Great explanation. I understood that even. You are OK with me kiddo!
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Oh…Clare are you listening too? I think I may know why it’s no longer displaying…I noticed I hadn’t plugged the ethernet cable from the Atom into the router, and thus did. So, as such, is it now playing wired and not through Chromcast?
I have a lot of fun reading your posts! It’s great to see someone so excited and happy.
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Sonic Youth! I saw them with Wilco! Wow was that a great show!
I like Wilco too! Sonic Youth are my all time favorite band, saw them I don’t know how many times and always brilliant.
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The Nova is a big step up from the Atom, but it’s double the cost. The Atom is a fine machine, I had one originally, later a Nova.
I think you need to forget about the formats/quality etc, just concentrate on enjoying the music on your Atom or any other device and don’t let the technicalities get in the way - even those who think we understand all these formats often can’t categorically say that ‘better’ is actually ‘better’ there are far more variables at play, just like with hi-fi - all those speaker/amp specs are often irrelevant whereas Naim equipment generally just works.
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I wish Tidal was available worldwide - Sadly, not here in Japan 
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Ah…I just caught up to this…
Oh Christ, you are going to laugh at me (again) here: Dongle? Uh…actually I have a brand new one…I have a Luna display…
“Dongle” is just a term for anything small that you directly plug into a computer port - without it being a separate box.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dongle
In this case, the Chromecast Audio device comes in dongle format. That’s all there is to it 
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Yeah…mine is to mirror an iPad to a Mac.
Fyi Clare is group director of PR, group being Focal plus Naim. Probably best to keep technical questions posted here for the user community to help, and call upon support@naimaudio.com if issues arise that cant be solved.
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Thanks, Robert! As a Naim user of many years (way before current job), i’m always happy to chip in where i can, but agreed our Tech Support team is always the best place to get a thorough answer, if you can’t get joy from the many other users on here
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Is QoBuz?
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Qobuz is currently available in 12 countries in Europe plus USA.
- Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, USA
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Based on my experience and listening the Astell and Kern Alpha Kann, I have compared Qobuz high-res vs. Tidal MQA and I do prefer MQA over the Qobuz high-res… just my opinion.
I think the issue is that MQA marketing appear to refer to processing format being some sort of Hidef production master quality, which clearly is a nonsense if lossy… if a format is lossy it will degrade each time it is re encoded/ processed, unlike PCM which can be copied effectively ad Infinitum which is what you use for mastering.
If MQA referred to their format as being optimally compressed to suit mobile applications and application where storage or data is limited but retaining as much of the original as possible to suit the music enthusiast, most people wouldn’t have an issue I suspect… it’s the apparent hood winking that grates…
Of course if you read the patent from a technical perspective there is no such pretence… and for what it is I think it’s rather clever… but fully transparent/ lossless hidef format it ain’t.
Just as high bit rate MP3 and even more so AAC can be very good indeed… so much so the BBC use high bit rate AAC on their hidef streams… its just with these two formats there is no licence control on analogue conversion reconstruction so there is more freedom to interpret or differ how it sounds.
I certainly have no issue with lossy codecs, they have their use cases and can sound very good indeed for what they are, and pre Covid I used MQA and AAC when mobile, It’s when the marketing tries to infer they are something rather more than what they are… I take issue.
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Yes, I play Tidal Masters through Roon to my NDS player.
A bit perfect stream is presented to the Ethernet port in UPnP format.
I also play locally stored MQA files, in Roon, to my NDS player.
I also play Tidal Masters in the Tidal Windows app, in my office, when away from my system, outputting via USB to a DAC enabled pair of Desktop speakers.
I also play Tidal Master in the Tidal iOS app on my iPhone, through an external dongle. MQA DAC to wired headphones, when out and about.
All sound very good and comparable to non-MQA HiRes versions, sometimes better and certainly better than regular 16/44 CD quality versions.
I can also play Tidal Master on the iPhone, through Bluetooth headphones or wired into the Lighting connector. But these options are not as good, as there compromises being taken in the playback path.
I play MQA through an ifi Zen Dac wired directly to a laptop it then glows the correct Magenta colour but if I try it via my Auralic Aries Mini which uses a pass through method of the MQA file then the Zen Dac doesn’t go Magenta.
MQA via the laptop does sound better than normal CD quality and is worthwhile in my opinion but can be a ball ache to use and means I have to disconnect my streamer and connect my laptop.
Yes increasingly 44.1/16 is a resampled version, as mastering will be at 48/24 or 96/24 due to CD not being that prevalent now. It’s a shame Tidal only you offer this increasingly compromised 44.1/16 PCM format or lossy hidef MQA variants. I suspects it’s a licensing deal between MQA and Tidal that prevents un re sampled PCM masters being available… it is a shame … I wrote to Tidal on this but didn’t get a reply… therefore I switched to Qobuz where I can get unprocessed native distribution master quality PCM.
Interestingly I had Qobuz and Tidal for a time… and many of the Tidal MQA processed media tracks were available on Qobuz in their native high definition PCM masters.
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