Hello all - very pleased to have received my new ND5 yesterday and just getting familiar with it. I’ve come form a Bluesound Node 2i through a DAC-V1/NAP100. As part of that original setup I had an Amazon HD subscription which I have 3 months left on. From a search on here it looks like I can’t use that through the Naim app but most of the post were from around 2019. Is there a way to use Amazon HD? I guess I could connec the Node 2i to one of th edigital inputs and still access it that way but it seems a bit of a workaround and I’d been hoping to seel the Node 2i to pay towards my new Naim purchases! Would I be better to cut my losses and go for a qobuz subscription? Any advice gratefully received.
Hi Will, its worth trying a free trial with Qobuz, the SQ is excellent.
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ND5XS2 supports airplay and chromecast - is that an alternative way to feed it Amazon HD?
Thanks Gazza - will give the qobuz trail a go. I think this is probably preferable as other household members will want to be able to just use the one app to set some music playing and anything involving switching between apps/devices is likely to be frowned upon.
Thanks Andy - have just tryed and I can cast from within the Amazon Music HD app - but there’s quite a delay in switching between tracks and I have a feeling I’m not getting the ‘ultra hd’ quality… nothing ever seems straightforward!
On anoter note - I previously used my laptop for local music but would like to do away with this. It’s not a particularly large collection and I’m just wondering if there’s any benefit in getting a NAS or just plug a USB drive or SSD into the rear. Is there any difference in SQ between USB and NAS (could connect this via ethernet or wi-fi)?
I have an ND5 XS2 and I plug in a large capacity USB stick, and it works brilliantly. IMO SQ is identical to music from a uPnP server. If you do this, ensure you enable Server On in the app, then go to the music via Servers rather than USB, then you get all the metadata like artists and covers etc. Having a USB stick also serves as a sort of Music backup.
I plug mine in the front just so as its easy access when it needs updating
I think the Naim app will tell you the sample rate and bit depth of a stream being cast to the ND5XS2…
Hi Will, I’ve just re-evaluated my streaming provider, having originally had a couple of years with Qobuz and the most recent 18mths or so with Amazon HD Unlimited. I chose Amazon based on the significant price difference at the time helped by the Prime membership, and to be fair the sound quality was pretty good/acceptable, with many albums at resolutions higher than 16/44 and album/track/playlist choice very comprehensive (non-classical taste mainly). I noticed the recent Qobuz Studio price drop which matched Amazon’s monthly subscription fee and decided to run the two parallel for a month and decide based mainly on SQ. Last night I terminated my Amazon HD subscription preferring Qobuz both on my main headphone system and easily detectable on my iPhone 12ProMax and AirpodsPro when out walking the dog. If I were to score Qobuz 10/10 on SQ only I would give Amazon HD 8.5.
A further plus to me (for my home setup) is the collaboration between Qobuz and Roon, which whilst a separate discussion and cost, is not currently available with Amazon. Following a trial I have signed up to Roon and may upgrade in the next 30 days to Sublime as I like to buy some downloads of my favourite albums at a decent discount.
Sorry, can’t help with the ND5XS2 query but I am very happy with the music from Qobuz Studio via Ethernet and USB into my DAC-V1 and HD600s / NAP100 and ES11s (atm!).
I tend to mostly listen to albums from start to finish, so the loss of pre-made playlists going from Amazon to Qobuz is not a biggie for me. HTH.
For USB stick/SSD: Works fine; unless you have other needs for a NAS, you can skip with it.
You could also access/play the content on other UPnP devices in your home.
Only drawback is: you have to plug the stick into a PC to add music (it cannot be accessed via network shares; best use some program, which can copy only “what was added/changed” - I use ‘rsync’ on Mac, but there’s also nice programs with GUI for this) and after plugging it back into the network player, it needs to be “re-indexed” (for accessing it via the internal server; access via USB folder view works immediately, which may be a work-around if you want to listen to something while waiting for the indexing).
If you don’t change/add music on a daily base, it’s likely okay.
PS: External HDD would work as well; but it’s not silent as stick/SSD and unless you have a huuuge collection…
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Brilliant command rsync. For Windows you can use Robocopy command that is part of windows.
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