Impressions of UnitiQute?

You said USB drive which I presume you mean a portable HDD? Unfortunately UQ is a streamer so it is meant to be connected to a UPnP server (such as a NAS) via LAN cables or WiFi. Its USB socket will only accept USB thumb drives or iPhone etc. If you do not have a UPnP server then you will serve music from a computer via USB, in which case the DAC V1 is probably more suitable. If wish to listen to music without computer up and running, then streaming is the way to go, you either have to have a NAS or a dedicated small computer running suitable OS such as WHS.

I absolutely love my Qute, listen to it frequently, and have only nice things to say about it.  I drive Dynaudio Excite X12's with it, which may be a little easier to drive than those Harbeths.  I've not owned those very popular Harbeths so can't comment on their compatibility with the Qute's output.

As Peter W wrote, the Qute is really designed to be at the other end of a UPnP networked system.  How much if any of the hard drive music it would "see" (and whether such would be reliable) is unknown.  Further, you'd be limited to navigating through the music, if it works at all, using only the front panel display.  The Qute really is not made or meant to be used with the entire music library on a USB device.  It's meant to be networked with a UPnP server, which is how I use mine.

It does sound great in my little room

I only use mine in a single configuration, digital inputs from Sky & blu-ray for TV, film and CD replay, ethernet for iRadio and stored music (via MyBookLive NAS). I don't have Harbeths (PMC instead) but not only is it functional, elegant and tactile (not easy to achieve when there's only 1 button!), it sounds really good filling a medium sized living room with luscious sound.

Hi Monkberry, I think you will be very happy with the Qute, and the beauty of it is, that should you not be, the financial loss is minimal. It truly is an amazing piece of kit that never ceases to amaze me, I use mine into a NAP100 and Focal Electra speakers with very satisfying results.

Good luck.

I bought it as a second system. It is paired with a NAP100 and feeds a pair of Totem dreamcatcher. It is just wonderful. I have a much larger system but could live with it. No question. It is extremely versatile and lively. It is highly recommendable.

Michel

The NAP 100 is a rather good amplifier isn't!

ATB from George

It really adds meat to the bare Unitiqute which, of course, is a great start and so much fun to play with.

Michel

I got one of the first NAP 100s, and I think is now becoming my favourite Naim NAP, even displacing my former favourite - the 300.

My other favourite - the Nait 5i - was shaded within 24 hours from first powering up the 100.

Mine runs with a DAC V1, and for once I cannot foresee any improvements to my replay.

These new Naim models are superb in my view. I have not come across the UnityQute, but no doubt is is well above par as well!

ATB from George

I'm sure two NAP 100s would trump a single, still wondering how it would be done with my Qute tho 

It would be fun to compare biamping with NAP100 versus a single 250 or 300 for example. I wonder if anyone as done that.

After 20 years away, previous hi-fi gear (naim & Linn) my current system is DAC V1-qute-NAP 100-SBL.

Thoroughly enjoying it.

On order, and waiting patiently for, NAP 100-SNAXO 242-HICAP. 

Nice looking, and I imagine, sounding system blorbed!!!

Let us know your impressions.

Will do Justin. I followed you posts with interest regarding the DAC V1/NAP 100 combo.

Monkberry, It was the the purchase of the Unitiqute which has brought me back to hi-fi after a lengthy period away. I'd transferred all my cd's to Apple Lossless files years ago upon the arrival of the iPod. The ability of the qute to natively play my music files was the perfect solution and sounded great.

Admittedly the addition of the NAP 100/ DAC V1 (which was originally intended as a second system) has improved the already fantastic sound.

I now have a Mac mini supplying the lossless files to the DAC V1 and the ability to use my iPhone or iPad to navigate my large music library is wonderful.

I'd recommend you auditioning the UnitiQute, my dealer suggested the Harbeths as a tailor made match though in the end I plumped for a pair of second hand SBL's. Whichever speakers you choose I doubt you'll be disappointed in the sound from the UnitQute.

I recently got a good deal on a new UnitiQute v1 for a second system, pairing it with Dynaudio DM 2/6 bookshelf speakers. Couldn't be more happy with my system. It sounds great, punchy, clear and detailed sound. Power is enough for my smallish room.

Flexibility is really one of the UQ's strengths. Digital and analogue, iPod and USB inputs, headphone jack, FM/DAB, UPnP and iRadio all in one box. Digital and pre out. Can it get any better? Ok they could have added a DIN pre out but that is really the only minor remark.

I also added a Sonos Connect for Spotify. Could easily use the UQ as my main system.

Ollie

I have a UnitiQute as my main system with a pair of KEF R100s and am very impressed with this setup. I use to have a Logitech Transporter, Music First pre-amp and Linn power amp. but I also wanted something that is small, tidy and versatile.  I have all my music stored on a synology NAS, but I sometimes use the optical in from my 27" iMac when watching films (don't have a TV)

As per the USB drive, I've tried attaching a USB HDD and even an SSD drive directly to the UQ, but it is not recognised, so only way to do this is to get a couple of 32GB or even 64GB USB sticks and put your music on those. But as others have said, using a UPNP server is really the best way.

First post here, although I've been reading along on the forums for a while. This is my story, maybe it's a little long - so feel free to skip ahead to the next message or another thread!

I have a v1 UnitiQute as my main system, purchased for all the same reasons others have cited: flexibility, sound quality, convenience, and fun. Like some others I was moving back to hifi after time away, still using nice equipment but mainly for watching movies or for background music...so for me, the idea of trying to capture my iTunes experience (easy access to all my music, no clutter, no hassle) but with better sound quality in my living room was an important goal. Enter the Qute, which had just come out (over here in Canada at least).

First off, and to answer the original question, I like the UnitiQute very much. It sounds great, offers all the flexibility and convenience I was hoping for, and seems "bigger than itself" (ie the 30 W is fine for my needs). I have just (two weeks ago) changed from older Mirage sat/sub (home theatre style speakers) to Tannoy Prestige 6.2 towers. The sound is great for me: the amp is doing really well and it gets loud enough in my open concept living / dining room...although, like others, I'm curious to see what improvements would arrive with a separate amp (either the new NAP 100 or NAP 155 XS). The blog by Rene at the-ear.net gave a lot of food for thought...but that is a different thread!

The learning curve to combine technologies has been steady and incremental, although I must say that I had beautiful sound coming out within a few minutes of getting started: the range of input options makes this possible and I've found (as I learn more and get more sophisticated in the source / server side) that it is a real plus to be able to revert to another input or server while making changes on the network side.

What do I mean by that? Well, it was great to have FM radio from the get-go..my main morning source is CBC Radio 2 (our national broadcaster, which is getting a bit more hip like some of the BBC stations) and that just works of course. (Note: we don't have DAB here.) Then, after mere seconds to join my wifi network, I had internet radio up and going...the built in selection of stations was there to explore (I have not made any effort to add my own custom selections, so I can't speak to that aspect).

Others will be able to pinpoint my purchase date, since I got my UnitiQute at almost the exact moment when the nStream app became available for free (originally it was a paid app, as I understand it)...and that was fantastic for me, as I installed it on my iPod touch and on my iPad and ever since then I've been using those as my main remote controls. Browsing the iRadio list was easy and cool, and way more convenient than using the small (to my older-than-middle aged eyes) front panel display. In fairness, I can read the display even from the sofa...but it has nowhere near the cool factor of the nStream on iPod! So the nStream app, to me, is almost as important as the rest of the system. Sticking an old iPod classic loaded with mp3s into the front input, then controlling that from an iPod Touch running nStream was very fun: more or less as satisfying and convenient as browsing on iTunes on my PC or playing with the iPod itself...but now coming out in glorious detail through the stereo and way better than any previous iPod-to-stereo connection using the headphones out. Nice one, Naim. 

A few days later (I'm lazy and I'm away a lot, so nothing happens with great speed), I bought a consumer NAS. I chose an IOmega ix2-200, which (as it turned out) uses Twonky (in firmware) as the UPnP streamer. It was inexpensive and worked right out of the box (of course, it is less flexible than other choices...more on that later). I copied some existing mp3 files over to see how that would work: zero problem to stream them from the default directory. Can't honestly say I compared that against the iPod digital input...it was just as a test to stream something from the NAS, and it was a success - end of that chapter.

I lurked and got advice on the forum about lots of stuff - from NAS alternatives, to mini server choices and configurations, to file format (shout out to Tog, Hook and many others for good info and informative posts...very generous group on here!). I got EAC (exact audio copy) for Windows, launched straight into ripping a few CDs to FLAC (ripped to local PC HD for speed, then move to NAS for serving) and presto, no issues (even the oft-encountered album cover art issue did not bite me) and better sound than mp3. Okay, no cool way to build play lists, no scrubbing through tracks...but whatever, it worked more or less right out of the box and that was nice. My story could end there - gradually building up my FLAC collection a few discs per day, watching the choices grow on my nStream view, listening and playing and having fun. Of course, none of these stories ever end...

I had many of the adventures others have described, but very little angst to be honest. At a Naim specialty day at my local dealer (Salut, Luc!), I met Emmanuel the rep / importer for eastern Canada and had a really fun time chatting and getting insight into how and where to find things on the Naim website. This inspired me to, at long last, grab an rs232 cable from the lab and unplug the UnitiQute from the system to perform the firmware upgrades (all the way from whatever the original shipping version was to 3.13, via 3.09 iirc) - again, zero issues, zero hassles, it worked as advertised (and it was never advertised as an automatic network upgrade, so I'm cool with that). I'm looking forward to the next version, with scrubbing through tracks and other neat features built in; it's already almost the end of June, so that should be soon(ish).

My IOmega is now at a firmware dead end, I think, so that's a bit of a hassle as the installed Twonky Server is version 6.x and now that there is a version 7.x build available I would have liked to be able to install that and benefit from additional server-side features and functions. No go, it seems. That prompted me to take my springtime play money and invest in a new Synology NAS (DS213+ w/ two 3 TB WD Red disks in their fancy RAID configuration, in case anyone is interested) and so now I have that turned on and am at the very beginning of that experience now (just got it yesterday, am copying content over and enabling various applications and services as I type this post). I was motivated in part by the positive reviews the Synology Disk Station Manager (DSM) software has received here and elsewhere, and intrigued that a unit with a better processor, more memory, and a closer to standard OS would offer benefits of other, independently developed apps (minim server in particular). Again, I've taken a baby-steps approach: switch on the built-in Media Server, move some FLAC files over, point the Qute at the newly seen UPnP server, et voila! (Thanks to all who posted instructions on where to find the server setting to include the cover album for the "By Album" view in nStream!!)

This is getting pretty long winded...but we're now only a few seconds from real time. Again, thanks for reading this far but fee free to bail here or, as my favourite message from yesterday's experience installing the DS213+ said, "Why not enjoy a nice cup of tea?"

I also bought a Mac mini a couple of months ago, and attached the optical digital out to one of the optical digital inputs on the Qute (using the adapting mini-TOSlink to TOSlink cable). This also works fine, and has changed the way I can access and play my iTunes library directly from the main computer (which is more or less silent, a factor when I bought it). I see now how others might want the asynchronous USB...but as I really only have CD quality files, I don't think I'm missing out on anything huge at this point by going from computer to DAC input over fibre....something to explore later on I guess. But the switch from Windows PC to Mac has had its own interesting layers: suffice to say that getting both to use the same (NAS-based) iTunes library was a nice victory, and that XLD is another very fine ripper in the spirit of EAC.

I've just started to understand how better tagging can enhance my experience - and the new display options fed by the Synology Music Server application through nStream have opened that door. The automatic tagging works fine, especially when the (old Twonky) server ignores those...but now I have "Folk", "Folk / Rock", "Folk-Rock" and "FolkRock" genres that, to me at least, should all be the same (and I don't exactly have a lot of what I would call folk rock in my collection!!). Same goes for "Album Artist" versus "Artist" (and goodness knows what people who track "Composer" run into). I will look for a Mac equivalent to mp3Tag and slowly work my way through the most egregiously mis-tagged albums in my modest collection. I'm now aware that spending a few extra minutes to set the tags up correctly before I hit "extract" is time well spent (thanks forum posters for this, too).

Whew. That's my story. The only real constant through the last couple of years has been the UnitiQute itself, which I have always been able to use to play very nice music at extremely satisfying quality and from a very broad spectrum of sources. I like it very much and feel that, apart from my original move to iTunes and iPods (flippantly ignoring my other adventures with other portable hardware), this piece of kit has made the single largest transformation to how, and how often, I play and listen to music. Like someone else mentioned, I am re-discovering CDs that are great but that had moved by some sedimentary process to the back of the pile, and I am buying more new CDs and enjoying new artists and styles than I have for a few years. Yay....because for me, that's a lot of fun. 

I may never post again, so don't worry that Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky or Dickens has joined the group and will consume a lot of ink! War and Peace this was not, and so I thank you if you read this far and hope and wish that you will care to respond with your own tale of mystery and imagination.

Boy... I don't know how I'm going to go following on from that informative post! I have only had my Unitiqute for about a month, but have been enjoying it greatly. Like most I'm playing and listening to way more music than before having it. 

I haven't been organized enough to get a upnp nas drive setup yet, but mainly use the front USB connected to my iPhone. I tried playing over wifi from my laptop, but I don't think it sounded as good. I guess an ethernet connection will be next to test. 

The amp section works well and is very flexible. I've been running a pair of PMC DB1i's with an Adam Sub7 from the pre out, although I don't tend to have it on too often. I know it's sacreligious to say, but I quite like the "loudness" function as I often listen at quite low levels and it really helps enjoy the music at night when I can't turn it up to get cranking. 

I have a weird model, which has the mini USB port on the back instead instead of the RS22 port, but it's still labelled Unitiqute rather than unitiqute2. I guess it's the last of V1!or the very first of V2 (hopefully someone with some knowledge can fill me in here). I'm waiting for the next firmware update that apparently upgrades DAB to DAB+ which means it will work in Australia. I'm looking forward to that. 

The first of the V2 then 

Thanks for sharing those impressions, alan33 (and others).  The community here seems really supportive, and that will be a big help if I do make the jump.  Internet radio is one of the options that makes the Qute tempting.  Has anyone tried to add custom stations, and can anyone point me to a post with instructions?  I listen to some obscure stuff out there on the net, things that don't show in the listenings, so I'd like to be sure I can continue to access them.

And alan33, I've also experienced the fun of diving through the CD collection for old treasures.  But if you haven't tried out an 24/96 or 24/192 recordings, give them a shout.  I'm pretty stunned by the difference.

I bought one of the first UnitiQute 1's. Originally, I purchased it to replace a Benchmark DAC-1 acting as a DAC and to provide the added bonus of internet radio. It took quite a while before I used a NAS to stream my CD rips as I was quite happy using the Qute as a DAC via an M2Tech HiFace. I emphasise that we used the Qute as a source with the power amp disabled (speakers=none). It showed the Benchmark a clean pair of heels comfortably. However, I do feel that the Qute is better as a streamer than a DAC, which leaves something to look forward to when you move to a NAS. Our Qute is currently engaged as our second system (power amp enabled) to great effect. A NAP100 is on the shopping list.

Some UQ owners already own or have auditioned the NAP 100. Interested in hearing your findings.

How much does it add to the Qute?

Ollie

I've not listened, but I suspect it depends a lot on the speakers you're trying to drive.  Mine are pretty sensitive, and I am not aching for more power.  Nonetheless it'd be interesting to hear what it brings.

To be certain I'd have to 'go back to how it was originally', but having quickly tried 4 configurations (to be brief)

Qute to speakers = no problems, no nasties, very pleasant!

Qute to NAP100 to speakers = slight improvement in instrument spacing and a little more 'depth' (but we are not talking a great deal of difference)

Qute to speaker treble, NAP 100 to speaker bass = silence between sound 'appears', 'depth and width' the same but there is more sound in front of the speakers (like the speakers are nearer!)

Qute to speaker bass, NAP 100 to speaker treble = as above but treble and mids more crystalline and bass a bit drier (this is how I have it atm)

I hope that makes some sense! PMC speakers / 4.5m per run NACA4, standard mains cabling.

The thing that really impresses me about Naim & these speakers is that they seem to do nothing wrong, just lots of good things in smallish measures, there is nothing this system excels at but failing to irritate me.