New to bothe NAIM & This Forum,Help Appreciated UnitiQute 2?

Hi Steve, welcome!

HiFi racks stands are great (use them myself in my Qute2 setup.

Not sure what you mean by upscalling, are you looking to modify your native file size/depth?

Speaker cable is easy answer, use Naim's NACA5, or LINN K4 or try some of the less expensive "The Chord Co. " cables. As for ethernet, use cat5e or cat6 and don't bother with anything 'expensive'! Mind you in Norway EVERYTHING is expensive compared to the UK!

Hi Steve,

A warm welcome to the forum and congratulations on the chocie of your set. It seems well balanced and you will enjoy it very much. There are various KEF-LS50 owners here; if you use the search button, you'll find them.

Indeed Cat5e or better ethernet cable, and NACA5 (read the FAQ on cable lenght) are good choices. Where will your music be stored ? On a USB stick, a NAS or your PC ? Ensure that your music files are correctly ripped in a lossless format.

Cheers Iver

Hello Hafler3o

Really good to hear from you.and many thanks for your welcome, much appreciated.

I have previously owned HiFi racks so can testify to the quality of the product,this time am going for their podium wall shelving for the UNITIQUTE 2,at least now Hifi Racks does have a Norwegain distrubutor!

Upscalling is, I beleive the abilty to take lower quality music files and increase the quality by upscalling ?could be mistaken though?

I will certainly check out the NAIM cables & linn,do not know about these though?cat5e or cat6

All the best Steve

hello wat

Good to heasr from you,Yep big sorry I did indeed mean upsampling

what advanteges does a NAS have or can I just connect to my hard drive,i no nothing about these things really?

If i were you i'd forget all this networking stuff and buy a Stello U3 or similar USB to S/PDiF convertor and then connect from your Sony through it to the UnitiQute. It is much easier and I find it sounds slightly better. 

  I am intersted in your comments above? Must admit I do find it hard to understand all the techno stuff,have certain medical issues that make it hard sometimes to make sense of things? but usually get there eventually.

Would be obliged for more information

 

best wishes Steve

 

 

Hey Steve,

Before purchasing your set, please talk to your dealer. He should be able to help you out with either setting up the NAS, or connecting the UnitiQute directly to a pc with the music on it.

You won't be able to connect an external harddisk with music stored on it, directly to the UnitiQute. You can however connect a USB stick directly to it; howver those sticks have limited storage capacity etc.

To solve the solution people use either a NAS (1) or a PC (2)

ad 1

a Network Attached Storage (NAS) is an external Harddisk connected to your home network. To do so, you need a hmenetwork and a router (you probably already have via your cable provider). A NAS typically has a piece of software running on it, called a UpnP Server. The UQ is capable of recognizing such a UpnP Server an plays the music from it. This is called "streaming". A NAS has at least 2 harddisks; one backing up the other. Welknown makes are ReadyNas, QNAP, Synology or LaCie. Investment is around €500. The NAS is connected to your home network via the Cat5e ethernet cable, so is the UQ. Advantage of the NAS is that you do not need a pc running, to play music. Instead one could use the nStream app on iPad or iPhone to control everything. That works great.

ad2

If you prefer not to use a NAS, one could use a PC that has the music files on it. The pc is connected to the UQ via the pc's "optical out" connector: check if your pc has one. It is very important to use that one, to make advantage of the UQ internal DAC. Alternatively you can use a UCB connector from the pc, and the above mentioned Stello convertor.

Disadvanteg is that your pc needs to be running once you want to play music.

Most important: you are about to spent a fair som of money at an excellent music system. It is not more than fair, that your dealer explains the above and helps you forward. I koow it might all sound a bit complex, but the dealer - and we - are here to help. Your issue has been discussed on this forum many times, so you will find tons of info here.

Good luck and keep us posted ! Interested in your LS50 findings !!!

Iver

Hello again Ivor,

I sort of get overwhelmed really quickly,so will go with the easiest set up

store my files as now on laptop?I suspect cloud storage will not help?I am not sure if this dell studio laptop as Optical out? I will try to find out?

Yep its all kind off complex

but I will lok in to it,the dealer is in Oslo so we have to communicate with email

all the best Steve

ad2

If you prefer not to use a NAS, one could use a PC that has the music files on it. The pc is connected to the UQ via the pc's "optical out" connector: check if your pc has one. It is very important to use that one, to make advantage of the UQ internal DAC. Alternatively you can use a UCB connector from the pc, and the above mentioned Stello convertor.

Disadvanteg is that your pc needs to be running once you want to play music.

Most important: you are about to spent a fair som of money at an excellent music system. It is not more than fair, that your dealer explains the above and helps you forward. I koow it might all sound a bit complex, but the dealer - and we - are here to help. Your issue has been discussed on this forum many times, so you will find tons of info here.

 

Good luck and keep us posted ! Interested in your LS50 findings !!!

Iver

Hi Steve,

I presume you went to Kontrapunkt to access the Naim range, have you done any demos yet?

I am also based here in Oslo and as Iver has reiterated a couple of times, you should get much of the advice you need from your dealer..as you will find the Forum can be a fickle place some times

My point of contact at Kontrapunkt is Isak he is very friendly, enthusiastic, knows his stuff and is not pushy. I can give you his contact number if you like and he will set up a demo most weekday evenings and you can go back as often as you like.

Jason.

Hi Jason F

Really good to hear from you.I must admit have never heard of Kontrapunkt? the dealer who would be supplying the gear is OSLO HI FI (Henning) both Naim & kef items.

afraid not able to mtravel to OSLO to audition the items,so have top take as much feedback as possible

best wishes Steve

Hi Steve,

Interesting, just looked at their web site and it seems they have started to stock Naim. This was not the case last time I looked, perhaps 6 months ago.

I am sure they are good guys there, but my hunch is that they are new to Naim. The main Naim seller here in Oslo is Kontrapunkt, they specialise in both Naim and Linn, I would seriously consider contacting them too. At least to hear their views as they have been selling Naim for donkeys years, as far as I am aware.

If you need any home based help, let me know here and I can give you my email.

Jason.

By the way Steve, where are you based in Norway?

Jason.

Hi Jason

We live in Kristiansand,well approx 25km outside

best wishes Steve

Sorry Steve been out at work, I believe most of your quereies have been covered by the other respondents, try and read as much as you can about servers and streamers, I found Cyrus' website to have good simple to understand advice and diagrams, the principle is basically the same as a lot of manufacturers are now exploiting existing home tech. like routers/pads/phones/USB/ethernet etc. I use a cheap Western Digital NAS which I will relegate to backup duty at next upgrade. It has 'served' me well as having spent next to no money on it, I have learned plenty, so now can make better choices and know what questions to ask next time around!

"Slow and Steady wins the race" regards Dave W.

Yes, quite far, about a 4 hour drive perhaps.

Still want hurt to give them a call.

Jason.

Welcome to the Forum, Steve. This computer audio stuff is a bit scary to start with, but you will get there in the end. I've had my little setup for a few months now, and once it is all working happily, it is really great, and very easy to use.

I am not great with IT, so chose a Naim UnitiServe to rip and store my music, because it is easy to use, is well made, and is fully supported by Naim. But it is expensive, and may be too costly for you. A good NAS is a good alternative. You can rip the music on your computer, put it on the NAS and then use nStream to control the system, without the computer being used. The trickiest part of setting up my system was adding the NAS for backup, but once I know what I was doing it was quite easy.

if you don't feel confident, get your dealer to help you.

Regarding speaker cables, I would recommend Chord Odyssey 2, which costs the same as Naim cable and is smaller and neater. But the Naim cable is excellent, and most people here use it.

i suggest that you run a cable from your router to a Gigabyte switch. Then plug both the Qute and the NAS into the switch. It you get a NAS with two drives, you can get it to back up to the second drive.

Just take it slowly, and it will all work out!