I haven’t connected my computer to my Qb yet, so all I have to compare for quality presently is Apple Music verses radio. In comparing the two, to me, Apple is dramatically better. When a song plays I have I immediately play my Apple copy. No comparison. I confess I don’t understand crap about the specs. I know the Apple music is a different format, so the numbers are a bit apples and oranges. My search is to discover if the million songs I have downloaded on my iPad are useless compared to…what is best? Tidal? I’ve read opinions both ways tho. And some of them mentioned the quality of the best Naim radio streams. I’m only listening to the 320kbps (best correct?.) And as I said, through my Mu-so Qb V1 the Apple blows radio away. Would Tidal be drastically better than either? My real question is am I wasting my new (still on order) Atom and Focal Chora 816s playing Apple Music and if so what do you think is superior? As for Apple, my Verizon contract has free Apple Music. And it’s vested!
Hi @airedog
The internet radio solution in Naim products is more focused around accessing a worldwide view of traditional radio stations from around the world in the best quality possible. There are about 46000 stations in the system and on recently products we also expose lossless quality stations as well. All of these are however ‘get what you’re given’ and if you don’t like it then tune to a different station. As an internet radio enthusiast I love the sheer diversity of it as you bump into music that you would of never of found off autoDJ-radio systems.
We do however support the new concept of radio from Spotify, Apple (via Airplay2), Roon and Tidal where they use AI to feed you music that they think you will like.
So if you like the Apple eco-system this can be beamed natively using Airplay2 and it’s all Apple certified.
Prefer Spotify - Spotify Connect it.
Roon - Native Roon RAAT support.
etc. etc.
The one thing with digital streaming is that there is no one right way and hence why at Naim we make our products cover a huge spectrum of usage cases. Typically a user will only use 10% of functionality but take 1000 users they’ll use all the functionality and be pushing the bounds. The threads on this forum often represents the diversity of use cases.
Best regards
Steve Harris
Software Director
Naim Audio Ltd.
To my ears, iRadio has always been a mediocre medium at best, and even the better sounding stations could never be more than background music, so I’m not surprised by your findings. However, the good news is that there are a growing number of lossless FLAC radio stations which for me are a real gamechanger (thanks, @Stevesky!) and you will have access to these when you get your Atom.
I think you’ll find Tidal to be a significant improvement on Apple Music too. My suggestion, though, would be to wait until you get your Atom and try Qobuz. The regular CD quality streams are much the same as Tidal, but the 24 bit material on Qobuz has the edge on sound quality. Sign up for the free trials they offer, and decide for yourself.
Hi Steve
I was struck by your email as I had not understood that there was a way of going beyond the (not insignificant) “46000 stations in the system”. In the light of that number, it seems almost churlish to talk about ‘get what you’re given’ but I should be most grateful if you could explain to me as a newbie how to “tune to a different station” via the Naim app. Thank you in anticipation.
Hi Steve, I (we) appreciate your reply. Chris below emphasized “once I get my atom” which alerted me that I’d missed your comment that recent products have the lossless stations. So my Mu-so Qb (V1) doesn’t have the lossless stations. That’s why I haven’t seen them apparently. (Lol) When I get the atom I’ll see they are labeled and look for the FLAC?
Thanks again (also to everyone else commenting.)
Hi all,
@davidhendon has answered where to find the Hidef lossless radio stations. We’ve grouped them all in one section so they’re easy to find, but on the newer generation products (Atom, NDX2, Muso Gen2 etc) there is a radio search available and that will find the Hidef stations as well. Example pic here:
As for browsing the internet radio directory., the ‘Genre’ view can be a good way to wrestle with such a large quantity of stations. Also ‘Most Popular Stations’ view helps narrow down the selection to ones that have higher listener figure.
Regarding quality radio streams are rarely up to the standard of dedicated lossless sources, although the Hidef radio section shows it can put up a good fight nowadays. We’ve been working with VTuner to get 1000’s of station URL’s in the database upgraded from MP3 to AAC and use best quality stream variant possible which can make a huge difference in audio quality when data rates are low.
Best wishes
Steve
Go to the “Internet Radio” input in the Naim app and select a different one, I suppose.
Question. When I have the Atom, will I be able to select and play the hi-def stations and also send it to the V1 Qb?
Yes you can do that using multiroom (I just tried exactly that with my Nova and a Qb series 1)
Best
David
Awesome. That was my thought in buying the V1, that being even without newer features it would operate as a satellite (or whatever term that would be) off a newer system.
Hello again Suedkiez.
My question was about how to “tune to a different station” beyond the (not insignificant) “46000 stations in the system”.
I see. If you go to app > Internet Radio > Added Stations, there are instructions how to add stations. Maybe this was meant?
I don’t see instructions there for adding stations.
For me, with NDX2 in app > Internet Radio input > Added Stations.
Might not be available with Qb v1?
Edit: If you search for vtuner on https://www.naimaudio.com/mu-so-support, it starts by saying “Before adding an Internet Radio station, you will need to find the Mu-so 2nd Generation IP address.”, but then this is the help for the v2, so this may be why it says v2. Surely someone with a v1 can tell you
Jeeeez! That’s a new radio station every day for 126 years. Have you discovered the secret of immortality?
Well, I have a V1 and don’t see it on that page.
On a V1 Muso etc. Simply tap on iRadio, then you can choose “Location” or which Country you wish to search, such as “Oceana” and “Australia”. That will take you to a different selection page where you can choose by genre or just search for a name of a station. Just have a play and you’ll find lots and lots.
You can then tap on the “star” button * to add each station as a “favourite” or preset.
All you need is the MAC address of your Naim device. Then go to naim.vtuner.com and register there. Then you can add the URL of any iRadio station you want.
It’s usually worth having a thorough search of the iRadio input first, as there’s a good chance the station is tucked away in there somewhere.
Cool. But this is all informational; as the other comment said, there’s a station a day as is for…lol…forever?