A Pensioner Goes Mainstream (or should that be Naimstream)!
Posted by: Derek C on 28 June 2017
I am submitting this post to perhaps help other people who may have considered following the streaming route but still have doubts due to a lack of understanding and are put off by all the jargon surrounding the subject, which appears to make the whole process far more complicated than it actually is.
First though, after reading so much rubbish on the forum, I would like to make the point that the Uniti Core is exactly how Naim describe it, i.e. a ripper/server or hard disc player. There seems to be a considerable number of people on this site who expect it to do more than it was ever meant to for whatever reasons best known to themselves, to my mind, akin to somebody buying a CD player and then exclaiming disappointment when they discover that it won’t actually play vinyl records aswell!
Secondly, I am not a computer expert (though, I do have an Apple iMac and can usually do or work out how to do what I want with relative ease myself) and view my hi-fi system as a hi-fi system not as an extension to a computer network. To me, they are totally separate things.
Having been totally committed to vinyl replay as my primary source for many years, with CD almost being considered the secondary format because I found on most occasions (but not all) that music generally sounded better via the analogue chain. Additionally, I had attended a fair number of events organised by my trusted dealer, Acoustica, over recent years where more often than not streamed music was being used for demonstration purposes but had always failed to convince me because the same tracks or albums being played always sounded more musical on my system at home whether from vinyl or CD but with hindsight, I think that the reason may have been largely due to speaker choice, which of course is a different and very subjective matter anyway and I didn’t really relish the thought of ripping (or copying, for those who prefer plain English) my entire CD collection onto some sort of ‘machine’.
Now, I don’t know whether this was partly due to ‘grumpy old man syndrome’ setting in but I was becoming increasingly annoyed and frustrated about the palaver necessary in playing vinyl albums and the unnatural break to the flow and emotional connection to the music which is caused by having to get up every few minutes and change the sides of records etc. (with the music having already restarted, as is usual, by the time I had regained my seat). This prompted me to wonder about the possibility of upgrading my CD5XS and nDac at some point, so for me, Naim couldn’t have timed the launch of the Uniti Core better. After reading the information which had been released by Naim, I began to realise there could well be some potential in substituting the CD5XS with the Core and eventually arranged a demo at Acoustica in Chester Geoff and Pete set up a system similar to mine at home (same amps and DAC but with different speakers), we used a CDX2.2 for comparison purposes due to a CD5XS not being available at the time and ripped a few familiar CD’s onto the Core, so that I could compare the difference between both versions of the same albums. It was immediately obvious to me that the sound quality was superior via the Core and the additional detail being conveyed was really quite stunning and consequently arranged a home installation of a new Core fitted with a 2TB hard drive by Pete a couple days later feeding my existing nDac via DC1 cable together with a 15 metre length Chord C-stream ethernet cable enabling connection to my BT broadband hub which is located at the opposite end of the room to where the hi-fi system is. Due to the delay in releasing the android version of the new Naim app, Pete also lent me a ‘spare’ iPhone to use as the remote control, which was subsequently replaced by an iPad Mini 2 which I bought directly from Apple. I spent a few hours short of a whole week ripping my 935 CD’s onto the Core, which was less time than I had first anticipated or feared, after which I was able to just relax and enjoy the fruits of my labour and to say that I was impressed with the results would be a gross understatement. From that moment on, apart from the very occasional comparison, I stopped playing vinyl records altogether, it was that good! I then began to wonder whether I could eventually make even further improvements by adding a 555DR power supply to the nDac or perhaps following the full streaming route with an NDX/XPS DR. Like most, I am not in a position to just go out and buy anything at will so during the next couple of months I deliberated over different potential but financially realistic options which culminated in a plan to make any changes self-financing but first I needed to confirm which route I should take and therefore, once again, arranged a demo at Acoustica, comparing the nDAC/555DR PS with an NDX/XPS DR, the difference was like night and day, the NDX/XPS DR combination sounded far more musical. So the final plan had evolved into trading in my Rega RP10/Apheta 2, Superline with Supercap DR, nDAC, NAT05XS and 2 x 6 shelf Quadraspire Q4 EVO racks (because with the passage of time I found them less visually pleasing) for a new NDX, XPS DR, another 15 metre length Chord C-stream cable to connect to the BT hub and a 7 level Fraimlite rack while also selling my entire record collection. In addition to this, I have also bought a self-powered Seagate external hard disc drive which I connect to the Core via the front USB socket for back-up purposes and then can be disconnected and stored away in between any back-up sessions and therefore not ‘wearing out’ through continuous running, which to me, seems the simplest, safest and most secure method of performing this crucial task. The first back-up, encompassing the previously mentioned 935 CD’s, took about 8 hours and have since backed up again after increasing my CD collection and the Naim app update incorporating the excellent metadata editing function (back-ups are incremental, so only took a few minutes this time because it is only having to copy any new data i.e. music or artwork etc. which has been added since the previous back-up).
I have to add that this decision was not taken lightly because I did realise of course that there was absolutely no chance of going back! Another couple of months on, would I want to go back? No. Do I have any regrets? Absolutely none.
The whole system works so seamlessly and perfectly and has been life changing while also quite liberating in a way including reducing the ‘box count’ by five. Also, possibly because I only use the radio for casual listening, I have found that the internet broadcasts to be more than acceptable. Although I am used to using a computer, as I said earlier, I am not a expert and a lot of the seemingly nonsensical jargon means nothing to me but I’ve had no problems at all in understanding and implementing the evolution of my system to where it now stands, probably because I have approached it from a hi-fi perspective and what the new components actually offer in sound reproduction terms.
Finally, in defence of the Unit Core and the new Naim App and to counterbalance the sometimes venomous comments made by a few on this forum, I have to say that I just do not understand where they are coming from because it seems to me there could not be a more perfect or simpler method of delivering exceedingly high quality sound in a highly convenient manner which is not beyond the comprehension of the average music lover. I am a music lover and I love it!