Sound issue with Uniti Atom... (sadness...)

Posted by: Gaetanop on 07 June 2018

Hello everybody,

I've a brand new Atom + Scansonic mb 2.5 installation (2 months old). For a couple of days, I've experienced a sound issue that frightens me (I'm almost crying).

I play a track with Tidal, it starts ok and suddenly the sound goes left-right-left-right and all of sudden the sound gets like "deaf" or "muted" (I'm not an english native speaker). I can hear the music but it's like the amplitude is cut, like the speakers are into their box. I've lost the total beauty of a hifi system.

I push the volume up, above 30 ... and it gets back to the nice atom amplitude... the sound is like freed again ! ... and a couple of minutes later it goes back to the deaf sound.

I inverted the speakers, checked the connection, the cables: everything is fine... Can someone help? Is it the Atom, the speakers? Should I bring back my Atom to the dealer? 

Sorry for my bad english. Thank you for your help.

Gaetano

Posted on: 07 June 2018 by Richard Dane

Gaetano. That doesn’t sound right. Is it just happening on Tidal or on all sources? If so, then get in touch with your dealer. 

Posted on: 07 June 2018 by Atom/Iota/Kan Stands

Yeah, I would agree.  I have had issues with the app and I had a left bias on vocals (weird) but that is almost certainly room-related in my case and now fixed.  Yours sounds like something is broken.

See if it can be replicated at the dealer and then get a replacement.

Posted on: 07 June 2018 by Gaetanop

Thank you guys. Just tried from another source: flac file on usb key. Got the same effect: after a few minutes, sound gets « deaf ». I have the feeling this is happening more with highly detailed music (like « seventh heaven » from Beck), but I may be dreaming.

you would first think the Atom is the cause, not the speakers?

Posted on: 07 June 2018 by Eoink

My gut feel is that it’s the electronics, it’d be a pretty unusual speaker fault that had the sound switching from left to right a couple of times before dropping the volume, I can’t actually think of a way that could happen due to the speakers. So I’d contact your dealer and have the Atom checked out. Have you tried powering the Atom off totally? Remove the mains power for 15 minutes, then power it up again. That is worth trying, but I’d also contact your dealer.

No need to apologies for your English, it is excellent.

Posted on: 07 June 2018 by David Hendon

Definitely sounds like an issue with the Atom and not the loudspeakers.

Did you try restarting the Atom? So take the mains power off completely, wait 20 seconds or so and then put the power back on and let it start up. Then play your FLAC file on USB stick again.

I see I posted at the same time as Eoink. He also suggests a restart, but  I really think 15 seconds is long enough to leave it off and you could go for two seconds just as well. If it's a computer malfunction which will be fixed by a restart, it will happen almost immediately.

best

David

Posted on: 07 June 2018 by Eoink

I was thinking of the Atom as an amp as well as a streamer, so I went for a conservative amount of time.to cover the caps as well. 

Posted on: 07 June 2018 by David Hendon
Eoink posted:

I was thinking of the Atom as an amp as well as a streamer, so I went for a conservative amount of time.to cover the caps as well. 

Yes I understand. But you don't need to reset those because the amp will work or it won't.

The best hope is that it's a malfunction of a firmware-driven part of the Atom which will be fixed by a restart. All computers need restarts occasionally! But I've not heard of a problem like this before, so I'm not very hopeful.

best

David

Posted on: 07 June 2018 by Richard Dane

One thing to look at - check there are no shorts in the speaker cabling, such as a loose stray wire strand.

Posted on: 07 June 2018 by Gaetanop

Thank you everybody, I’m going to check all these. I’ll let you know.

Posted on: 10 June 2018 by Gaetanop

I went to the dealer yesterday: we tested the Atom during 20 minutes on a pair of 30k€ loudspeakers (!!!) and couldn't reproduce the problem. But we experienced a "freeze" of the Atom who wouldn't react anymore... the Dealer was suprised to see that: he never experienced that on a Naim product. We had to reset it.

He decided to keep the Atom for the week-end and will let it run to check it. Eventually, it will be sent back to Naim.