Impressions of UnitiQute?

Posted by: Monkberry on 14 June 2013

I've been considering purchasing a UnitiQute, and I'd appreciate the insight of some current Qute owners.  Gradually I've migrated to a desktop system, fronted by a pair of Harbeth P3ESRs.  Between the media drive, the outboard DAC, and the integrated amp, I'm losing a lot of real estate on my desk, and the one box solution of the UnitiQute looks tempting.  So I'm interested in what people think of the flexibility of the Qute - and if anyone currently pairs the Qute with Harbeths, I'd by very interested in what they have to say.

 

Currently I stream audio from my computer via JRiver.  However, all my music is on a USB drive (in FLAC format).  Would it be possible to plug the drive directly into the Qute's UISB port and control it through the Qute remote?  I'd like to be able to listen without having the computer up and running.

Posted on: 17 June 2013 by alan33
Originally Posted by Monkberry:

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.

 

Thanks for your reply Monkberry (and everyone else too!).

 

The question about adding custom iRadio stations as presets prompted me to try it out for the first time.  This is probably documented elsewhere, so I hope I'm not violating any rules by adding a short success story here!

 

I went to support.naimaudio.com and did a search on the database for "internet radio", and spotted the answer to "How do I add new internet radio stations" about sixth from the top. Hitting "view article" linked to a friendly page with some explanatory text and a link to the Naim Radio Guide site at myradio.naimaudio.com that makes it all work properly.

 

You need to create an account using your email address, supply your MAC (hardware) address, the URL of the station you want, and then fill in some fields that will be used to auto-populate the station description, location, bit rate, etc., ... then hit the go arrow and, presto!, on the nStream menu for iRadio you have an entry matching what you just typed under the "Added Stations" menu item.

 

I selected it and now I'm listening to "CBC Adult Alternative" (which was only hard to find because I had to use iTunes to turn the oh-so convenient playlist description back into an actual URL). I then added the station to my Presets list, and there you have it. Took about five minutes...magic!

 

By all means get yourself one of these very cool toys. I'm enjoying this thread (and others) especially because the discussion on "Impressions..." has expanded well beyond just a review of sound into impressions of the entire ownership / user experience with the UnitiQute and all the various bits and pieces that people have added to build it into their systems.

 

Regards,

alan

 

ps - Shout out of thanks also to hafler3o for the thumbnail sketch reviews of the Qute and NAP100 in four configurations!

Posted on: 22 June 2013 by Noah_
Hello all, my first post here. Great thread, really informative.

To answer one of the OP's questions: I run my unitiqute with a 2.5" hard drive in a USB enclosure plugged in to the iPod socket on the front and it works fine. The drive is one for music and has everything organised in a normal hierarchical folder structure with artist then album. I intend to change to NAS when I make I my mind as to which one to buy!
Posted on: 22 June 2013 by robert-

Noah, what capacity is the 2.5? 

Posted on: 22 June 2013 by Noah_
It's a 250gb I think. It came out of an old mac laptop and I stuck it in a cheap unpowered caddy from eBay.
Posted on: 23 June 2013 by DomTomLondon
Hi Noah, could you also let us know what farmat is the drive in? I've tried formating my disk as Dos-FAT and also as NTFS on my wives windows laptop. But neither is recognised by the Qute.
I am using a sata to USB3 adapter so that could be causing the problem.
Posted on: 23 June 2013 by Noah_
Right, I've got it out and plugged it in to the mac. Disk utility says it's a Samsung Spinpoint HM250JI, formatted as FAT32.

It's a SATA 1 drive in a Vantec NexStar USB 2 case.

Hope that helps.
Posted on: 24 June 2013 by DomTomLondon
Thanks for the info. Hmmm.. Now I'm not sure why my external SSD is not recognised. Luckely I'm perfectly happy using the NAS as my music storage. But it would be nice to have that option.. Oh well.