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