Could any pro friends provide me some advice before purchasing?
My room is about 40 sqm. I prefer vocal, pop, rock and some electronic and have some CDs. While being a serious music lover but a completed rookie of HiFi universe, I happened to read an artical about Uniti series and began to pay so heavy interest in it. To my mind, Uniti presents a much easier way to enter the HiFi world and provides a much convenient source of internet which shall stride on in near future. Now I have these questions to make sure I know what I'm about to buy.
1. Based upon my case, which one is better for me, Star or Nova? I know the difference by book. I wanna know if there is any obvious sound quality difference between them. Star's CD ripping is great but if the more powerful Nova does work a lot better, Nova would be the target. Or, according to experienced HiFi-ers, with the same price level, what other options would be better than this duo?
2. Speaker pairing. I've searched all the main forums, magazines and still can't make the decision. Generally, ProAc, Spendor, ATC and Harbeth are the main ones being talked about. And also I asked dealers on line for advice and then got more confused. One is saying that ProAc is the most common match and DT8 should do with my case while the other one recommends Spendor 2/3 and tried to persuade me that even Nova can not drive ATC or Harbeth well. I'm aware that dealers' remark always have dealers' ground. Due to limited reasons, I only listened to Harbeth HL5 Plus (Not with Star/Nova) and I'm really fond of its performance in vocal.
Please help me out of these questions.
Sincerely appreciated
Rick
Posted on: 23 November 2018 by Dreamblademyth
I have owned a Uniti Nova for well over twelve months now. My system was carefully built to encompass the following components which I feel, partner extremely well together:
- Uniti Nova
- Dali Epicon 2 speakers with Dali stands three quarters filled with black volcanic sand
- Dali Wedge to increase angle of throw/height of speakers
- Gaia 2 speaker feet
- Tellurium Q Black 2 speaker cables
- Synology DS116 NAS
- CAT 7 ethernet cables
- Netgear GS308 V2 network switch
- Acoustic panels for treatment of listening room- room = 13.5' x 14'
The above system presents a fantastic soundstage where each instrument can clearly be located in its own three dimensional space, communicates wonderful timing with strong leading edges to instruments giving fantastic musicality. I would not consider changing this set up unless I wanted to spend significantly greater sums of money. All music is of course highly dependant on the listener's preference and how the music has been mastered. It is a system that I can listen to for around five/six hours most evenings and works wonderfully at different volume levels.
Installing the acoustic treatment panels was revelatory: the difference it made to how the system could express its potential, was incredible. I would see sound treatment as providing the equivalent of spending many thousands on component upgrades.
I worked with Joe at Blue Frog Audio who analysed the room through computer modelling and provided an excellent solution.
Posted on: 24 November 2018 by Re-Kid
Dreamblademyth posted:
This is the placement of the acoustic panels used to treat the listening room. The white panels are ceiling clouds. I think acoustic panels are a superb upgrade to the sound quality.
Well well with many many thanks to you, this topic is certainly brought up to a higher level. As in my case the living room is open space like on the right hand side connected with the dining room. My question would be is floor-stand speakers must-needed?
Posted on: 24 November 2018 by Dreamblademyth
Many thanks RE-KID.
In my opinion, the Dali Epicon 2 speakers are rich in detail, have a beautiful warmth to the sound, and deliver bass in spades when needed; for their size, they are as effective as larger floor standers.
Look up some reviews online. I do not know why they are hardly ever mentioned on this forum.
I forgot to list another component which really added to the system. When connected it helped to further refine and produce an inky black soundstage and shape the leading edges of instruments. It is: The Entreq Silver Minimus with a silver connecting cable attached to the Nova's digital input. Its effect is money extremely well spent.
All the above components, one-by-one, helped slowly refine and shape the sound to its end result.
Posted on: 24 November 2018 by Dreamblademyth
Along with the acoustic panels used to treat the room, the speakers were positioned according to the Cardas room set up guide. Starting with the exact positioning stipulated, I tweaked the speakers' positioning to subtly refine the sound.
