I am the happy owner of a NAC272 + NAP 250DR combo connected by a Chord Signature (Naim DIN to Naim XLR 3 pin). Keen to move to Quobuz and possibly Roon, I see no other option than to replace the NAC272. Perhaps by an Atom HE (RCA out).
But what to do about cable: Does anyone have a suggestion for how to re-use high quality cables made for the NAC272 + NAP 250DR combo (such as my 1000 EUR+ Chord Signature) after the move to preamp/streamer with RCA out (as none of the new Naim Products offer the DIN out)?
PS I take it as given that Naim will never offer an upgrade path to Quobuz for NAC272 owners.
That’s probably the last option; as fatcat has suggested, the primare streamer, or lindemann lime tree or a multitude of others can augment a 272 with other streaming services.
Thanks, this is sound advice! Does any of you know if those solutions allow me to control volume from IPhone/tablet without loss of sound quality?
I ask was led to understand that volume is better controlled by using the N272 line stage than by using any digital inbuilt volume control in the streamer. But doing that means using two apps in parallel: Naim for volume and whatever app controls the streamer (Primare) for choice of music.
There are a number of different ways to achieve what you want here.
You can completely bypass the 272 streamer by using a different streamer into a digital or analogue input. That could be a Naim streamer such as an ND5XS2, or one of the many other brands out there, potentially much cheaper, as suggested above. This will not give you access to the 272 analogue volume control: you’ll still need to use the Naim app or the remote control.
Another approach is to use a ‘proxy server’ which is able to take an incoming stream from Qobuz, Tidal etc, buffer it, and send it to your 272 as if it was a local stream from a UPnP server. BubbleUPnP Server is an example of this. To my ears it gives better sound quality than using Tidal or Qobuz from within the Naim app. You’ll find quite a few threads discussing this here if you’re interested. Roon can be used in a similar way to add Qobuz to a Naim streamer, but at a higher cost than Bubble.
I understand that running BubbleUNPN on Synology NAS has been somewhat complicated by the release of DSM version 7 and the renaming/update of Docker. At least I have not been able to find up to date (subsequent to those changes) guidance for how to do it. The BubbleUNPN site, Stereonet and other sources explain how to set it up with Docker only.
I may try searching again in X months. Or splash out on that Primare
