Sorry, could you explain what you mean by that ?
Given that the Atom will digitise the analogue input then feed the signal into its own DAC, I’m not convinced that the sound signature of any particular DAC attached to your iPhone will show up. There’s no substitute for listening for yourself though, and hopefully you will be able to do this with any DACs you try before committing.
Remember that you will also need an Apple CCK adapter to connect an iOS device to a USB DAC, the standard cable won’t work.
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I meant: the Atom digitalizes the analog input (e.g. for multi-room purposes) and runs it again through its own DAC.
Hence, it is likely best, when you deliver the digital signal directly to the Atom and only use the DAC in the Atom when playing back from e.g. iPhone.
So, if the Topping has a digital out, this could be a fit.
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The D10 has a spdif output. I don’t see a digital out on the E30.
There is also a dongle-style, Lightning-compatible DAC with optical output available from a company called Luxury and Precision: their W2 model was featured in a product announcement email I received recently. It costs about $400CDN and might be worth a look along with the Topping solution you mention. Note that I have not seen or heard this device… but it looks cool!
Regards alan
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In my opinion, all you need is an affordable usb to spdif converter; Apple lightning to usb cable into the converter, coax or optical cable into the Atom. I have had good luck with the Gustard U12, roughly 170 USD available online.
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Sorry, another question: I have an Apple ‘USB-C Digital AV Mulitport Adapter’. So it’s a USB-C out of my iPad Pro, with 3 ports on the other side … USB-C (for power), HDMI, and standard USB.
It says it supports 3840x2160 at 60Hz on my device … but I wonder what audio standard it would support if I connected it to the Atom via HDMI ?
The Atom supports HDMI ARC only, so I don’t think that is going to work.
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Hmmm ok …
Does anyone know whether the Airplay 2 protocol is limited by the hardware or the software from transmitting hi-res ? Just wonder if it’ll be fixed in a future update.
My Atom/Focal setup is sounding pretty sweet, and I’m not sure I’m going to hear the difference from hi-res, so I’m trying to avoid spending money on a converter in between, that will also look less elegant. That said, as the hi-res sits there waiting to be tapped, it’s niggling me to be able to access it.
If you want to see how hi-res streams sounds I would suggest that you sign up for a free trial with Qobuz and see what that sounds like through the Atom. If you like it you can either jump ship and ditch Apple Music, or spend time and money fiddling around with workarounds and adapters.
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My inner-idiot wants to mess around with the adapters 
Who am I so try and stop you. The forum loves tinkers!
It’s the Apple Music app that restricts the quality, not the Airplay 2 protocol or the Naim hardware. And, as I understand it, that’s the only app in town at the moment… so it’s back to Lightning to SPDIF adapters and tinkering until updates with upgrades arrive.
Lots to choose from at various prices, including cheap HDMI audio extractors you could pair with your existing AV multi port adapter. Then you are opening up the entire world of jitter, noise, and so on: lowest common denominator adapters may not give you the best input signal and in turn they become the limiting factor (as opposed, say, to the bit depth / bit rate of the stream itself). I’m not sure there are many shortcuts here, but there are tons of things to experiment with…
Regards alan
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It’d limited to 48/24 but not sure anything actually goes highr than 44.1/16 for audio only. This currently by design it does not support higher than 48/24 at all. Apple Music is itself limited to aac likely due to multiroom capabilities to work efficiently same reason homepods are. The latter are being updated in the next firmware, but there have been issues with its performance looking at some beta users reports. I am sure they will sort that.
If it’s just an app limitation, I’m optimistic that they’ll upgrade it.
48/24 is not an app limitation but one of the protocol. To switch to hires for Airplay would require a large update it’s not as simple as just switching it on. Airplay is plug and play currently due to its rigid fixed specs. As soon as you go out from that then the protocol needs to also have an understanding of the capabilities of each device to playback to and each device needs to advertise what they can back. This is not in the specs at all as it’s not needed currently so it’s a major refactor . Each manufacturer of existing Airplay 2 products would also need to update their side to implement this also to support it likely a slow process for some. It becomes way more complicated especially in a multiroom scenario so this is a prerequsite I would expect it to be in Airplay 3 not this iteration. Lossles upto 44.1/16 yes, above that maybe not.
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Good enough for most if it operates as well as Spotify.
Interestingly I thought I would try connecting an iPad to my Nova. So dug out the old nDac I had lying around, and connected it via analogue rca in to the Nova. I was amazed to hear it sounding better than the streamer in the Nova. Not really subtle either. Smoother, less edgy and more detailed. My son who is a music student walked in the room and went wow, that’s smoother - his word…
Now I’m finding it difficult to go back.
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The NDAC is a considerably more capable DAC than the one squeezed into the Nova, so I’m not surprised you preferred it. Also its USB input supports iOS devices, as did all the 1st gen Naim streamers, as Naim chose this rather than Airplay at the time.
This is odd as your still using the Novas DAC in the end and adding an analogue to digital conversion in-between. Perhaps the decoupling of the streaming section and first stage DAC are cutting down on noise that the internal streamer may add. But your adding way more digital processing into the chain and essentially limiting the point of hires as the analogue in on the Nova digitises again at 48/24 your going to get quite some loss going from hires to analogue, back to 48/24 and then back to analogue. Obviously you prefer it so all the processing may be smoothing it out.