200 was serviced and was very broken. 202 also serviced just before our first lock down. CDX2 and then XPS2 also. Only issue with the latter two was the practicalities of getting them back during a pandemic.
Well said @anon4489532. This is indeed relatively simple. If you want a Naim front end then in these circumstances I’d say ND5XS2 or similar from lots of others if you’re not fussed about looks etc. Lots of choice but the Naim/non Naim decision is the starting point.
Yes, a lot for me but probably all, because the thread was very long, lasted several months. But I found it interesting.
But did you had the Cdx2 /xps2 serviced back in your system ?
I did indeed. That enabled me to make a straight comparison with the Innuos/Chord combination. Only one winner and it wasn’t Naim. That was of course before the Innuos 2/Sense upgrades which have taken things up a who;e other level.
If you want hi-res, Qobuz. Not all hi-res releases are worth it, but some are. It’s also cheaper in many territories. Regarding catalog, both have some gaps but it depends on what you listen to. Tidal is probably more complete for pop, rock, rap. Qobuz probably better for classical. But both are filling gaps and much is random/unforeseeable. Best to get the free trials and look around for the music you like
If you expect to also use the service on the phone when on the go, it may be a consideration that the Tidal app is much better than the Qobuz app. The Naim streamers will also soon acquire support for Tidal Connect, which will improve playing to the streamers from within the Tidal app, which would be handy in case you prefer the Tidal app over the Naim app
To test the ‘streaming’ waters I’d initially go in at a fairly cheap level. My first venture was with a Node 2i to see what streaming was all about. I already had a Naim N-Dac, so this stage was quite straight forward and pretty inexpensive - less the Qobuz subsription. I initially thought this would be a waste of time with a 500 level system but far from it. A few of the recognised tweaks with cables, mains and switches has resulted in a cheap but very competent and ‘musically satisfying’ streaming front end. Add a Core to rip my CD’s and I’m pretty much there for around £4K. I still love my CDP555, and am very reluctant to get rid of it. A recent shoot-out with an ND555 still failed to push me over the edge. So, I’m sticking with what I have at the moment as I expect developments in streaming will continue - at least in the short-term.
Good luck with your journey. It can be bumpy but ultimately very satisfying with all the new music you’ll discover.
Ripping 1,000 cds will take 5,000 minutes of your life. The op appears to have a limited budget so spending ¥ on components required to serve files sounds like a poor utilization of resources.
The simple Naim-solution is NDX2 or ND5XS2. And a Uniti Core. Let the dealer demo those for you. In the long run you could add an XPSDR to upgrade a NDX2.
Network switches and cables. Use the ones you have or get with the equipment. Revisit at a later date but this is a messy area.
Qobuz, Tidal, Spotify are music rental companies. You pay them for monthly access to their respectve library of music files. They have decent coverage of manstream releases but check you get what you need.
Whilst it takes about 5 mins to rip each, that is not 5 mins requiring constant attention, and once set ripping it doesn’t matter if you are not ready to finish off at the time it finishes. Once you know what you’re doing it is more like 1 minute per CD once you have retrieved it from your collection (and if you simply work through by the shelf, rack or whatever, there is virtually zero time finding/selecting each, unlike searching/browsing a collection for a specific CD to play).
I think the 5 minutes was from the inuos Zen documentation. It’s still a pita when you have 1000’s of cds. The main point is that most people probably won’t use the rips after they subscribe to a streaming service. As a disclaimer… I’ve ripped my entire collection at least three times and I would never do it again.
Why? I can understand if for reason of portable music you first ripped to a lossy format like MP3, then later ripped to lossless, but that would only be twice? Ripping to lossless means you can subsequently convert to other lossless, or lossy (which can be done in bulk batches).
And of course not everyone stops playing their ripped CDs changing to online subscription streaming services - some don’t subscribe to any, some have music in their collection not in their chosen online provider’s library, and I guess some prefer the reliability of their local source.
Well… back in 2002 ish I ripped all my cds to mp3. The day after I finished… the hard drive suffered a catastrophic failure.
Back then it was hard work to get the metadata correct. You can’t imagine how upsetting it was when I had to rerip them… I’m still a bit
In 2013 I ripped them to AIFF. Now Roon complains some of those files are corrupt. Of course they’re all backed up in about 25,000 places including two clouds. Doesn’t seem to matter since 99% are available on Tidal and/or Qobuz.
For an affordable solution to a similar situation as yours I went with an AirPort Extreme & optical out to a Moon DAC, connected with RCA-DIN to the 5i-2 amp.
CDs ripped Apple lossless then transferred to an iPad Pro.
There’s nothing easier to set up & run.
I’d be using a Naim DAC if I could find one reasonably priced.
