Yes, and whilst at it, explain why the trusty NZ distributor and retailers are being retrenched, which most certainly will suffer a loss of NZ customers and confidence in the brand.
And why not? After all, that’s the statement styling for the S2.
Any more details?
Well we will see…
Imminent as in ‘February’ or?
Only what I mentioned before. My interpretation was along the lines of an increased focused on lifestyle products over the traditional separates and upgrade paths. No doubt driven by the venture capital owners.
Thanks Mike, let’s wait and see …
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Unplugged the XPSDR yesterday just to see that all the good stuff was not imagination. I was like “Did I really listen to this and enjoyed it?!”. The difference adding the XPSDR is mindblowing really. It’s either stay here and await a new 2nd gen 272 or follow up with a 555PSDR during the year. Wonder how long one should have patience…
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The legacy streaming platform doesn’t have the high res stations integrated. If you’re using a NAS you can install the minimserver app and stream all the FLAC/high res stations. Plenty here do it and there’s a few threads on how to set it up.
If I hadn’t been fortunate enough to be able to afford the PS I would have been quite content listening to a bare 272. Surely you must be exaggerating?
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I enjoy listen and sing along in my car too 
I was just not prepared of the uplift XPSDR did to the 272 since many seemed to say “you need to go with 555PSDR”. It was one of the greater surprises I’ve had in my audio journey.
When the nac-n 272 came out, I home demoed it against my then nac 202/HiCapDR and using internal power it was a nice to use and didn’t do anything badly preamp. Great user interface and volume (thank god). I then moved my XPSDR from the nDac to 272 and I immediately realised this was the presentation, user interface ( and volume control, did I mention that?) that I wanted. I have since gone 555Dr and it is a fabulous pre amp. So in short, yes PS makes a very big difference.
Agreed the XPS DR made a big difference for me as well.
I know. I too have the 555DR. My point is that the 272 sounds really good as a bare unit. It simply sounds better with a PS. Those who imply it is a less than serviceable unit ‘bare’ do it a disservice.
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Was the uplift greater on the streaming/dac side or the pre-amp side with the Vertere?
Indeed. Although to reiterate an oft-made point, the leap from bare 272 to XPSDR is often described as less than the change from XPSDR to PS555. That was certainly my experience.
272 = great
272 + XPSDR = blimey
272 / XPSDR to 272 / PS555 = steady on there.
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Yes, I agree. In fact if the mythical 272 replacement does come out and is enough of an upgrade I may upgrade but l’ll be keeping the original 272 for a second system I think. To me the 272 represents what the classic preamps should be like.
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Haven’t done that much testing on that part but from what I’ve done so far it feels like it’s a bigger uplift in streaming. Reasonable if so since you improve 3 parts of the 272 with and external PS (Pre, DAC, Streaming).
Agreed, I love the 272, however imho Naim need to improve/address sw support wrt end user experience of reliable connectivity, I.e. compared to the likes of Sonos/Sony/Samsung/apple/Netflix/Amazon uhd steaming it is most often in my system the product that will fail (lose its its connection, this with wired connection, the latest BT smart hub and good connectivity being in central Hove) it is invariably the n272 that falls over …
One 272 reboot in three years. Am I lucky or is there something wrong with your network setup?