For years, Naim produced CD players and resisted splitting the DAC and CD transport, unlike, for example Meridian. When they did eventually introduce the excellent nDAC, I seem to recall it was marketed as a digital hub and they never produced a pure CD transport. You needed a recent CD5XS or CDX2 for that duty. That makes me think a streaming transport is an unlikely product anytime soon.
A PS-upgradeable pre/streamer is a different matter. After all we already have the new Atom HE and hints from the centre suggest other products along these lines may be in the offing.
This subject keeps on coming up but my view is that Naim will not make a separate transport. For a start, important though the DAC is, the main component that you would leave out is a small inexpensive chip that wouldn’t save much cost or space. Then there are the added costs of bringing a separate product to market, getting it certified, finding extra resources to build it and persuading retailers to stock it. There’s every chance that the added costs would more than outweigh the savings from leaving out the DAC.
Besides, Naim don’t make a separate DAC. So there is no business case for building a transport just for people to add to non-Naim DACs.
Regarding Naim DACs, they are up a blind alley to some extent as they are using old, even discontinued TI chips around which they have built up a great deal of expertise, and to release a new standalone DAC, or a new streamer/DAC range, will require then to go back to the drawing board. For all we know, such a major R&D project may already be underway. Either way, their existing streamers have very good digital outputs which many of us use into separate DACs with great results, so my advice would be to buy an ND5XS2 if that’s the road you choose to take.
Another way of framing the question, and an old puzzle imho, is “”why is the Uniti Core” built as a simple UPnP server from local storage rather than a complete Uniti-class streamer including the complete suite of network functionality (Tidal, Qobuz, Spotify, Internet Radio, Roon)?”.
Perhaps the answer, per @ChrisU, is that there is no real cost reduction from eliminating the DAC, so you get tge ND5XS2; or even the digital preamp and headphone amp, so you get the Atom HE. Not sure, but maybe the production cost, casework, and support / development costs dominate the price point… and dropping function without price might lead only to a product that doesn’t sell.
Not sure what you mean by the first statement. If I understand you - I would like to be able to choose my flavour of DAC. A recent audition had a fairly inexpensive streamer/DAC feeding a Qutest sounding better than the more expensive ND5XS2.
I have had an Atom in the past and found the screen rather distracting (yes, I had it go off as soon as it could). I prefer something a little less ‘in yer face’ like the old little green displays.
Naim have chosen to limit the abilities of the Core to ripper/store/server (it’s also a very capable SPDIF digital transport) and that means low power, to keep electrical noise to a minimum. It wouldn’t be capable of running Roon etc.
If you want more than that look at the Innuos servers. I guess Naim already have a full range of streamers, and just see the Core as an add-on for your local library.
Thanks Chris. I realize this… the open question, for me and others, has been “why”? Especially as its predecessor, the UnitiServe iirc, had at least some of the “bridge / server” streaming function (for sure Internet Radio and, I believe Spotify and/or Tidal).
I’m not so sure about this… but of course, I did not mean to add Roon Core capability, just the (extremely lower power) Roon End Point capability built into the other new-generation Uniti devices. I have not read that the Core is on a different processor platform than the other Uniti boxes, but perhaps it is… and maybe the ripping functionality, included in the Core as you point out but never implemented (although originally announced) in the Atom / Star / Nova, uses capacity that would be needed for Internet streaming capability.
The Unitiserve had iRadio, but not Tidal etc. (but neither did any of the 1st gen streamers at first, it was shoehorned into them later when demand for those services rose.)
Naim prioritise low power consumption and low electrical noise in all their designs, and that certainly should benefit the performance of the Core, especially when using its SPDIF out. For me its abilities are a little too limited, so I wouldn’t buy one, but as a Naim streamer user I wouldn’t be expecting it to duplicate the services available on my NDX2.
You can be absolutely certain that if Naim only made separate streamers and dacs, there would be a chorus of people asking why they didn’t make an all in one streamer / dac. The NDX2 is the first separate network player I’ve owned and it’s a great machine. No need to worry about Dacs and cables - plug it into the amplifier and off it goes. Why make life complicated?
Perhaps instead of ‘it sounds better’ it would be better to say ‘it may sound better’. It’s horses for courses really - some like a simple all in one streamer that you just connect to an amplifier. Others like to get five or six little boxes knocked up in someone’s garage and fiddle about ad infinitum. Others like to choose a streamer and dac to get the sound and functionality they want. Naim don’t have to cater to everyone.
There are good guides for using bridge software to enable Roon-Over-UPnP here in the forum. I think the two main routes with high success are either a Sonore UPnP bridge (hardware box, turn-key solution) or LMS-to-UPnP (software, often run on the same NAS you already use for your local UPnP server and music file storage). I’m pretty sure the software solution is free and fairly straightforward to install and run… worth a try!
An easy way to add Roon is available using rooUPNP which uses a Pi4 and as very easy to setup and use. It is still in beta so free to try (excluding cost of Pi).
Check out on Roon forum