I sympathise and agree but from the manufacturers perspective it’s the only way to remain financially viable given your selling “life-long” (aka sustainable) kit.
No not required but adviced and not 10 years for all devices. Many have run naim gear for 20 or more years without recap.
But of course the exact statement always or often ruins a good forum post.
Hi @Fatcat
The uniti1 platform tech was tech from 2006, that we developed over 2007 and sold in 2008. That was the start of the first Naim streaming platform. Between 2008 and 2012 we then went through 3 streaming board variants (eDMP1, eDMP2, eDMP3) to keep the tech competitive.
The Muso1 platform uses the Bridgeco CX870 platform and in practice we were forced to use as we needed Apple Airplay. at the time no other platform had Airplay and every other manufacture had the seme dilema of having to adopt Bridgeco - that platform was around 2 years old at that time (so about 2012). About 2 years later (2016ish) Apple opened the tech up to more solutions + various manufacturers did a big naughty and used a hacked reversed engineered version of Airplay - we don’t do such things at Naim. By 2018 the module and chipset had been discontinued by Microchip.
We took on the work and have delivered for code upgrade on the Bridgeco CX870 and the Audivo eDMP3 nodules. We attempted the eDMP2 upgrade but the engineering effort was going to be too much. eDMP1 we didn’t even attempt as the specialist compiler tools no longer work for this platform and have been discontinued for 13yrs.
Best
Steve
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This isn’t true. Some items are 8-10 years particularly regulated amps.
OC kit is 15 years or only if there is an issue.
A bit like Porsche parts on your 911 instead of some cheap copy? Fitted properly at an authorised dealers.
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OMG, doing that is a fantastic achievement!
I would have hated to try to do that even with the resources and weight of a ‘high street financial services organisation’ behind me to drive the work forward.
(Former Computer Systems Designer from a ‘high street financial services organisation’.)
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100% well said @Xanthe
Steveskys post goes a long way to give us all long term confidence in Naim in this disposable modernday world.
And its not just the products, its the ethos and most important the people.
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Well, I’m very pleased it wasn’t deleted, it’s been a fascinating read (despite struggling with some of the acronyms). Particular thanks to Stevesky for explaining it and to Naim staff for all the effort they put in 
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Speaking as an electronic engineer it’s easy to think the “upgrade” of this type is easy… it’s not.
Resuscitating an old platform with all the attendant developer tools, licenses for things like compilers for embedded boards, automation, test rigs (and testing things like failed updates, rollbacks etc), packaging tools for self-update plus all the institutional memory of how things worked is no mean feat at all. The easy option by far for Naim would have been to abandon the “green screen” platform updates-wise.
Are there things I wish Naim did differently with the old platform? Absolutely. I’d have loved AirPlay in my SU for a start, and I don’t care about Tidal. But they’re to be commended in my view for re-doing the radio on it, it’s a huge amount of work to get this over the line.
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Indeed, the lessons learned from their original streamer implementation and architecture were applied into the later streamer designs.
I agree it’s pretty impressive those old products have had their software updated to support the new web radio service. I guess helped because BridgeCo who Naim used as the original streaming engine module is still operating.
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Great post, its explains some of the complexity I never realised, thanks
Martin
I have a Naim UnitiQute, if I connect it to a Node , then I will be able to get Quboz and Presto
Simon I was under the impression that Naim has said here that BridgeCo was no longer in business? Why do you think it is still operating?
Bridgeco bought by SMSC 2011, they were in turn bought by Microchip 2012 …. There might be something within their vast catalogue but the original Bridgeco products are long gone.
I am not sure. They were acquired by SMSC who appear in turn to have been more recently acquired by Microchip Technology who appear to make multimedia expansion boards and micro controllers.
I guess these brands pass along… like Burr Brown has been acquired by Texas Instruments for a long time now. For example in the Microchip Technology catalogue is the BridgeCo DM860 networked media processor… but its authentic availability looks questionable.
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