My bad English and being tired yesterday. - that’s what I meant.
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Totally agree!
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Sounding a bit like a pile on chaps.
Paraphrasing here - One guy says he wouldn’t be bothered beta testing but wouldn’t at all mind sitting on the group that decides the sound quality for all the other users including those beta testers. One of those beta testers took slight umbrage at the idea of any user doing this as he thinks it’s Naim’s job. A few others chimed in and then a few more.
You all might consider if you were all in the one room together, would you be saying what you’re typing?
.sjb
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Yep, my Mum always told me, only write something that you are not afraid of saying to someone, hence, being polite and no swearing on my posts.
Plus, anyone can write anything to / about me and I won’t get upset, will always read them and move on or reply if appropriate to do so. Consequently, not got anyone blocked.
DG…
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Thank god, in general the discussions are pretty civilized on this forum. I abandoned other social media a long time ago. But here things are much more laid back with a bit of spice here and there 
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Indeed in general but I was pointing out that there were several post from a coterie of members all aiming at one particular member – DG might be able to let that be water over the ducks back but I know it was happening to me I couldn’t - so I’m just calling it out as I see it.
.sjb
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It’s easy understandable. Who wants to take the entire responsibility for the specific sound quality of an update firmware?
“One of those beta testers took slight umbrage at the idea of any user doing this as he thinks it’s Naim’s job. A few others chimed in and then a few more.”
The beta tester is more focused on the technical and ergonomic aspects than sound quality, and specially as Naim claimed since recently that a firmware update doesn’t modify the sound.
It’s indeed Naim responsibility to check if the sound quality is optimal or not, before final launch of the firmware.
I agree, compared to some Forums, not always Hi-Fi related, this is a fairly friendly place with some good banter.
Mind you, never been called a Duck before. However, it’s better than some of the things I’ve been called.
DG…
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Bloody autocorrect 
.sjb
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It could be Stream Unlimited has loaded up their streaming board chip with even more functions and updates, which require higher processing load = more noise on the chip substrate = more digital glare sound.
In the past I have done extensive digital streamer modifications on the Oppo mainboards, and something as simple as heatsinking the main processing chip, bringing its temp right down, would result in noticeably better sound, more analog, less digital glare.
And this was on a pure digital streamer that output spdif, no analog stage to be found.
What it pointed to was the main processing chip was overloaded to the ragged edge, and just reducing temp reduced noise.
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There is so much to learn Is that noise or ‘digital glare’ measurable in an objective way? I just wonder how engineers go about optimizing the sound profile. Is it a trial and error approach or is it based on objective measurements?
It seems so simple: You click a track, turn the volume dial and Bingo: Music. But what goes on under the hood
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It’s not true they don’t test for sound. This happens at the end of the process when all identified bugs are sorted, since you’d otherwise be chasing a moving target.
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Except that’s not the case. We can and do comment on sound.
It’s a textbook case of making every mistake in the book
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Right of course. Let’s see what you think of 3.11 sonically
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Let’s hope we are not going to hit the 5.000 mark and let’s hope the last 100 of these post will be all about praise about the new firmware…
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Agree BertBird
Way back I did post thinking it would hit 5,000 but let’s hope it’s all positive hereon in
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I tried using the Core direct to the ND555 with the BNC coaxial cable today versus the uPnP local streaming. The former was quite a bit better and closer to the earlier firmware versions, reinforcing that the sound quality issue lies with the streaming aspects of the firmware.
I was chatting with my dealer about some other options with the ND555 and mentioned I was thinking of moving to the nDac. He didn’t think that was a good option and that Naim had to get this resolved as it’s affecting a lot of units and his customers have mentioned it to him, even though they are no longer the Naim dealers. He said that Naim would not be able to sustain leaving this unresolved.
Fingers crossed for the next firmware and I’ll stick to using the ND555 as a DAC in the meantime. I’ll be a slow adapter to any future firmware updates after the Cohen Special Edition 
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It was a few years since I worked with this stuff and I am a software guy and we didnt use measurements, there was very expensive equipment that could be used but not easy to interpret and the company only hired it to test hardware.
As for the firmware we knew we had to be efficient which was helped by the latest C++ standards (C++17, 20 and 23) and used co-routines, state-machines, atomics and lock-free containers rather than the firmware operating systems multitasking API:s.
Basically it is just a matter of flattening the code to avoid having hotspots and rather spread that kind of code out in time - it is here the co-routines etc. are really helpful.
We didnt buy any 3rd party code even if it was available - they usually include lots of functions you dont need and the cost of integration with their API:s and accommodating their upgrades and fees is often higher than DIY.
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Yes, it is very measurable, it is the measured noise floor on say the ground plane vs the powerlines or EM field vs the ground plane.
The interaction of the main ARM CPU execution cycle (specifically the ‘do nothing’ state ) noise with the resultant audio I understand has been or had been assessed more empirically by Naim into various models. I was told by a Naim one time employee it was more an art than a science.
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