NaimNet: On June 20, at the London CEDIA Expo, Naim announced its entry into the custom integration/home systems market with a series of products and technologies called NaimNet. NaimNet is described as "a combination of Naim's experience in audio and video together with the IP technology of StreamNet™ licensed from NetStreams® LLC."
StreamNet, Naim says, enables easy control of multiple sources and uniquely allows full-bandwidth audio, metadata, and control signals to be distributed throughout a house over its IP home network. It also integrates with A/V, heating, lighting, and security systems. Naim has waited to enter the home integration market, the company's Alan Ainslee said, because it needed to "study the market and the available technologies in order to deliver genuinely innovative solutions that provide the quality Naim is known for."
Some of the critical features NaimNet offers include the absence of audio compression; RoomSync, which guarantees that the sound in multiple rooms doesn't suffer from timing lags; ease of installation; and a simple interface. NaimNet also offers Naim Secure Music Storage (NSMS), which mirrors all of the hard drives that store music so that "the owner need never worry about losing his precious music collection." If NaimNet owners have multiple systems—"one in your pied à terre and one in the country"—loading a CD in one system would automatically update the NaimNet server at the other. "No getting home at the weekend to find you have left that key music in the other player."
NaimNet products include four 24-bit audio servers, including the flagship two-chassis NS REF, which houses the hard drives and main power supply in a separate enclosure from the audio circuitry. The NNT01 can house four DAB or FM tuners, which would permit four different listeners to listen independently in "as many rooms as desired." The NNC01 preamplifier digitizes and streams as many as four analog sources to the network and controls them via infrared or RS232 commands. There are also two NaimNet amplifiers: the 110Wpc NNP01 Room Amplifier with four local inputs, and the compact (7.6" wide) 90Wpc NNP02 concealed Room Amplifier.
US prices and availability are yet to be announced.
Apple polish: Rumors have been heard that Apple may be taking note of complaints about the inferior sound quality of its Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) iTunes Music Store downloads. Apple Insider reported on June 22 that iTunes Producer 1.4, the tool Apple distributes to record labels to prepare and submit content for the iTunes Music Store "now encodes music in Apple Lossless Coding (ALC), which produces larger audio files and will increase upload time," according to Apple.
Apple claims that AAC delivers "CD quality sound," a statement most critical listeners take issue with, whereas Apple Lossless genuinely appears to reduce file size without sonic compromise. ALC files are larger than AAC files and do occupy more disc space and take longer to upload and download.
Making ALC files available may not be everything audiophiles have been praying for, AppleInsider cautions. "It's unclear what role the Apple Lossless format will play on the iTunes music store, if at all. Unlike AAC, the format does not presently utilize a digital rights management (DRM) scheme to assure copy protection—though popular speculation is that DRM could be applied to the format in much the same way as other QuickTime file formats."
Canton's Reference: Canton USA announced the release of the $30,000/pair Vento Reference 1 DC on June 20. The 56" floorstanding 3.5-way loudspeaker was designed by a five-man engineering team "over the course of three years," said team leader Frank Göbl. "This is intended as a definitive statement—the ultimate expression of Canton's design philosophy and manufacturing capabilities," Göbl said. "The results have exceeded our highest expectations, and we feel confident that it is one of the finest loudspeakers the world has ever heard."
The Reference 1's 1"-thick cabinets are constructed from seven layers of acoustically inert fiberboard, pressure-laminated into a monocoque structure. Internally, each cabinet is separated into four isolated chambers, of which the lowest, which houses two 12" aluminum-cone woofers, is ported. Two 7" aluminum-cone midrange drivers vertically flank a single ADT-25 1" aluminum/manganese-dome tweeter, and each of the three occupies its own chamber. The lower 7" driver reproduces the midrange spectrum from 180Hz–3kHz, while the upper one is active only from 180Hz to 400Hz. This arrangement, Canton says, "takes advantage of the increased power handling, response, and efficiency of using dual mid-bass drivers while avoiding the unwanted cancellations and off-axis anomalies that occur when using this arrangement in the upper midrange."
Although the Vento Reference 1 DC is being formally introduced now, Stereophile has already received a pair for review, scheduled to appear in the October issue.
