UnitiQute 24/192 Upgrade Review

Posted by: 0rangutan on 25 April 2012

I got my Qute back yesterday after it went off to Naim for the upgrade to the newer 24/192 streaming board.  I thought it might be helpful to other prospective upgraders to summarise the differences.

 

The upgrade cost £370 and, potentially even more painfully, took Naim 5 weeks to turn around.  I gather that a combination of Easter and staff illness caused this, but it was certainly 3 weeks longer than it really should have been.

 

I hadn't expected any cosmetic differences to be introduced by the upgrade, however there seems to be a fresh new fifth hole drilled through on the underside of the unit and this does not match the existing screws.  Was this there before?  Could anyone with a non-upgraded Qute confirm?

Also, according to the notes provided by the factory, Naim changed the display while they were doing it - something to do with it bleeding?  I hadn't noticed any problems previously, but this was a nice touch.

 

The general speed and performance of the interface seems faster and more responsive both in the front panel UI and in N-Stream.  The Mac app Qute Control continues to work well with the new board too.

 

ALAC playback was my main reason for buying the upgrade (and the naive hope that this will be a precursor to a future software addition of AirPlay support) and this works well.  I was able to stream ALAC up to 24/96, however 24/192 ALAC files were unsupported.  While 24/192 FLAC playback works as advertised, I am disappointed to see that this is not consistent between formats and so please be aware of this if you depend on ALAC.

 

24/192 FLAC playback is great for all of my 24/192 albums (okay, the one I own).  General sound quality may have improved with the new board, however after 5 weeks away it is impossible to say one way or the other.  It sounded great before, it sounds great now.

 

I can confirm that the new board does provide 802.11n rather than 802.11g on the standard model.  I was hoping this would allow me to stop using an Airport Express as a bridge, but unfortunately, even with an upgraded antenna, the signal strength is still very poor and I cannot consistently stream 24/96 without dropouts.  I will be keeping the Airport bridge in place, with the hopefully additional benefit of reducing the RF and processor overheads on the Qute itself.  If you are considering the 24/192 upgrade in order to gain 802.11n, please bear this in mind - unless your router and Qute are quite close, you will still not be able to stream HiRes audio wirelessly.  For reference, my router is two floors up from the Qute, however my AppleTV (tiny, with no external antenna) can stream HD video perfectly well over the same distance, so this is no excuse.

 

Overall, was it worth £370 and 5 weeks away?  For me personally, ALAC support is great and makes this almost worth the price.  Ultimately, it depends on whether Naim complete the deal and/or engineering to add AirPlay.

Posted on: 25 April 2012 by rhr

I've got a Qute, that was built with the new 24/192 boards. Anyway, it has 5 screws on the base (4 for the feet and one extra with a different head). Don't know if that helps.

Posted on: 25 April 2012 by AndyPat

Standard Unitiqute has five holes. The fifth has a hex-head rounded screw in it.

 

If I recall Phil Harris has made mention elsewhere that strong wireless reception is not actually that desirable as it will pick up signals from even further away (i.e. neighbours). Two floors is a lot for any wireless device and generally speaking HD video is less critically evaluated by your eyes than ≥ CD quality sound is evaluated by your ears.

 

Any problems with 24/192 ALAC and Airplay are inevitably down to Apple. As soon as they get their act together and get the products ready for a wider deployment (i.e. outside the Apple domain) the better. I might even be tempted to buy (love the wife's ipod touch but rarely allowed to even look at it never mind use it). For a small UK company Naim have invested an awful lot of time,effort and money in trying to support a massive multi-national company's products. It's about time they reciprocated or of course produced their own hi-fi range so the Apple-centric don't need to bother with mere mortals.

 

Great to hear that a small company can overcome illnesses and the annual spurt in sales and still find time to do a bit of extra remedial work. Puts most(manufacturer supported) main car dealers to shame. Well done Naim.

 

Orangutan, if you have the opportunity can you convert your 24/192 album into 16/44 and compare the two. I've not been bowled over by 24/96 compared to CD quality on a standard Qute. It sounded a little too clinical so interested in if whether doubling the sample rate brings out the best in the increased bit rate. For those looking in I'm not interested in theory, just cold, hard, subjective evidence. Thanks

 

Andy

Posted on: 25 April 2012 by Steven Shaw

Did you send it directly to Naim or through a dealer?

Posted on: 25 April 2012 by 0rangutan
Sent via Oxford Audio-T. Your dealer arranges the return to Naim - you cannot do this directly.