Qobuz

Ta :slight_smile:

Well, I have to say I agree with you wholeheartedly. It’s not enough to say “well, things move one so jolly hard luck.” Naim is a premium brand, charging premium prices, and it’s right that Naim’s customers have the expectation that their products are reasonably futureproof.

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When the legacy platform was introduced, it was optimised for local streaming. Online streaming didn’t really exist. Hardware limitations mean that Qobuz cannot be squeezed in. I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect Naim to build in the potential to incorporate services that they didn’t know would exist, or to criticise them for not so doing.

I’d like built in Qobuz but can’t have it and that’s that. But I can get it via bubble on my nas, for free, or by buying a Node thingy for £500, or by buying an NDX2 for £5,000. The proverbial cat can be skinned in many ways.

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Or by buying a Chromecast Audio dongle for about £50…
Best

David

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I tried that. Sounded like crap.

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Agreed. I found Chromecast to be awful.

BubbleUPNP worked fine when I used it though.

Depends how you do it I guess. The standard Chromecast dongle is no good for audio. But the Chromecast Audio dongle does 24bit 96 kHz and on Radio 3 via the BBC Sounds App it rivals FM from my NAT 05 XS and far outpasses the SuperUniti’s own FM module.

Best

David

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The Node is very good plugged into the digital in of the HDX2 it’s a very easy way to bring lots of streaming service not yet added to the Naim platform.

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The most important thing is to configure Bubble UPnP server to convert flac to wav I think. Also use a ethernet connection between internet, NAS and streamer for robustness.

Then start with what you have. When using a NAS make sure it has enough memory (not only 512MB; better 2GB) to make Bubble respond fast. Also a fast CPU probably is a good idea, so not an ARM CPU, but better an intel one.

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Thanks Gert.
What do you use as a server and as a streamer?
Jim

A superuniti as streamer and a Synology NAS (IIRC) DS-418play.

Before this I had a Synology DS213+ and this was way too slow for the bubble upnp server. I guess the main problem was the memory. Adding the first album from qobuz to the playlist was fast and then it became slower and slower, also after clearing the playlist again.

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That’s how my Node thingy is connected to the 272 using a coax digital RCA to BNC cable, sounds excellent via the 272 dac.

I mentioned on another thread that there also seems to be a lift in quality when streaming local files via the Node then via the 272, wonder if this down to the 272 doing less as only the pre and dac section is in use.

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Lucky we are not Sonos users! Feel so sorry for people having spent a lot on a system only to have it stop working.

Another thing to note is that you do need to use it with optical into your (Naim) DAC, i.e. do not use its inbuilt DAC. The latter is it’s weakpoint, and perhaps what @anon4489532 experienced?

Oh, and weirdly do not use the Chrome browser, apparently that also does something weird. See the audiosciencereview thread on it: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/review-and-measurements-of-chromecast-audio-digital-output.4544/

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I used it via optical. Still sounded like crap.

Hi

As I understand the position, it is not going to stop working just not able to be updated with the latest bells and whistles, some of which appear of dubious value.
Back to the usual argument it will still do what you bought it for.
It will be interesting to see if this has any effect on using Sonos through Roon.

Is this the start of hires for Sonos?

Says he with a reasonably large collection of stuff about to go out of date. (my 10 year old Imac still works although can’t update to the latest and greatest :flushed:

CK

It’s the price we all pay for digital streaming and at some point the equipment becomes obsolete due to software development and limitations in the hardware.

I feel sorry for those Sonos users who purchased items in 2015 to find out in May things may stop working with streaming services etc.

Did you set that dynamic range to full? This makes a huge difference. Mines never sounded crap on all the systems I have tried it on.

Strange, I’ve never experienced that. Perhaps a dud? Was that in your own system, or could the DAC have been an issue?

Yes, it was at home, into my 272. I’ve no idea why it sounded bad. Anyway, it’s in the past and really doesn’t matter now.