Naim Nova Break In?

I can't answer your breakin question, but there are a couple of things I would try, just to confirm that the Nova is running optimally. 

1) Play some CD quality or HiRes files through a simple UPnP server or USB stick, just to make sure that the computer/M2tech setup isn't compromising the sound. 

2) Ask your dealer if you can borrow some well run in NACA5 and see how it compares to the Odyssey. 

Maybe experiment with room acoustics and positioning too. 

Thank you for the suggestions :-) Will try at the next opportunity

Just wait for a month or two for the system to run in and perform as it should. Make sure that the Nova and the speakers are on good supports; presumably the speakers are on stands? Bear in mind that the M10s are £500 speakers and that their ultimate performance will be limited. When I heard a Nova it was with Dynaudio Contour 20s, and I thought is sounded rather lovely. 

HH is right...the Emit 10 is basically Dynaudio’s entry level speaker,and could be holding back the Nova.I am a Dyn lover/user myself,and own several of their speakers,the excite 12’s I have sound great with my 272/250DR,but there is only so much bass they can output.I recently got a pair of special 40’s,these give me a much fuller bass,and overall a better sound in all area’s.I suspect you need more speaker to get the most out of the Nova,having never heard one myself.

Thanks, totally agree about the need to upgrade the speakers. In fact this is the plan but I first wanted to settle with the Nova a bit. 

The M10s might be the culprit behind the bass emphasis but this was not apparent at the demo with the Atom. It could be my living room, Nova's sound flavour, the source, need for break in and I am sure a lot of other factors. I just wanted to rule out the 'sound flavour' element :-)

Cheers

Dynaudio M10's are rear ported speakers - like my B&W CM1's and CM5's. I prefer to have the ports closed. It reduces bass especially in the range you mentioned. Try to close them, or move the speakers further from the wall. M10 are great speakers, you need to spend much to get significantly better results I'm afraid.

Assuming the speaker itself doesn't have an annoying resonance at the indicated frequency (which for Dynaudio would seem unlikely, and should have been evident at the demo), a prominence at one or two particular frequencies in that region suggests a room effect, so playing with speaker and listening positions would seem appropriate. Bunging the port would reduce the level of the peak relative to higher frequencies - but would also be likely to reduce the bass either side of the peak, whereas what is needed is to reduce just the peak frequency/ies.

Thanks for the good ideas guys, I will try moving the speakers around later this evening. Will try a few Hi Res tracks via UpnP and as if all else fails, I can use the Roon Dsp to tweak the specific frequencies to taste. 

Will need to experiment 

Try Naca5

is the ground switch set on chassis rather than floating ?

oh and try a normal naim power cable rather than power line lite

analogmusic posted:

Try Naca5

is the ground switch set on chassis rather than floating ?

oh and try a normal naim power cable rather than power line lite

For a stand alone unit it should set to Chassis.

thanks guys, it is indeed set to chassis so we are good there.

Nearly 2 weeks on my Nova and it is steadily improving though it sounded superb straight out of the box. No roller coaster here which some of the posh boxes seem to inflict, just lovely then even lovelier. I wouldn't expect any radical change in tonal balance as a result of run in.

The bass is very well controlled - deep but articulate and tuneful - much better than my Superuniti which was very good in itself. Don't blame the Nova!

It looks like the room is to blame guys. Bass gathers around corners for sure so the slight bass emphasis only appears around these areas.

Slight bass boom expands in other areas of the room only after raising the volume to above 70db (at 6ft away) and only with some bass heavy tracks. 

As you suggested I tested with direct streaming and the sound definitely improves. Some tracks via Spotify are more prone to boom but again only after volume is increased beyond a certain level. 

Speakers are on Dynaudio stands on spikes so it was easy to move them around. It seems this made no difference at all.

It is interesting to compare the sound of the Nova + Dyns with my previous setup: Rega Elicit-r + Dyns. The Rega was quite lean in the bass, actually a bit too much for my taste. It was impossible to create bass boom with that setup but the sound was too lean and narrow for my taste. 

Either way, I call this solved and I am sure things will further improve when I upgrade speakers

Many thanks for all the help guys

Out of curiosity, how BIG is the room? 

Roughly 4m by 6m (13ft by  20ft). My hifi is not ideally positioned unfortunately. It is near the corner of the room and even worse, there is a shallow alcove around it. Speakers are on dynaudio stands with 40cm distance from the back wall. Then there is the shallow alcove that surrounds them. It is not too bad but I am sure it adds to room bass problems. Still, I managed to get 1.5m clearance from the sides. 

Appartment living stinks sometimes...

If you can move the speakers and listening chair further into the room away from wall boundaries, at least 50-60cm if you can. You can also insert the foam bungs that came with the speakers to reduce bass.

The fact that the Nova is providing more bass just goes to show it's doing its job, driving the speakers properly.

Halloween Man posted:

If you can move the speakers and listening chair further into the room away from wall boundaries, at least 50-60cm if you can. You can also insert the foam bungs that came with the speakers to reduce bass.

The fact that the Nova is providing more bass just goes to show it's doing its job, driving the speakers properly.

Indeed, against-the-wall (or in-corner) listening position is not the best, just as it is not best for most speakers, albeit sometimes unavoidable in multi-purpose rooms such as a family lounge. When I once had no choice but that, I set things up for a more forward position, and plonked a seat there for myself when listening alone - the rest of the time if music was on it was more background than serious listening, so deficiencies less critical.

I found that using REW (Room Equalisation Wizard), which is free software that enables all sorts of acoustic measurements, gave an easy way to assess what was happening in the room - in one mode you can simply walk around the room with a microphone and see clearly and objectively how the frequency response changes, where there are nodes and antinodes etc, which can help no end with positioning - doing that is what facilitated my own radical room rearrangement when I moved into my present house, completely different from the originally envisaged layout of the room. (The only cost is a suitable measuring microphone, quite inexpensive.)

Another thing that can be done (whatever the speaker and listening positions) is to add bass traps, though that needs some research (and, sensibly, room measurement) to get it right, and      assumes available space for them.

On the subject of the Nova driving the speakers correctly, the converse could also be true, in that a decrease in control of the speakers could cause the bass to wallow and notes decay longer, increasing the bass energy in the room and hence the bass prominence, but 'slow' rather than 'fast' bass. I am not suggesting that is the case with the Nova in this instance, just highlighting the alternative effect. In fact I suspect the M10 is far from a difficult load, and not difficult for an amp to control, and if that were not the case it might have been expected to show up at the demo.

Break in, I'm I think two months on and today anothe subtle but noticeable improvement to bass and midrange - beast just gets better and I heard the price has gone up again - WTF, so it sounds even sweeter to me.