New firmware update

Sure, but if I was not a forum member and interested technically, I am not sure I would be pleased by the NDX2 signalling a pending update and requiring a reboot every other week. I would also have experienced one spontaneous reboot in 3 months with the NDX2, which briefly annoyed me for sure, but would have thought it was a rare random glitch if I had not been reading the forum.

Though I had two or three reboots and screen freezes with the Nova in the months before receiving the NDX2, from summer to early fall. Still, my dealer who sells quite many Naim streamers and of course has their own range on demo was completely unaware of reboots and screen freezes when I told them about the ongoing issues.

It’s a balance and depends on many things - intrusiveness of the update process, prevalence of issues, … E.g., it might be different if the the NDX2 was updating silently (but then this comes with other potential problems)

Hi Alan,

Interesting thoughts, I share most of them, but not all.

I very much understand the emotional relationship one can build overtime with a product, or a brand, and therefore the need to somewhat participate to its development and be part of its community.

To a certain point, I share that. Aren’t I replying to your message?

As for being “fanboys” or a “Naim sheeps”, you probably noticed that I didn’t use those expressions, nor implied them. I try not to judge others and their choices.

This all started with some members, and myself, legitimately complaining about a product. No more, no less. I hardly understand all those reactions.

As for enjoying something else, I use to practice numerous other activities. Enjoying music is just one of them. But today is a rainy day, so music it is.

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Enjoy the rainy music day, Thomas.

I regret that some of my remarks came across as criticisms to you, that was not my intention! Specifically I want to acknowledge that you did not use “fan boy” nor did you take an emotional or defensive posture, nor make any “sheep” accusations. Far from it. Indeed, I felt empowered to turn the conversation towards the philosophical and emotional angle because you had remained analytical and tried to stay neutral.

That’s as clear an apology as I can make for the misunderstanding, I hope you can accept it in the spirit it’s offered.

It’s sunny here, but too cold to tempt me to go for a short ski. I will spend some time on FaceTime with my wife, who is in Germany while I’m trapped in Canada at the moment, enjoying each other’s virtual company.

Regards, alan

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Yeah you are right, personal experience has a lot to do with it as well. When I first got my Star it was nigh unusable. When me and the wife used to both select tracks from different iPhones it would freeze two three times an evening. So that is a different experience to someone who has one random reboot indeed.

And I won’t say release every week either. But there is a happy medium between weekly releases and many months in between. It would of course still need to be Beta tested as well.

The only thing I believe Naim is ‘to blame for’ is trying to get multiple issues fixed in the next firmware update. What happens now and then is that beta testers report more issues (and feature requests) that also need fixing (or implementation), which Naim tries to address in that same firmware. Maybe it would be good for Naim to set a release schedule, releasing a firmware update every quarter or so and hot fixes in between only if something is broken in a serious way e.g. random reboots or screen freezes.

True. And if this is easily reproducible, it should be caught by internal testing, as are issues with certain touches in the app simply not operating.

There might be, but with non-silent updates it is difficult to find the medium if there is one. I also didn’t say every week but every other. Between fortnightly updates and the current cadence with approx. every 3 months, there is not such much space to play with. Even a monthly update with a necessary reboot (or living with the perennially beckoning update icon) would be a bit much, I believe, for the non-nerd population. Three months are apparently felt as not often enough. Going to bi-monthly wouldn’t be a fundamental improvement.

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There’s definitely truth in what you are saying. Lucky for me I could scratch my itch by joining Beta and also installing Roon.

I’m quite happy with my Star these days.

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My new ND5XS2 has been flawless so I have nothing to add to the beta group but once the new firmware is released I will join the group.

The nd5xs2 has been pretty solid since launch. Who knows why, but long may it continue.

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I hope so too mine hasn’t failed once, I’ve gone a jinxed it now :grin:

Testing is not just about fixing existing stuff but also to ensure that stuff that was working does not break so you’d add a lot actually :relaxed:

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I upgraded star, but unfortunately it turned into a brick. At that time, it was 3.50. It was estimated that the network transmission lost files. Later, I changed nova, I have experienced 2.61 3.23.43.51. According to my impression, 2.61 medium frequency is outstanding and pleasant, 3.2 is relatively balanced, 3.4 has a lot of overall extension, but the sound is slightly light and dynamic. 3.50 firmware was unstable at that time, and the sound was high frequency. 3.51 firmware was fast and tight, but I didn’t like this fastener, so I didn’t feel it very well. Anyway, the more upgraded, the more awkward the sound

star| Nova| makes me very anxious. The program changes the sound, which is very unreliable. But I especially like the voice of Naim, so I want to buy an xs3, but the sound source is afraid of losing Naim flavor

Based on the other thread you opened, something seems to be wrong with your unit (or speaker cables, or something else in your system). Naim does tune each firmware release by ear, and some people (predominantly with very high-end systems, but also on a Nova: (link)) claim to hear differences between firmware versions - there is a dedicated thread about it. But this tuning is about minimizing electromagnetic noise and things like that, and it should not have the huge effects you are describing. I certainly heard no such effect with various firmware versions on Nova and NDX2.

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You are right but my Raspberry Pi 4 server has been up and running (MinimServer 2) for about 50 days without a glitch:

pi@rpi7:~ $ uptime
20:16:38 up 53 days, 8:14, 1 user, load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00

The Raspberry Pi 3 transport that hosts the Allo DigiOne Signature has been up and running MinimServer and upmpdcli for more than two years without any issue. I switch it off when the housecleaner comes and on when she goes away. That’s all.

I do not know what has been going on at Naim in the last few years and, freely, I do not care any longer. But something must have gone quite bad and what we are left with, especially in terms of software, is not particularly inspiring.

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Though 50 days is hardly impressive in server terms, and my and most others’ streamers certainly have similar or much longer uptimes. Of course, the problem is that a random reboot every 100 days is still too many and a streamer should aim for the only necessary downtime being reboots for updates.

The trouble here is in the comparison. If as many people were running Naim hardware and contributing to it as is the case with the Pi I would have have been surprised if the issues still cropped up.

Have no idea as to exact numbers but higher end to premium hifi equipment will no doubt sell less units than a 77 euro popular micro server.

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I’ve posted this earlier … the new Uniti range has been introduced in 2016 and became available in the course of 2017. After all these years we still see major things like screens freezing …

It’s getting embarrassing isn’t it?

I usually reboot my servers when I update their systems, hence the relatively low uptime figure. The point that I was trying to make is that, in my view, Naim have been struggling with this (and other software) problems for too long: meanwhile, I do not trust their capability to support and maintain their own software any longer.

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I explained myself poorly. I know that the Pi will normally stay up for longer than that, and the streamers must do so as well. At the same time was trying to say that the streamers do manage 50 days and more, just not long enough. The two things didn’t go well together :slight_smile:

As I have no insight into what has been causing this issue, what the problems at Naim have been, and what they are doing about it, I don’t think I am in a position to judge.