Well, the title is a little tongue in cheek and no such beast exists. The “User Manual” on the web site is more of a “quick connection guide”. The support page lists some setup instructions and FAQs for the NDX2, unfortunately most of those bear no resemblance to the current product. The FAQs refer to menu items that don’t (no longer?) exist. Is it really that difficult to provide up-to-date user information of a $9000 product, or at least update the misinformation of the product support page?
Case in point: https://www.naimaudio.com/product/ndx-2/support
Navigate to the “Troubleshooting and FAQs”
Navigate to “No album art showing on the screen”
None of the following menu items displayed on this support page exist on my NDX2 app on the iphone or ipad (latest firmware, latest app version). All that’s there is Play, Queue next, Queue last, New UPnP playlist
These so-called support pages are indeed a very poor substitute for a proper manual which Naim always used to do very well in the past. There have been numerous criticisms of them here since these products were released some years ago, but no sign of any improvement. Even basic errors and inaccuracies pointed out to Naim staff here years ago remain uncorrected.
You’ve got to wonder why any minor change takes anything over a couple of days to resolve. Perhaps it’s outsourced to a company that charge a fortune per change.
No, but a proper manual would show a more appropriate level of commitment and responsibility to customers. And there’s no reason they can’t delete the misinformation currently on the support website.
I recall that the former MD, Charlie Henderson, committed to develop paper user manuals for the (then) new generation streamers. Maybe that’s why he had to leave?
Its very difficult to defend a situation like this - where the support information for a (very expensive) product is poor. Smacks of corners being cut, costs avoided.
I wonder if the NC range is better, in this respect…?
The instructions must only apply when one is using a Core. The problem Naim have with streaming instructions is that the music could be coming from lots of places; a PC, Mac, NAS using Asset, its own software, Minim, or from a Melco, Innuos etc etc. They can’t possibly explain how to fix them all. Users must surely have some responsibility to work things out. For example, Asset has a very good forum with help from the developers on tap. There are a lot of things to grumble about in the world, and a manual for the NDX has to rank very low.
The instructions in question clearly state that metadata can be edited in the Naim app when using an NDX2. There is no mention of whether or not a Core needs to be the music store or server.
Yes, it should be better, but it doesn’t take a genius to work out that it simply isn’t possible to edit albums on your Melco etc from the Naim app.
That said, Naim clearly don’t put much effort into their online material. The website is full of errors and was due an overhaul years ago, but for some reason they don’t seem to care. Still, it’s not worth ranting about.
I agree that Naim’s manuals (or lack thereof) are of poor quality.
But, Naim offers something of very high quality that most other manufacturers do not: this forum!
I find that this forum is very valuable for when I have technical or setup questions for my Naim gear.
It seemed a logical conclusion. We all know that a streamer can only show what a server sends to it, and the Core is the only server that Naim make. But yes, it’s far from clear either way, but certainly not worth getting excited about.
