Introducing Uniti, our revolutionary new streaming platform.

Likewise, thanks Phil.  My interest has now been piqued and I very much look forward to hearing the Atom - hopefully at the Chester show next week. I wodner what the fate of my UnitiQute 2 will be then

I too am grateful for your personal opinion Phil. The Atom got my attention straight away from the moment I saw the line-up. I dont intend to spend that amount of money on a pair of speakers like the Sopras so I will have to wait until the units hit the shelves, and people's homes and reviewers' desks in order to see (hopefully) how it performs with sub£1k and sub £2k speakers. By the sounds of it I have no doubt that it will still be a little gem but I intend to apply the "patience hasn't hurt anyone" principle before spending £1.7k on the unit.

iliria posted:

I too am grateful for your personal opinion Phil. The Atom got my attention straight away from the moment I saw the line-up. I dont intend to spend that amount of money on a pair of speakers like the Sopras so I will have to wait until the units hit the shelves, and people's homes and reviewers' desks in order to see (hopefully) how it performs with sub£1k and sub £2k speakers. By the sounds of it I have no doubt that it will still be a little gem but I intend to apply the "patience hasn't hurt anyone" principle before spending £1.7k on the unit.

Absolutely!

I often get grumbled at because I don't like telling people what they should be hearing but that's because if someone is spending their own money I want them to be happy in their own mind that it's money well spent - I'm a Yorkshireman and as such I'm genetically engineered to have short arms, deep pockets and be as tight as a duck's backside and don't like telling anyone to spend money let alone spending my own without good justification.

Phil

Phil Harris posted:

alan33 posted:

I thought I was clear enough that a biased opinion would be welcome. It's not like this place is full of haters to begin with: it's a friendly forum for mostly people who already love what you're doing. 

Some specific weaknesses with what has been reported so far, however, are in the choice of speakers used for demos. Nobody - except you? - has heard an Atom on less exotic speakers than the Sopra (1 and 2), as an example. Some comments on this "mullet" (I don't even know what that did is, tbh) are not favourable ... how did you conclude that the Atom is a real winner for price and size? With the Sopras? Or with speakers those looking at an all in one in its price category are (more?) likely to own or buy?

How about the Nova and the Sopras? Any thoughts on the few less happy observations from Bristol? Room? Underpowered and floppy woofers? Your own comparative thoughts welcome!

Same goes for the cross-level analysis. I expect that only Naim staff have had a chance to hear original vs new Uniti gear head to head. Go on, tell us how amazing the sonic improvements are, why we should all be jumping up and down, how every new model offers as much "more" than its obvious peer that it would be better to compare new vs one model higher up from the old range...

Shill away, you know you want to! Or get a pal who haunts these halls less than you do and pass on the invitation to feed the curiosity of the forum  

Regards alan

ps - Resoect: I won't push again to avoid putting you on the spot if that's not where you want to be. 

Hi Alan,

I have no problem giving my opinions but they are my opinions and may not tie in with anyone elses...

The Exec Lounge at Bristol show is always a difficult one to tame due to the size, it's "offset" layout and the wall of glass taking up the whole of one side of the room however I thought that the Nova was sounding fairly decent in there as they had it set up and, if I were looking for a one box system at around the £4k mark, the Nova would definitely be on my shortlist. It does a good job of driving decent speakers and we've come into a fair bit of flak not only for using the Nova with Sopra 2's at Bristol but also for using the Atom with Sopra 1's at the Indulgence show last year as running them on Sopras has been seen by some to be giving them an unfair advantage.

My own view on running them on Sopras is that athough the Sopras are a "better" speaker than might normally be expected to be used with the Atom and Nova they are also more revealing and as such allow more of the Atom / Nova to be heard with less of it being masked by the speaker and as such I think both units gave a very credible showing given that neither were in an ideal environment (there is only so much that we can do to tame rooms in the time that we have whilst setting up and we did have numerous bass traps spread about the room there as anyone who went into the demos would have seen).

Personally the unit that "floats my boat" the most is the little Atom - from what I've heard of it then yes, it isn't as good as the Nova and I do agree with that but it kicks the outgoing Qute (a long-time personal favourite bit of Naim kit of mine) into a cocked hat.

Ultimately, any demonstration will be at the mercy of the environment and shows / events will always be correspondingly more compromised - sometimes you hit lucky and the kit you have brought "gels" with the room and sometimes no matter how hard you try then you can't get a room to sound good with the kit you have to hand and the time that you have ... shows and events can only ever be a guide to how something sounds and IMO I thought the sound that I heard in the Exec Lounge was pretty good and gave enough of an insight into what the Nova can do and whether it's worth pursuing a 'proper' demo with a dealer when it comes out or whether it's just not your cup of tea.

Cheers

Phil 

Alan,

I had several extended listening  sessions at RMAF 2016 Naim room, the Atom playing into $3k Focal Aria 926 speakers with a little kick from a $1K Focal 1000F sub. I would say this modest rig embarrassed 90% of all the 100+ rooms at RMAF. That's a bold statement considering it was also one of the lowest cost systems demo'd at RMAF. 

I also had a good listen at CES 2017 to the Nova/Focal Sopras, yes this kit is more refined, but I'm with Phil saying the center of gravity lives inside the Atom. I really feel these all-in-one components are the future of audio, with Naim setting the bar on seamless functionality, looks, & sound quality. 

While I have a Nova on the brain ... my pocketbook screams Atom!

Bill Allen posted:

I had several extended listening  sessions at RMAF 2016 Naim room, the Atom playing into $3k Focal Aria 926 speakers with a little kick from a $1K Focal 1000F sub. I would say this modest rig embarrassed 90% of all the 100+ rooms at RMAF. That's a bold statement considering it was also one of the lowest cost systems demo'd at RMAF. 

I also had a good listen at CES 2017 to the Nova/Focal Sopras, yes this kit is more refined, but I'm with Phil saying the center of gravity lives inside the Atom. I really feel these all-in-one components are the future of audio, with Naim setting the bar on seamless functionality, looks, & sound quality. 

While I have a Nova on the brain ... my pocketbook screams Atom!

I think the Atom is the unit which gives the most value for money and it is very likely that it will be the most sucessful one in the series.

My home set up currently uses Focal Chorus 716v floorstanding speakers which I hope will be good enough. I am aware that they are entry levels so I may use a 2.1 (by utilising my BK XXLS400 sub).

I am hoping that once the sub hits the review desks there will be multiple pairings with various speaker brands and models.

Hey all 

just ordered my Atom 2 weeks ago but also intended to buy a uniti core as well 

however, could anybody tell me whether the core will play music through the atom with no physical connection between one and the other, i.e. wirelessly ? 

Im asking because my hifi gear is located in a spot of the listening room and my router is at the complete opposite side (but still in the same room) 

i spotted on naim support page that the core has to be connected to the router through the Ethernet connection, but I'd like to avoid getting it sit next to my router (cable would be too long and run through all over the room) and can't move my router either 

so should I either use a cpl still have the atom connected to the network, or alternatively and once I stored all my music library within the core, can I just disconnect it from the router and sit it next to the atom. In that case, will the Atom be able to stream from the Core locally and wirelessly ?? 

Sorry if that sounds confusing but I never owned any naim server so far and has been so far streaming music through my Qute 2 from a Synology Nas so far without any need to get it physically connected to the qute which is very convenient I guess 

If you are happy with the Synology you don't need a Core. Save your money. 

Hungryhalibut posted:

If you are happy with the Synology you don't need a Core. Save your money. 

+1 to that 

other option is getting the star but believe the atom is the sweet spot depending on your speakers 

The nas is here to stay anyway and will serve for video playback on my TV, hence the need for the UC. And instead of spending more money on larger nas drive (mines are almost full now) I just think I'm better spending my money for something made on purpose for the atom. 

 any answer to my  questions above will be much appreciated  

Hungryhalibut posted:

If you are happy with the Synology you don't need a Core. Save your money. 

You might be happy but still looking for better SQ. A storing & serving S/PDIF integrated solution may now be superior to a NAS distributed network configuration.

Chag -