing with the Naim app, then reverting to direct iPhone screen control to launch Apple Music. Did you get that working? If so, do you like the E30 external DAC better than the UQ internal DAC? That would be a useful comparison to do at the start, I think.

For me, I’m happy to have done the test and now more keen than ever for full lossless (or high res lossless) Apple Music to get integrated as a native streaming option by Naim (and possibly Roon too). Who knows when this will happen, or whether Apple will make this possible (as they seem to have done for Sonos). As for myself, the loss of user interface convenience - even without loss of sound quality - means that I won’t be abandoning my Tidal subscription until Apple Music gets better integrated. I’ll keep paying for both subscriptions (we have the Apple Family package with all the services), even though it’s redundant (just as my Amazon Prime subscription includes Amazon Music, which I haven’t even tried yet).

On the other hand, the slightly less convenient but excellent sound quality of streaming via my iPad and RME DAC opens a door to checking out a SuperNait 3 haha… I will leave that for another day.

Regards alan

1 Like
1219

Alan, thanks for sharing your observations when comparing the two streaming sources. Very very helpful indeed.

It really is quite something when a decent DAC coupled with just an iPhone can compete with the Tidal streaming service played back on a Nova, it certainly illustrates how quickly digital playback quality is moving forward.

Also, good to know there’s little difference between using an iPhone via lightning vs an iPad via USB-C. That is helpful. All my listening has been done with the iPhone so far. I have an iPhone SE2 incidentally, which is of course fully capable of running the latest iOS and subsequently Apple Music in high res, that is once the settings were checked correctly.

I’m not a Roon subscriber so I can’t comment on how nice it is to use but I can see how the expanded information and detail of each album, and the potential to research new music be an addictive asset. But I also do quite like the simplicity of the Apple Music interface, it just keep things basic and ordered - there’s a lot to be said for that approach for a user interface.

Understood re the music interruptions via iOS, I did a deep dive into settings quite quickly after the first couple of days! Although, I quite like the alarm feature coming through my speakers when I have to down tools and do the school run - that’s actually very helpful.

Interesting observations about an older iPhone as a controller, but as a visually orientated animal (as most dyslexic bods are) I simply prefer to see as many album covers as possible when navigating music selection, so an iPad would be preferable in the long run. As to which model, I’m still pondering.

I haven’t explored my current iPhone into the front UQ2 socket and ’tricking’ the UQ2 interface to play via iOS, but I did use that technique with my old iPad touch a few years ago. I will have a go this week, although I won’t be able to experiment that much with the system for the next fortnight due to Easter school holidays.

Yes, the opportunity to do a demo of the Supernait 3 / RME+DAC vs Nova could be a very interesting comparison indeed - you know want to! I wonder which would be preferable.

1 Like
1220

Did you also compare it against Apple Music through AirPlay to the Nova which is obviously using lossy AAC. When I compared HiRes lossless streaming from Qobuz to the Nova with lossy from Apple Music through an iPhone or Mac I was surprised how little differences I could hear.

1221

Hi @Joamato (and @YetiZone just in case),

I didn’t do the Airplay comparison on my original Nova test day… but I’m here in Munich now with our Atom / Kudos X2 system and tried it out today.

TL;DR: I agree with you that there is a surprisingly small difference between Tidal FLAC CD quality native from Naim app to Atom and Apple Music (not CD / hi-Res any longer) streamed to Atom via Airplay 2.

I swapped around on three or four tracks (John Mayer Gravity, Steely Dan Aja, Tangerine Dream Love on a Real Train, and Delvin Lamarr Organ Trio Pull Your Pants Up.

My sense is that there was noticeably more space / air / openness with Tidal, or that the Apple Music “collapsed” a little in comparison (especially at the high end, such as isolated hi hat shots on the organ trio, or the man drums, such as the legendary Steve Gadd solos). On swapping back and forth, you could “sense” it a lot more than you could “hear” it, if you know what I mean.

That said, it was all very fun and fine to listen to… and as my wife is now a convert to Apple via watch and phone, the user experience would maybe make the larger difference than the soundstage. I’m certain that’s true for an awful lot of “my sic on, making the atmosphere” scenarios (ie a majority of time chez nous when we’re together, and togetherness, not close listening, is the focus… true for others too, I hope and expect).

I guess I should close by (perhaps redundantly?) saying that the biggest quality drop was when I tried a Topping D10 dac (say $150?) into the Nova. The least distinguishable change was swapping sources (Roon, Tidal, even Apple Music) between the native Nova facilities and the external iDevice streamer when using a good DAC (in my case, the RME). Somewhere in the middle, but definitely on the more pleasant / less noticeable half, was today’s Airplay test of Apple Music streamed via my iPhone vs the native Atom Tidal input.

Yes, there’s a difference. No, it’s not night and day, jaw dropping, or deal breaking. Not even close… but I think the better impression would become more important / worthwhile over time and particularly if things were “listening focused” rather than “music to enjoy while living”. The Atom, and for sure the Nova, do what they do really well. It’s just that the gap to other things doing what they do isn’t as profound as it once was.

I hope this makes sense and doesn’t get me kicked out of the cool kids’ club!

Thanks for the follow up, I’d like to hear what you’ve been trying and how that’s going for you too!!

3 Likes
1222

Apologies, I’ve only just fully caught up with the forum this last few days (frantic)… Thanks for taking the time to relay your findings - very interesting indeed.

I haven’t experimented further, as my UQ2 is not Airplay compatible and when I used my Apple TV3 with Airplay it was frustratingly laggy, so I’m still using my iphone SE2 connected via USB into the modest Topping E30 DAC, feeding into my Nait2 (zero lag with this arrangement). And I still find myself occasionally surprised by how good it sounds (for the money that is).

With regard to Airplay, I heard on a tech podcast that Apple are working on a lossless version of Bluetooth for their future generations of audio headphones, which if true and comes to market, could really shake things up, especially if this new super Bluetooth is capable of dealing with high res audio files. Fingers crossed!

3 Likes
1223

Quick question, and this may be a little bit left field… Is it possible to use a USB to SPDIF converter between an iPad and UnitiQute 2?

The USB signal taken straight out from the iPad, into the USB/SPDIF converter, then signal out via coaxial or optical cable, and plugged into one of the digital inputs on the 'Qute? So, is the DAC in the UQ2 able to process the high res feed from Apple Music?

1224

My guess is that should be possible from a connectivity perspective but the DAC in the UQ2 might be the limiting factor.
The specifications of the UQ2 from the Naim homepage are as follows:

  • 2 x coaxial RCA - up to 24bits/192kHz
  • 2 x optical TOSlink - up to 24bits/96kHz
  • 1 x front panel mini-TOSLINK - up to 24/96kHz
1 Like
1225

Thanks @toscana - yes I found that on the Naim UQ2 reference manual, just wanted to confirm and see if anyone else has done it, and also wondering if the UQ2 DAC was up to the job. I’ll look out for secondhand a USB/SPDIF converter and try it out.

1226

I have tested a similar setup with a Naim nDAC. I.e. iPad/iPhone into a Topping D10s (used as a USB/SPDIF converter) and then into the nDAC.
But I found this to be very inconvenient setup with a lot of additional cables and devices. Also, I found no way to control the setup remotely and had to do everything (e.g. selecting music, play/ pause commands) on the iPad directly. So purely based on the poor ergonomics I gave up very quickly.

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1227

Yes, the cable spaghetti is my main concern really. Full remote automation is not an issue for me, but I am a touch reticent about the tangle of wires. Funnily enough, it was a similar arrangement that you experimented with that I’m potentially considering.

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1228

One additional consideration in case you are looking at the D10s is that it does not have a separate power supply but is driven by the source attached to it. In my set up that meant adding an Apple camera adapter and a sufficiently strong power plug (the 20W that came with my iPad did the job if I remember correctly).
Other peculiarities included the display of the D10s not going into standby even when no music was playing and the volume of the iPad/iPhone needs to be at 100% for the music to play loud enough.
Attached a photo of the setup

IMG_2341
IMG_23411920×1440 145 KB

3 Likes
1229

I tested using new iPad mini with usb c out to a M2TECH HiFace Two usb to coaxial converter (needed usb B to C adapter) to the Naim Atom HE coaxial input and worked just fine. But issue is then hardwired and couldn’t figure out if can control Apple Music from another device. But I did get 192k output. I’m done with Apple Music until they figure out wireless hifi solution. Back to Qobuz and roon for now.

1230

Totally off subject so apologies in advance.

I do like Bedouine, particularly the first two albums.

Like many others here I do hope that we get to a point where I can use AM natively on Naim as I may then be able to drop one of my streaming subscriptions.

1231

I see Apple have just updated their Apple Music API at WWDC’22 with MusicKit v3: Apple Developer Documentation

I wonder if it contains anything new that would allow Naim to integrate Apple Music in their streamers?

1232

I wish that it would but I won’t hold my breath, it does seem silly that both my tv and my games console can play straight from apple music servers but my hifi system can’t. Currently it seems to be only popular stuff getting it but maybe apple will surprise me.

1233

Sadly there doesn’t seem to be anything new in Airplay 2, so that won’t be getting lossless this time around.

1234

Rather than an upgrade to AirPlay 2, I was hoping for something more along the lines of native on-device Apple Music streaming integration like the current Qobuz and Tidal built-in streaming integration via the Naim app.

Oh well, one can dream I guess.

1235

I don’t really feel that this is likely to happen. Apple are fully invested in the Airplay eco-system and I don’t see them changing from that.