I’m sure you are right. We don’t have Quobuz in NZ, so don’t have the hi-res internet streaming option. On my system a ripped CD is better than Tidal, but there’s not a lot in it. I also support the artists by buying their CDs and a reasonable number of them are boycotting on-line steaming as it’s destroying the financial viability as musicians.
I understand their frustrations but If they boycott they will loose their audience. For the whole the general public want what’s most convenient and are likely fed up of buying the same music again and again for each new generation of playback that’s the next thing or is no longer available. Streaming stops that as essentially it’s format agnostic as its done behind the scenes. They have embrace it or themselves face extinction. To be a musician these days sadly you need to be more forward thinking in your approaches. Iook at how streaming has coped with this pandemic of ours, without it I am sure musicians would not have got what income they have in.
The revenue model needs to change to allow the artists to get more from streaming not stop the streaming. Just ditch the record labels and self produce, don’t bite the hand that feeds you.
Factory reset seems to have sorted out any sonic issues. Listening to this album now and it sounds as good as it did before and when I auditioned the tabs in the shop. This album showed all the rest of the speakers up.
Been playing a lot of music on my system. Sounded good before sounds good now. If there is a champ it is to the good.
You “don’t have Qobuz in New Zealand”?
Do you have some sort of internet access restriction?
There are quite a few countries they are not licensed to operate in, a copyright issue I assume. You can set up a fake IP address in another country, but I haven’t tried that, so Tidal it is.
Oh I see.
That’s a shame. I paid for a VPN service on my phone once, during a fit of paranoia, but I found it interfered with my (at the time) Tidal playback…
Cant get Qobuz in Aus either, I’m not going to bother until they’re available.
They’ve only recently expanded to the US.
Well after a few trouble-free days after the firmware update, after coming home last night I tried to listen to some music on the ND5XS2 only to be greeted by silence. The Naim app found the device no problem, I could browse my NAS and select music to play and the phone was showing that something was playing but all I got was silence. I unplugged the streamer from the mains, rebooted the router and WiFi mesh and my phone and tried again. More silence. I unplugged both the streamer and Nait XS2 from the mains and left them like that overnight. Plugged it all in again this morning and rebooted router, WiFi and phone again. Still more silence. It has taken a factory reset to get it going but at least it is up and running again. Very odd how it has been fine for a few days after the update before deciding to throw a wobbly.
I think Naim need to rethink the beta testing team because after reading through this thread it appears the end user is doing the beta testing.
If the 272 is ever replaced I now have doubts if I will ever upgrade to another Naim streaming device.
The beta testing is by forum members based on goodwill…but there are very few beta testers, people are obviously not interested enough.
Did you do an initial reset after the firmware update? If experience from others is anything to go by, this seems a good idea.
Hifiman, if you wish to join the Beta test group, I’m sure Naim would be happy to have you onboard. Just drop Naim an email.
I didn’t at the time as it all seemed to be working fine and I figured that if it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Strange that it should take a few days to start playing up but so far so good after the factory reset
I’m a member of the beta group. It was set up prior to the introduction of the new platform. There were lots of us with the various streamers - the ND5XS, NDX, NDS, Unitis, 172 and 272. We were able to test everything to destruction and generally the updates went well. The beta forum was really active and we spent many hours on it.
With the new platform I for one cannot test functionality on the new streamers and can only do regression testing on the app software to ensure that changes made for the new platform don’t impact negatively on the legacy streamers.
It’s easy to underestimate how complex updating the software is. If others are having problems and are keen to help I suggest they come forward and volunteer. Naim should probably be a bit more proactive here and seek additional members if the current ones are insufficient to prevent errors getting out.
Of course, things will always get missed but I can entirely understand why some of those posting on this thread are royally pissed off. These updates should just work.
I agree with this, and having two new generation streamers and a Core, would be a useful candidate. But at the moment, I can’t even get an answer to a basic question about functionality of the new Firmware and whether it should work with local streaming and how the remote > home > favourites are meant to work (as it’s not even mentioned in the release notes…), which just doesn’t feel like there is much commitment to whole thing.
Mike, there is a huge and genuine commitment to getting it right. It’s really obvious from beta group discussion and how suggestions from users are acted upon when it’s agreed they’d be useful. I have no experience of the user support so it would be wrong to comment on that. Why not get involved with the beta group and see how it goes.
Mike…beta testers are able to revert to the old firmware, if things are not to their liking for any reason, so nothing to lose really. I have to admit to being nervous at first, but when i got drop outs beta testing Qobuz i was educated on how to remove a log of the event and email to the developer. It got fixed, which was pleasing to be involved with.
I’ll think about it, I do have some other pressures on at the moment, but it might be a useful distraction