Helps me sleep. 
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“I find many classical recordings sound overly ‘digital’ on my N272 / XPSDR, but this is less of an issue with other genres.”
Odd. One of my major reasons for moving from nDAC/SN1/HCDR to 272/250DR (with XPSDR in both) was the improvement in SQ of classical music (speakers unchanged). I’ve never been quite sure what ‘digital’ means as a description of SQ, but to my ears, the 272 combo gave more insight into complex orchestral and choral works, and did so without losing the musicality and life of the nDAC setup. I guess we all hear things differently.
Can you get the same kind of improvement in Tidal SQ using say a Sonore OpticalBridge without Roon, i.e. can the Sonore OpticalBridge on its own act as a upnp server transcoding to WAV?
It is true that they do always seem to give Naim glowing reviews, but as they’re only comparing Naim products it least is an indication of how they feel about certain products and how they stack up against other Naim gear in their opinion.
You could take a look at your cable routing and pay particular attention to the mains cords…I am not suggesting spending huge sums…but make sure it’s as good as you can get. I have found these elements can make system sound harsher and more closed in … You have quite a sensitive system there … there are lots of threads on cable tidying and mains leads/blocks … only a thought
The Sonore bridge is specifically designed to bridge Roon to UPNp so no.
If you want to do Tidal well on the cheap then BubbleUPNP Server is an effective way, then you would use a different application to access your music and control the player, like the Linn software or Lumin.
Roon isn’t an especially cheap purchase, it’s either an ongoing subscription or a on-off lifetime licence fee. In addition you should factor a suitable server to run it on, this adds another £400 or so depending on what you get.
My view is that it’s worth every penny. Not only does it allow access to Tidal and Qobuz at a quality that is on par with local streaming it does so much more. I’ve discovered so much more music using Roon and that’s the real benefit to me.
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Thanks Dickie
As regards discovering new music, that’s how I listen every day.
I mainly play stuff that I’ve recently discovered, and also look for other stuff that is by the same musicians, or by similar musicians.
In the Naim app I can search by artist, or look at ECM playlists, or look at a genre like blues or jazz.
A few months ago, for example, I discovered Paul Bley, as he had recorded on ECM.
Then, in the Naim app, and also looking on wikipedia, I discovered that he had played with Ornette Coleman and Chet Baker and Charlie Haden and many other musicians whose work I already know, as well as many other musicians whose work I don’t know.
So I can listen to all of that on Tidal through the Naim app.
The LPs I like best I’ll listen to many times, while trying not to overplay them.
So starting from Paul Bley, I can in effect discover an almost infinite quantity of great music.
I have only once or twice ever even used or looked at ‘Track Radio’ in the Naim app, as I prefer so far to just hunt by musical connections.
One other interesting mode of hunting is to take a track - e.g. ‘When Did The Blues Leave’ - and you find in the Naim app that there are about 50 versions of it.
You can listen to any of them, and allow yourself to branch out along lines of track or instrument or artist connections.
Is there something else Roon can do that the Naim app cannot in terms of discovery?
I am genuinely interested to know if Roon is better than this.
My fear is that Roon might actually be more distracting if it includes too many magazine style photos and if the quality of the writing it in is worse than that of the summaries in the Naim app.
I happen to really like the writing by most of the authors of the summaries in the Naim app such as Thom Jurek.
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So Roon is going to cost me anywhere from £1k (£500 fee + £500 server) up to £2k (fee and Nucleus) or more.
If the new Naim platform is now as good or almost as good in SQ terms as using Roon, then why not put that budget into getting a new platform Naim Streamer?
The killer for Roon as well is DSP … it is stunning…you can analyse your room - put in a profile and bobs your uncle … the sound quality of the DSP is also excellent.
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It’s probably best not to turn this into another Roon thread, this is about the desire for an update for the already excellent 272.
For me adding Roon to a legacy streamer has closed all need for the new architecture which does seem to have a number of issues despite it not being early days now as the one box units have been out for some time.
As long as Roon and the services it depends on (Tidal and Qobuz) continue then I have a streaming solution that is to a large extent future proof as my NDS just plays what Roon tells it, with parity on sound quality whether it is local, Tidal or Qobuz.
For me it was around getting a high end source (NDS) for relative peanuts, for 272 owners it’s about bringing capability it doesn’t have now, so it prolongs the 272’s life for people who find it wanting in terms of features but not performance. With a 555ps the 272 is very good indeed.
Whilst you can do your own research as you suggest, combining Wikipedia etc, Roon allows you to do what you describe all in one interface very quickly. It will show supporting artists with hyperlinks to them, and with a Qobuz or Tidal library you will see a list of their work and be able to add it to your library in a second. This is what I love about Roon.
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Sorry if this question doesn’t fit here but how does one get Roon to work with nds?
See post 528 or 529 in this thread.
If you mean this thread about 272 I looked and found nothing on roonifying. But i might be daft. It’s known to happen
While thank you dear sir I haven´t gotten my new glasses yet. Damn age trying to hinder me.
Now I just need @trickydickie to explain how to configure that lms-upnp. I have bubble running but am nor satisfied with the Linn software since I can´t scrub within songs for instance.
Start here
There’s also a current thread going here that is more Mac based
Richard
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I enjoy finding records I don’t yet have as well as live performances from groups like Amon Duul II, Faust and Neu! on YouTube. I use an Amazon Live TV via Bluetooth using a Logitech adapter into a 172.
“You could take a look at your cable routing and pay particular attention to the mains cords…I am not suggesting spending huge sums…”
Was this intended as a reply to @easeback1 rather than me? I had no problems with 272; indeed thoroughly enjoyed it until major system change last year.
Roger
For me it’s mostly to do with timbre i.e. getting a guitar to sound like a guitar or a piano like a piano. A couple of decades ago I owned a Naim CDS that couldn’t get close to my LP12 in this respect. I think the gap has narrowed for digital playback, but it still seems highly dependent on individual recordings.
Oddly enough, before you wrote this, I rearranged my system’s back end (router, Cisco 2960 and Mac Mini in separate room from the Naim boxes), specifically to put more space between the mains leads and the network cables. It definitely helped; seemed to …er, create a more spacious sound. NAP250 & XPS DR are both on Powerlines.