Greetings Naim users. I’m a new owner of Naim NDX 2 and having problems getting full compatability with Roon core located on my MacBook pro. I posted an initial post on the Roon Naim forum (first post copied below), and after some replies which seemed to offer no easy solution a follow-up post (second post below) which raises the issue of Roon compatability with the NDX 2. Any clarifications from those of you who know Naim gear better would be appreciated. Thanks!
First post:
“New to Roon (and Naim). All my music files are on a 2T Samsung SSD drive plugged into the USB port on my Naim NDX 2. Naim NXD is supposed to be “Roon Ready”. So setting up Roon Core on my MacBook I want it to see the music files on my Naim USB SSD and put these into the Core library. I see no simple “1, 2, 3” instructions for doing this on Roon or Naim websites. All I have for the Naim server/streamer is an IP address; it is on my local wifi network, as is my MacBook pro.
Can you give me some guidance here? Thanks!”
Second post:
“Hi Everybody – thanks for all the thoughtful replies. Here is the basic problem I still face: I put the Roon core on my MacBook pro because it has the required processing power. But this is a laptop computer that moves around my house with me – not practical to have a USB SSD drive hanging off the side on a cable all the time to play my music! A main reason I got the Naim NDX 2 streamer besides sound quality was that it had ports for attaching external USB drives/ USB sticks loaded with music. Great, that works. Also Naim said NXD was “Roon Ready”. Now a logical assumption is that Roon Ready would mean that running Roon core on my MacBook would allow me to control the NXD with the Roon app, and see the music on the USB drives attached to the NXD (after all – the Naim remote app sees all this music on the USB drives!). Then of course the Roon core could take the album info from the USB drives and put it into the Roon database, but leave the music files on the USB drives (there is not room for 1 plus terabytes of music on the MacBook). This is, after all, what Roon also advertises in its marketing – i.e. “incorporates music data into the core but leaves the files in their original location”. So I am sensing here that there may be some false, or at least misleading, advertising either by Roon, or by Naim (i.e. “Roon Ready”), or maybe by both. Short story: When you lay out $7,500 for a state of the art streamer/server/DAC, and $500 for lifetime subscription to a music management software program that is highly reviewed, and both manufacturers advertise these work together ‘seamlessly’, you would expect to have the FULL functionality of the Naim device available on the Roon managemet program on my MacBook (and also on remote Roon apps on ipad, etc). What some/many of the posters here seem to be saying is that this is simply not possible. If that is indeed the case it looks like I will have to cancel Roon, sadly, after trial period. Thanks again.”
Hi, I am using and NDX 2 - and using Roon seamlessly.
I am using a Synology NAS and I have the Roon Core on a Samsung SSD attached to the NAS via USB. Roon suggest that the Core should be on a separate disk - I am not sure why you are unable to get the two to function together but perhaps its having the Core on your MacBook?
I think you may misunderstand how things hang together! The RoonServer on you laptop is an app, like any app on your MacBook, it has to be able to access files on your SSD and that is impossible because your NDX 2 is not a (strictly) a full-blown computer, so the SSD will not be exposed to your network as a networked drive.
I use Roon seamlessly with my NDX2. It works great, but I do have Roon ROCK running on a dedicated NUC. In my case, I just have an internal SSD on my NUC with all my files.
Roon cannot see the USB drive attached to the NDX2 because the NDX2 doesn’t expose it to the network. If it’s not exposed to the network, or plugged directly into the computer Roon is running on, Roon has no way of finding it.
@gmclauch There is nothing wrong with the NDX2 as a Roon endpoint. It works perfectly as advertised. You’re just asking the NDX2 to do something else it isn’t designed for (i.e. basically, expecting the NDX2 to act like a NAS).
Put your music store in a location where it is visible on your network, and not only will it be accessible to Roon, but you will have direct access to it for adding music, editing, performing backups, etc. There are many ways to do this, on a NAS, or on a USB port on your Roon Core hardware, for example.
Alternatively if you spend $8000 on devices you might expect that someone would check if their proposed usage scenario was possible. It would seem in your case it’s not, but as you appear to be trialling Roon there’s no (monetary) harm done then.
I did reply to you on Roons forum. As everyone else here says you need the drive on the laptop not the ndxs2 as it won’t share the drive over the network. Also using wireless on a Roon core will likely cause your more issues. Wireless is not full duplex meaning the whole bandwidth to a device is shared up and down. Roon is very network active especially if you music is not located on the Roon server . It would have to pull music to it , then push it out gobbling up bandwidth and likely get dropouts .This is also the case for streaming services. You really need the server for Roon to be hardwired to function properly and get max performance.
If your serious about keeping Roon then I would look to have it an a dedicated always on device. If your just trying out then just use the laptop but keep in mind what has already been pointed out.
Thanks for the clarifications on the limitations of a USB drive attached to the NDX 2 as far as visibility on a network goes. Some posters on the Roon forum suggested getting a Roon nucleus to solve my problem. It seems like a very good way to run Roon core (always on, dedicated to one purpose, etc), but I do have a specific usage scenario with the Naim NDX to check out (following sjb’s advice) before purchasing a Roon nucleus and that is this: Currently the NDX 2 is on my network via wifi (it is too far from my router for practical ethernet wiring). And ideally I would like to connect the Roon nucleus directly into the Naim NDX via USB (rather than running it through my router), but the nucleus itself is not wifi capable and must be connected to a network via ethernet cable. My question: can I use a short ethernet cable to plug the Roon nucleus into the ethernet port on the back of the Naim NDX to get the nucleus on the network? i.e. will that connection allow the nucleus to get on the network via the NDX’s wifi connection? (main reason for wanting to do this is area around my router is very noisy with lots of devices such as Roku, BluRay, cordless phone etc running while NDX is in electrically isolated location). Thanks for any help here!
If you want to go completely wifi, I would suggest that you take a look at mesh wifi technology (for example Google Wifi, Netgear Orbi). You could place one of these wifi devices near your NDX 2 and the Nucleus, and connect them together by Ethernet cables.
You cannot connect Nucleus to NDXS2 via USB it does not support USB audio, usb is for connecting drives and sticks only. You need to use either network which is the best way or use a usb to spdif converter which is then adding more to cost with less features.
No you can’t plug in the Nucleus into the network port, it needs to be on the network to function. You cant share the NDX wireless It’s best to have the server plugged in to you router or off it via a switch. It does not need to be in the same room as the hifi. You can use wireless on the NDXS2 to connect to the core. Or look at the mesh systems, BT one is supposed to work well.
As said, the new streamers (nd5xs2, NDX2 and nd555) work seamlessly with Roon and auto register with all the correct settings with the Roon Server.
However the NDX2 is not a NAS, and therefore can’t present the USB files onto the network such that Roon will see it.
You can get your NDX2 to act as UPnP server with the attached usb files, but only other UPnP clients will see that. Roon does not support UPnP.
Even if your NDX2 is on the network via Wifi, you still need to add your Roon Core device (Nucleus, NUC, Mac, whatever) to the network via ethernet, i.e. on a switch (whether it’s your router or otherwise). There is no reason the Roon Core needs to be colocated to the NDX2. Again, you are conflating technologies asking the NDX2 to support things it isn’t advertised to do. It’s not its job or design to expose anything to the network, for other network devices to resolve.
