One more👍
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What would be the reasoning for Naim to not have introduced it at the same time as the other new streamer DAC’s?
I personally can’t see it happening.
An updated 272 seems more likely to be just that when/if it appears. To me that means similar price point to the current one without any intention to cannibalise the dedicated streamers and preamps.
Naim have been upfront in comments here and there that they believe the 272 is as far as they can reasonably go before the design disadvantages of colocating delicate analogue only preamp stages with digital components. Now that may not be true forever. I expect it will but if not, the end-of-life on the current streamers would be the right time to roll out combined replacements to the current streamers and preamps together.
A streamer that can take a SuperCap for the preamp stage and an XPS for the streaming stage would be an interesting idea.
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34 likes but will it ever happen.
I think the problem for Naim if they ever release the upgraded 272 is the price and product position in the current pre amp hierarchy, the 272/555DR is very good but if they improved on this will the new model come close to a 252/NDX2 performance level?
In 2019 we’ve seen the mu-so second generation, the SuperNait 3 and XS 3
In 2018 we’ve had the new streamers; ND 555, NDX2 and ND5 XS2
In 2017 we’ve seen the Uniti Atom, Star and Nova
Timing-wise I really think 2020 we’ll see some sort of 272 successor …
Many regards,
Michel
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I do love this threads.
Oh look, some people on the forum want a revised 272. Let’s get on and do that, it will only take six weeks.
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Ha ha…yeah… but one has to try…!!!
That said, Naim do listen to their customers, and they do look at the Forum. The introduction of Qobuz to the new streamers was triggered by customer demand.
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When it arrives, you forget it’s not in the current release.
Surely the NDS solution of using 2 Burndies from a 555PS would be better and cheaper for that purpose?
In terms of the preamp function, would you guys agree or disagree that 272/555PS(non DR) is at par or better than bare 282?
Thanks
A 282 must have some sort of Power Supply to work, a 202 also. They can both draw power from a 200 but does ‘bare’ mean 282/200?
Yes, correct. 272/555PS/200 vs. 282/200
What I meant by bare is no HC added to 282.
@trickydickie had, before upgrading to NDS, an NDX and 282/Hicap and I had my 272/555. While speakers and rooms were different, I never thought his was ‘better’ or ‘worse’ than mine when I heard it. All these things are good and while you may hear differences in a demonstration at the dealer, they are all capable of making lovely music.
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Probably an unfair comparison as the 272 with 555 is 252/SC price excluding the streamer which I believe you are doing. Not heard both side by side but the 252/SCDR would probably get more votes.
The former is a lot more expensive, so you’d hope it would be better.
The route to an extremely good system made up of a 250 or 300 and a 272 with or without a PS upgrade is something that Naim presumably felt was worth offering to capture that share of the market that wants a nice set-up but doesn’t want a lot of boxes spread over a couple of racks. That and the cost.
The long & short of it is that a combined streamer + preamp with an upgrade path via a PS is a great way to a fabulous system. Naim offered that because it fills a gap in the hierarchy, either as an end-game or en route to something better.
The logical step up from a 272 + PS is to discard them both and replace with an ND5XS2, or step up to the NDX2 and use the PS on that; then add either a 282 + 2 ps boxes or add a 252 + one PS. Either way the box count increases and so does the cost. It’s likely that the rack count also goes up.
The elephant in the room now though is that Tidal is no longer reliable on the old streamer tech. It failed badly early this year, it’s recently gone again and the consistent message on here was pretty much ‘tough, the tech is old, you need to upgrade.’ Fine, I can live with that if there’s an equivalent to the 272 to upgrade to. More boxes, another rack and a potential outlay of about £15k to overcome a tech issue doesn’t fit well with though. The 272 created a sensible route to a decent system and is now in need of being upgraded to match the new streaming tech in the ND series. Naim really do need to address this, now that Tidal is leaving the old tech behind.
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Thankfully I don’t use Tidal on my 272 but I feel the pain for those who do, personally I think the problem with Tidal and the 272 is that Tidal was an afterthought and Naim managed to squeeze this into the minute amount of memory within the 272 hence the ongoing issues.
Some have had problems with Tidal, but it’s my only source on my 272, has been extremely reliable, sounds excellent and does everything I want via the Naim app.
So in my case the 272 is not at all getting left behind by streaming from Tidal.
In fact, as I’ve improved my set up, the SQ of streaming Tidal has got far better, in leaps and bounds.
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HH, don’t want to hijack this tread, but I’m not sure Qobuz is integrated at all (at least not in the way tidal is) on Naims new gen streaming platform. If I check the inputs in my Naim app for my NDX2 I see as the screenshot attached.
The only way to use Qobuz is via the Qobuz app and use either Airplay or Chromecast, or via Roon via it’s integration (Both of which are features that have existed since the launch of the next gen streamers).
The last next gen update just enabled Airplay2, which whilst better than Airplay (24bit/44.4 and multiroom) doesn’t give the full range of hi-res support that Qobuz actually supports.
Or am I missing something?
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