It depends on the person’s criteria for a car: if just speed, or exclusivity, then Bugatti surely is best. But if affordable running costs are even a slightest consideration then Bugatti is far from best! As an analogy to hifi systems cars I think are rather different, as the number of factors to consider and find a balance between are far greater than with hifi, with every individual having their own balance of priorities leading to the final choice, inevitably often a compromise.
Re hifi, it does indeed seem that every individual has their own preference for sound presentation. In part it may be linked to their taste in music, and also to what aspect of the sound each person listens to when they listen to music. What one person finds highly engaging, emotionally stimulating and immensely satisfying leaves another person cold, and vice versa.
To me, one measure of how well a person’s system suits them is whether they simply sit back and listen to music and forget about everything, or whether they keep making changes to improve something, never quite satisfied. Of course, the latter may often be the case through a journey to someone’s personal system nirvana…
This is really an impressive thread with 145 posts in 5 days. Unfortunately, for me the devices in the absolute high-end range (ND 555, dcs) are completely out of scope financially. I would be more interested in the streamer potential in general, especially for the Uniti series, ND5 XS2 or NDX2. Naim has certainly taken a big step forward with the 2nd streamer series. Like others mentioned obove I would be interested in the further potential for improved SQ:
E.g. WLAN: Support for WIFI 6+ and WMM (Wireless Multimedia Extensions - 802.11e). Will this be the way to catch up with Ethernet connections (some manufacturers like Auralic favour this way)?
e.g. Ethernet: There has been a lot of discussion about SWITCH. Besides CISCO Catalyst (which I also use successfully), the range of audiophile SWITCH is growing, also in the higher price segment (e.g. Silent Angel N8 pro, Innuos Phönixnet). Is this the way of the future? Or will future Naim streamers be more tolerant of simple SWITCH (connect to built-in SWITCH in routers or simple Neatgear products), so that expensive audiophile SWITCH will no longer be necessary? Where is the further potential in Ethernet?
I’m not a tech expert myself, but I’ve read numerous threads on this topic with much interest. In my system, switching the home network to a new router (WIFI 6 with access point) has brought a great improvement, not only for signal stability, but also in sound. This is true for the connection via WIFI6 as well as for the Ethernet connection via cable and CISCO 3560. The Ethernet connection is still better in terms of sound quality, but not night and day (or even light years…).
I have doubts that Naim can and will actually wait until 2030 to implement improvements. Then others will do it before. Modular update possibilities would certainly be a great advantage for maintaining the value of our devices.
Im currently looking to buy a new streamer/dac up to about the the 15k AUD price range and have done a lot of research and demo’s.
I see the more modern streamers/dacs having better connectivity e.g HDMI ARC as a minimum and some with multiple HDMI inputs to fully integrate with a home AV System in addition to Optical, Coax, AES and USB inputs and some have analogue RCA and balanced inputs too so i think better connectivity is important for future products.
Many Naim competitors also support Tidal MQA which again i think is important to have with future products as is more modern dac chips from say AKM or ESS as dac technology has really improved over the last few years and will continue to improve in the future.
The speed of technology improvements is pretty fast and i dont see Naim keeping up at the moment and the competition is getting ahead of them in the streamer/dac market segment.
Maybe Naim dont see their future in dedicated streamers/dacs and will pull out like they did with CD Players.
Because it’s the only protocol (that I am aware of) that can play in sync to streamers from different manufactures?
Even though this didn’t work for you, it does work for many others, after all.
It would be completely impossible to do with UPnP.
Other than that, it’s a bit like saying why do you need a new different file system in addition to FAT. Because it has less limitations and is more sanely implemented than FAT. You don’t “need” it if you can live with the limitations of FAT, but it’s nice to have. In any case, it’s a bit of a weird question. If you use Roon, that’s what it uses. If you don’t use Roon, it’s not of any relevance to you.
The design goals are documented here, and whether you “need” it or not, it has features that are welcome
Yes that is a reason. I was referring to the general rather than the specific for both cases. Roon offers something that requires a new protocol. Without that requirement there is no need for it. MQA doesn’t seem to serve a need anywhere though?
I have not noticed ( and don’t expect to notice ) any difference in sound quality with wifi6. The difference may be connectivity and delay but I have never had any dropouts on even the slowest of wifi at cd quality. I can only assume that the buffering built in to the system I have could cope.
However if I play the same file using the On board app of my streamer it is significantly better sq then if I play that file from my Logitech media server using its app, to that same device. I can only assume that LMS is ‘doing or not doing’ something that the onboard streamer is doing differently.
I agree with MQA but as @Suedkiez says, Roon RAAT has a purpose. At the moment we have Sonos, Naim, Bluesound and Apple hardware in the house and at times, we sync them together in Roon.
There are threads on this on this forum (do a search) - my impression is that the consensus is that it is a solution to a problem that no longer exists, and it is better to stream genuine hi res (e.g. from Quobuz) than the no longer bit-perfect reconstruction of MQA, though some people appear to like the change it makes to the sound.
Yes I had the impression that changing the router to a current model (XGS Pon) with WiFi 6 and access point in the living room was a positive step. On the one hand, the signal strength is much better throughout the house (also for home office) and there are no dropouts anymore. On the other hand, the sound quality is also improved, both via WIFI and via Ethernet cable. Technically, I cannot explain this. Maybe it’s due to the better signal quality and less interference via 5GHz. The fact that routers also influence the sound image has been discussed in various ways Example here
But as mentioned, I still use the Ethernet via Cisco switch. It ist still a bit better as WIFI in my system.
What happens with MQA and digital active speakers? Like the Kii or Linn or various studio monitors? Where each element has its own DAC and before that a digital filter.
Interesting that your impression completely differs from mine. I don’t see any big technology improvements since Naim introduced their new streaming platform. Real major improvements in digital audio probably happened a few years before that and i think it is safe to say that it is a mature technology where incremental improvements are happening, a bit like cellphones nowadays.
For connectivity every use case is different and it seems to me that Naim devices are generally quite generous with the number and type of connections. Generally speaking it seems that HDMI inputs are quite hard to implement in order to work properly if you want to use the features that come with it as eARC, CEC, HDR passthrough and so on. HDMI features usually need a hardware update to come with new features so the best way to not make the device obsolete in that regard is to use an interchangeable board like NAD does with their MDC modules. It makes the device more complicated to build and to keep up to date.
As fo MQA i remember somehow somebody from Naim saying that it is possible to implement in a future update if user demand is high enough.
It is quite difficult to find a device which ticks all the boxes. Something is always missing. Or the design is awful. Sometimes usability is not so good. For me it was a matter of setting the priorities right and live with the compromises.
I don’t think MQA is a good thing, but is good to have it,
I have seven dac’s four don’t have MQA and three have it, when the MQA decoding is present normally the MQA files receive an uplift, but as far as I know is a tidal thing, other than that has no use.
Even thinking MQA should never existed, now that I have to live with it in one way or another, products that do not support it are less appealing.
Anyway I just brought an Uniti Atom HE and it does not support MQA, and that did not put me away from the Uniti.
That’s a rather odd statement! Regarding the music you like played with MQA, have you compared with the same in native hi res, such as you might be able to stream from Qobuz or download?
And out of interest, are the DACs concerned lesser quality in other respects? (I seem to recall someone commenting vaguely to the effect that MQA can make poorer audio sound better, e.g. on a smartphone, while it have a discernible adverse effect on music through better systems - it would be interesting to learn if there is anything in that.)