Out with Roon, in with the Naim app

That would be painful - I lost service yesterday (rare) for an evening and no music would not have been great.

I did get a demo of it at my Dealer - he was very averse to doing that demo as in his words ‘we don’t think it suits a Statement system’. I had the demo and it just seemed to add something I will not describe but I did not really want or like.

Since then others have said it may have been a set-up thing…etc, but not really been drawn back to try it again. I think the licence-checking lock-out of local music thing - if really true - would not warm me to try it again.

DB.

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Not had internet outage in a while, Roon still worked without the Internet, albeit on my local library only. the only thing that was missing was Roon’s excellent links to other similar artists, the artist notes, but my music still played without issues.

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As it should but others are claiming a different experience while not connected to the internet. I’ve spent some effort managing my metadata so I don’t need all the extra links for music discovery that I find intrusive. If I want to know a bass player I’ll look it up online. Only takes a few seconds.

I am one of those……specially between 4.4 and 4.6 for my Nds.

These are streamer firmware versions, which Naim well understand and are able to manipulate in the way that they affect sound quality. Nothing to do with the app!

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There is one way to get an indication - so I’ve just started a poll!

No problem starting a poll but why put it in the Hi-Fi Corner and not here, it is a streaming subject?

Oops! I didn’t look, just assumed we were in the Hifi Corner, in fact because I don’t search by “rooms” I had failed to notice when the streaming corner was introduced! If I can move it I will .

Edit: I think I’ve done it.

Edit 2 No, it didn’t work! I’ll ask Richard

The software we choose is a personal choice of preference, I see the software as a component of the system, if it comes with the streamer and is workable is perfect.

I look at Roon as a one interface for all the family at home, and supports almost all hardware we have, the HomePod from Apple, the Apple tv’s at home, the dac on the office, the ifi streamer, the bluesound, the naim gear and the chromecast dongles we have on the tv’s. One app that works with all. And the kids or wife only have to select the device that they want to stream, even if they want to use their phones or tablets to listen directly with their AirPods.

If I only had one streamer from Naim I think I would be happy with the Naim app, but with multiple hardware I would need multiple apps and every one of them is different supporting only the brand of the app. In this case roon is a blessing.

After some years the family is fluent using roon, is it perfect, hell no and what app is?

If roon faded away in the future I would have to search for an equivalente alternative or even go back to the provided apps, but I hope they still be around for many years to come.

But what I do not have is an argument to say roon is right or wrong to anyone, is an option like many others including the provided by the manufacturers, if it works for you, then is the right one.

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Excellent post.

.sjb

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Yes, you are right.
As for app, I find significant differences between Naim app and Mconnect, streaming from my local files.

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The Naim App and MConnect work in different ways.
The point made was that updates to the Naim App (not the streamer) to some people sounded ‘better’.

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I agree, the updates of the Naim app doesn’t change the sound.

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And yet some people hear that it does. Ergo, hearing is not proof. Hurray, after years we have come to that point :joy:

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Can we be 100% sure of that.

A few years ago I remember an app provider claimed that modifying the app, so it doesn’t communicate with the server as often, brings a sonic improvement.

So, it is feasible some Naim app upgrades might have resulted in a SQ upgrade, although whether it’s detectable will probably be hardware/system/ears dependant.

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There are small but easy to hear differences between the control App from Naim with respect to the Release and Beta-test version which (I think) gathers more realtime data - but since that is a very specific case that non Beta -test customers will not experience essentially I’d say the Release App versions themselves are identical or near-identical with respect any impact on SQ.

The object of the Beta testing of the Apps to to test other things so it is more a mention that there can be small differences for different reasons - and even then not everyone will hear that as any difference depending on how revealing their system is as it is a small sonic signature.

Bigger differences are and can be elsewhere. If I as alternative to the Naim App use something like Upplay (which works on my Win 10 PC) to access and control files then the sound is markedly different - again a small difference but more obvious and in that case I prefer the Naim App signature.

Just observations and no idea why - I just experiment and use what works best.

DB.

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Have you tried listening to an album or playlist, and powering down the device the app is on, after you start playing the album.

Maybe it was my English, but I don’t remember saying that updates of the Naim app change the sound. Firmware updates and different apps when streaming from a Naim streamer ( Naim app, Mconnect, Roon…) , yes.
But I confess that my post above, yesterday, added confusion.

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Not done that test - perhaps I don’t want to know! :slightly_smiling_face:

My aim is always to be able to have easy-access to and control of my music with no compromise to SQ.
Having to re-start the App for another track or album is a bit painful as it takes up to a minute for it to find my Melco music server for some reason - it always finds it but the delay is irritating - it finds the ND555 immediately so it is probabaly an advertising interval thing with the Melco outside the Naim App, but I have to live with it all as a system.

I try to keep some proportion here - the effects are audible and there can be preferences but thse are small effects compaed to some other system set-up things worth having correct.

DB.

I can’t recall that you did, sorry if I wasn’t clear. Other people did, I don’t want to name them.

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