I currently have a Nova with PMC Twenty 24s which I really enjoy however looking at used prices of older Naim equipment I wondered if there would be a noticeable improvement between the Nova and a Supernait 2 NDX combination?
I only listen to internet radio and stream via Tidal, I have the screen on the Nova switched off so the screen is t an issue however I realise the older platform is obsolete. Your opinions would be great fully received as I’ll be buying used so a side by side demo isn’t possible.
It will be a sound quality upgrade for sure, but be aware of the limitations of the old streaming platform.
There are lossless FLAC iRadio stations that work on the current models but not the old ones. These sound significantly better than the regular lossy streams to me.
Tidal works well for most on the old streamers, but to me there was a slight loss of sound quality compared to local streams which is less noticeable on the current models. Also, reliability is generally OK, but the very small buffer on the old models isn’t really enough for web streaming services so there is always arisk of dropouts through latency issues. Naim have put huge efforts into maintaining this, but whether they can sustain this in the long term, who knows.
If you can’t stretch to an NDX2 maybe consider an ND5XS2.
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Hi
I recently went from a Uniti Nova to Supernait 3 / NDX 1, the overall sound was a significant step up, but as previous comments, the file formats, functions on the NDX 1 were no way as good as the Nova. I have sold both now and I’m sure NDX 2 with Supernait 3 would be ideal, but for value for money if I was to do it again I would probably by another Nova.
Prior to this I had a Uniti Star, I ended up adding a NAP 250Dr to the Star and found next to no improvement. The difference I found between the Star and Nova was enough to justify the extra cost of the Nova, sounded much better to me. The Nova really is outstanding.
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You can stream natively lossless iRadio stations with Kurt’s solution here.
You can also stream lossless internet radio stations with the Minimserver app and a .png file
You can also stream lossless Qobuz and Tidal with the Bubblesoft app using Linn’s Kazoo app or similar.
The minimserver and bubblesoft apps need to be installed somewhere on your network, NAS, Rasp Pi, etc. So if you’re willing to do the setup you can enjoy all the modern streaming lossless formats. Once set up theses solutions are pretty solid but you’ll need to maintain updates.
“There are lossless FLAC iRadio stations that work on the current models but not the old ones”
Is it? I listen Mother Earth Radio in 96 kHz/24 bit HD on my 7y old ND5 XS… 
A list of stations is here: http://158.101.168.33:9001/fwp/stations (key is the “Path” field)
- if you’re in Europe add http://158.101.168.33:9000/path-of-the-station to vTuner.
- If you’re in the US, add http://129.146.133.23:9000/path-of-the-station to vTuner.
Ex: http://158.101.168.33:9000/mother_earth_radio
I started this open source project ~1y ago. It runs in Franfurt & Phoenix in the Oracle Cloud. I don’t touch the audio stream. What happens, is unwrapping the OggFlac envelope into a WAV steam the older (Gen 1) devices accept. For a lot of people, this gives their devices a second life.
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Sound quality upgrade yes. I did the same move a few years ago however I don’t think I’d want the old platform now.
I am not using this setup anymore.
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Hi Kurt, yes, I’m aware of your FLAC radio solution. It’s a great idea, and along with various other workarounds it’s true that you can get pretty much all of the features of the 2nd gen streamers to work on the old models, including Roon, Qobuz, Airplay, Chromecast etc.
With my old NDX I dabbled with this stuff quite a bit, but I did tire of faffing about running proxy servers, hanging dongles off the back of the streamer, using clunky 3rd party apps etc. with no guarantee that these unsupported solutions would continue to work. Some of them, including the early iterations of Radio Paradise FLAC, and Chromecast, didn’t even sound that great or work as reliably as one would like.
Keep up the good work though!
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