The naim uniti
Posted by: garyi on 08 August 2009
A good friend of mine has gone on his summer holidays and I managed to blag his uniti!
So in preparation I set up the drobo to run a upnp server. In all this has been the most difficult thing. The good news is I have trimmed out some of the stuff I simply do not listen too so had the library back down to about 10,000 tunes. However the majority of them are apple lossless. Now as I understand it the uniti can play what ever the server will throw at it. It turns out fuppes UPNP server for drobo does not throw out apple lossless.
I have my music backed up to another harddrive so consequently I have been in the process of converting them lossless to the highest quality MP3. A long process really when dealing with a NAS. About half way there after most of the day.
IN the mean time I have put the uniti in and fuppes server is dishing up the 3000 or so tracks already as ACC etc.
The uniti has been hooked up with ethernet. No doubt wireless works but I spent a lot of effort putting gigabit ethernet through the house so may as well use it.
I am not using the amp section of the uniti right now. Its hooked up straight and simple with line out to the supernait with a shitty pair of monster leads. The purpose of this is to get as far as possible a feel for the sound compared to my current set up which is a mac mini outputing into an nvi and passed through to the supernait for stereo replay.
To this end set up was very simple, ethernet lead in, phonos out and a power lead!
On turn on I have reset all settings, said friend might be pissed off on his return but hey there you go. Obviously first port of call is the UPNP section and sure enough boom there is the fuppes server. Thank god.
Now because a lot of the music is lossless a lot of the music choices simply lead to empty folders and thats fair enough I know why this is. Also picture jpgs etc appear in the folders regardless, no doubt there is a setting in fuppes, infact I am sure there is to turn off pictures being picked up.
I also have a lot of NFO files. Which are created by XBMC media programme to keep info on the music. Again fuppes picks this up and in some instances I land up with the music doubled up as it reads the NFO files. Not the fault of uniti and something I can deal with from XBMC.
The remote is one of the best from naim, apart from their metal jobs of course. A good weight and the buttons make a nice solid press.
So how does it sound?
Well I am disappointed. Disappointed that my assumptions on digital replay has been blown out of the water. My belief that a mac mini banged into a supernait was the be all and end all has been destroyed by a streaming section of a multi device from naim.
Put into a single word this thing is awesome. I am hearing great stereo separation and some seriously nice bass, its got that lovely feel to the sound where you are confident in turning it up if you know what I mean.
Kind of gives me the shits really, as the simple belief that the mini was the best was easy and done with 500 quid haha.
Anyway here we go then, pick one up if you have been thinking about it. There might be a bit of work to get your music library done but otherwise its dead easy and sounds superb. In the mean time I shall use Max or XLD to import some music as FLAC and see how that sounds as this is uspported by fuppes.
One other thing the iradio is fantastic, I cannot get a reception round here so internet based is obviously great news.
I just need to decide if I deny knowing my mate when he is back from holiday...
So in preparation I set up the drobo to run a upnp server. In all this has been the most difficult thing. The good news is I have trimmed out some of the stuff I simply do not listen too so had the library back down to about 10,000 tunes. However the majority of them are apple lossless. Now as I understand it the uniti can play what ever the server will throw at it. It turns out fuppes UPNP server for drobo does not throw out apple lossless.
I have my music backed up to another harddrive so consequently I have been in the process of converting them lossless to the highest quality MP3. A long process really when dealing with a NAS. About half way there after most of the day.
IN the mean time I have put the uniti in and fuppes server is dishing up the 3000 or so tracks already as ACC etc.
The uniti has been hooked up with ethernet. No doubt wireless works but I spent a lot of effort putting gigabit ethernet through the house so may as well use it.
I am not using the amp section of the uniti right now. Its hooked up straight and simple with line out to the supernait with a shitty pair of monster leads. The purpose of this is to get as far as possible a feel for the sound compared to my current set up which is a mac mini outputing into an nvi and passed through to the supernait for stereo replay.
To this end set up was very simple, ethernet lead in, phonos out and a power lead!
On turn on I have reset all settings, said friend might be pissed off on his return but hey there you go. Obviously first port of call is the UPNP section and sure enough boom there is the fuppes server. Thank god.
Now because a lot of the music is lossless a lot of the music choices simply lead to empty folders and thats fair enough I know why this is. Also picture jpgs etc appear in the folders regardless, no doubt there is a setting in fuppes, infact I am sure there is to turn off pictures being picked up.
I also have a lot of NFO files. Which are created by XBMC media programme to keep info on the music. Again fuppes picks this up and in some instances I land up with the music doubled up as it reads the NFO files. Not the fault of uniti and something I can deal with from XBMC.
The remote is one of the best from naim, apart from their metal jobs of course. A good weight and the buttons make a nice solid press.
So how does it sound?
Well I am disappointed. Disappointed that my assumptions on digital replay has been blown out of the water. My belief that a mac mini banged into a supernait was the be all and end all has been destroyed by a streaming section of a multi device from naim.
Put into a single word this thing is awesome. I am hearing great stereo separation and some seriously nice bass, its got that lovely feel to the sound where you are confident in turning it up if you know what I mean.
Kind of gives me the shits really, as the simple belief that the mini was the best was easy and done with 500 quid haha.
Anyway here we go then, pick one up if you have been thinking about it. There might be a bit of work to get your music library done but otherwise its dead easy and sounds superb. In the mean time I shall use Max or XLD to import some music as FLAC and see how that sounds as this is uspported by fuppes.
One other thing the iradio is fantastic, I cannot get a reception round here so internet based is obviously great news.
I just need to decide if I deny knowing my mate when he is back from holiday...
I don't know what a vanilla drobo is?
Yes I did have fuppes running direct from the drobo(Share) so its to all intents and purposes a NAS. It works but its listing everything int he folders, ds_stores, jpgs, etc etc. So I have stumped up for Allegro which is working fine. However it requires the mini to be running all the time.
I suppose I could moan about that except it runs allt he time anyhow
Napster. I am not sure what you mean by mistake. I think the way I am using this uniti is perhaps a little bit out of spec to what it was intended for. I would not hesitate to purchase as the solution it is, but long term how it works and sounds but as a streamer would be my preference. And when that product arrives I would expect digital out to be included.
If naim have no intention of releasing a streamer, then yes it was a mistake not to include one on the uniti!
Yes I did have fuppes running direct from the drobo(Share) so its to all intents and purposes a NAS. It works but its listing everything int he folders, ds_stores, jpgs, etc etc. So I have stumped up for Allegro which is working fine. However it requires the mini to be running all the time.
I suppose I could moan about that except it runs allt he time anyhow
Napster. I am not sure what you mean by mistake. I think the way I am using this uniti is perhaps a little bit out of spec to what it was intended for. I would not hesitate to purchase as the solution it is, but long term how it works and sounds but as a streamer would be my preference. And when that product arrives I would expect digital out to be included.
If naim have no intention of releasing a streamer, then yes it was a mistake not to include one on the uniti!