Uniti Atom/Nova/Star - New firmware - March/April 2018 Comments

Peder posted:

???? Alley Cat,...???? you answer most of my questions before I have posted them,...Thanks.

/Peder ???? 

Only thing I’m not sure if they’re officially available in Sweden yet.

Alley Cat posted:

Peder posted:

???? Alley Cat,...???? you answer most of my questions before I have posted them,...Thanks.

/Peder ???? 

Only thing I’m not sure if they’re officially available in Sweden yet.

Ok,is it just an English service than.....if you are from England.I look in your profile, but you haven't write anything.

/Peder???? 

Peder posted:

Alley Cat posted:

Peder posted:

???? Alley Cat,...???? you answer most of my questions before I have posted them,...Thanks.

/Peder ???? 

Only thing I’m not sure if they’re officially available in Sweden yet.

Ok,is it just an English service than.....if you are from England.I look in your profile, but you haven't write anything.

/Peder???? 

No it's a French service:

https://help.qobuz.com/hc/en-u...-is-Qobuz-available-

I assume this relates to a Swedish record label:

https://www.qobuz.com/ie-en/la...oad-streaming-albums

Qobuz does not have the same catalogue as Tidal and misses a lot of music I listen too. Its strong on classical and Jazz though. So it rreally depends on your listening tastes and habits to if it suits your needs. If it had a wider net for my listening and was in Roon i would consider it again but it's doesn't and I really don't like their app or customer service. I did have it for a while and then got rid of it for the above reasons. They keep enticing me back with 3 free months.

???? Alley Cat,...Thank 's for that,interesting reading.

???? SimonPeterArnold,....Good to know,I'm not so much an Jazz or Classical guy....but of course I listen to it. They write that they have 40 millions of tracks,but if I understand you right so maybe 50 to 65% at least of that is Jazz/Classic.

But is it like Mr Orange write,that it has better SQ than Tidal....?

/Peder???? 

Personally I've not tried Tidal.  Don't like their website or their compressed looking artwork in the store when you search for something but I have no idea on their sound quality.

I assume you can buy digital downloads without subscribing (you can from Qobuz) but they don;t specify much info so assume purchases are all CD quality FLAC.

Tidal is clearly a commercial service for the masses, Qobuz I believe focus more on quality but in some areas probably can't compete with Tidal/Spotify, especially I suspect expanding their services to beyond the countries listed.

Qobuz nearly went bust a few years ago but were bought out by Xandrie and have had a lot of investment.

If you are able I'd do a trial of each service to test or maybe buy something and see how the download process works.

As far as the new Uniti devices go they can't process MQA I gather so all Tidal streaming will be up to CD quality, no better even if you have an MQA type subscription.

Alley Cat, Tidal is only a streaming site, like Spotify, Deezer etc. they do not sell downloads. 

ChrisSU posted:

Alley Cat, Tidal is only a streaming site, like Spotify, Deezer etc. they do not sell downloads. 

Why then if I go to Store and search for an artist am I offered an MP3 or FLAC purchase?

Is it maybe a US only feature?

https://support.tidal.com/hc/e...089-Purchasing-Music

Try for example:

http://tidal.com/gb/store/artist/10597

Say I choose Heavy Horses (Steven Wilson remix) and click download I’m offered MP3 for £10.99 or FLAC for more.

So, to bring things back on topic,  I requested 2.3 today from support so I presume I’ll get a mail in the next day or two. I installed a Cisco 2960 this evening and everything is sounding rather nice despite 2.6. The detail is quite addictive and for some reason it’s not sounding as harsh today which I suspect is more my ears adapting to the new presentation rather then anything else. The switch I think adds a bit more flow but there’s no night and day difference with it. I’ll rock on with 2.6 for a few days to become completely used to it and then switch back to 2.3 on the weekend and see how I feel. What a head wreck! 

Alley Cat posted:

Try for example:

http://tidal.com/gb/store/artist/10597

Say I choose Heavy Horses (Steven Wilson remix) and click download I’m offered MP3 for £10.99 or FLAC for more.

I guess it must be US only, I've never heard of it before. Mind you, £10.99 for an MP3? Thanks, but no thanks!

ChrisSU posted:

Alley Cat posted:

Try for example:

http://tidal.com/gb/store/artist/10597

Say I choose Heavy Horses (Steven Wilson remix) and click download I’m offered MP3 for £10.99 or FLAC for more.

I guess it must be US only, I've never heard of it before. Mind you, £10.99 for an MP3? Thanks, but no thanks!

Yes, very steep, almost £20 for the CD quality FLAC!  Qobuz want >£18 for it mind you.

Just looking at the URL it is a GB part of the site so perhaps we can buy from them too.

Mercky posted:

So, to bring things back on topic....

I've played a bit more tonight and thought I might like the extra detail, but afraid the harshness/brashness drove me round the bend on certain albums - I almost think there's something wrong with the DSP in 2.6, it just robs a whole layer of warmth/fullness and voices sound dry and flat.  Bizarre.

Also played an LP that sounded lifeless the other day on 2.6 and it's throughly enjoyable on 2.3.

Sorry for late reply, Yes it is HI-FI subscibtion,  try for 3 Months free.   Flac 16/44

https://try.qobuz.com/special-...utm_campaign=rst2018

I'm still OK with the sound quality on 2.6 (and feeling confused as I think I am the only one here who is), but last night for the first time in the 6 months I've had the Nova it has had the issue which leaves the artwork frozen on one album (and one track). An overnght sleep didn't fix it, but deep sleep (holding in power button and restarting from power button) did. I thought that was an issue 2.6 was meant to have fixed rather than triggered.

SQ-wise I'm pretty happy, I got home at 9.30pm yesterday, thought I'd play one album before bed, had to stop after 2 to get some sleep. I find the presentation very engaging (except for one new album which seemed to be the recording itself judging by the 2 reviews I found online) and I do keep wanting to listen to more music.

Another Nova owner happy with 2.6 here. I'm a beta tester and we kissed a lot of frogs! I'm puzzled at the extreme reactions of some people to the DSP in 2.6  - I've tried quite a few and the differences to me are real but relatively subtle. Even the "worst" still sounded more than acceptable.

Pev posted:

Another Nova owner happy with 2.6 here. I'm a beta tester and we kissed a lot of frogs! I'm puzzled at the extreme reactions of some people to the DSP in 2.6  - I've tried quite a few and the differences to me are real but relatively subtle. Even the "worst" still sounded more than acceptable.

and the Atom? Also, I see you have a sub, a lot of people, myself included with the Atom, find the bass a little reserved

I would expect the SQ on the Nova to be far superior than the Atom, otherwise why are you paying double the price, surely not for double the watts. I would expect the hardware or components would be superior to what we have in our Atoms.

So it's not like we're comparing apples to apples.

Interesting comment about "kissing frogs"

Pev posted:

Another Nova owner happy with 2.6 here. I'm a beta tester and we kissed a lot of frogs! I'm puzzled at the extreme reactions of some people to the DSP in 2.6  - I've tried quite a few and the differences to me are real but relatively subtle. Even the "worst" still sounded more than acceptable.

It is also conceivable that on some devices something unexpected took place during the process of upgrading to 2.6. Perhaps it would be useful if some of those who have reverted to 2.3 (and found back the sound that they were missing under 2.6) would try to upgrade again. This would confirm (to a certain degree) that the differences in sound quality are due to differences in the firmware and not in the upgrading process.

nbpf posted:

Pev posted:

Another Nova owner happy with 2.6 here. I'm a beta tester and we kissed a lot of frogs! I'm puzzled at the extreme reactions of some people to the DSP in 2.6  - I've tried quite a few and the differences to me are real but relatively subtle. Even the "worst" still sounded more than acceptable.

It is also conceivable that on some devices something unexpected took place during the process of upgrading to 2.6. Perhaps it would be useful if some of those who have reverted to 2.3 (and found back the sound that they were missing under 2.6) would try to upgrade again. This would confirm (to a certain degree) that the differences in sound quality are due to differences in the firmware and not in the upgrading process.

I've done that a few times now.

The difference between the 2 firmwares is night and day for me, and this implies to me that most people either like it so have need to search for a solution or post, haven't done the update yet,  or worryingly (for people who pay a premium for audio equipment) that they simply haven't noticed any difference at all before and after.

It's significant enough for me that I don't think I'd have bought the Nova in the context of other system components if I'd demoed it with 2.6.

Pulse Code posted:

My email from Naim support:

The 2.6 firmware update was carefully listened to and selected from a number of different firmwares and was chosen as being a sound quality improvement over the previous firmware. (sic)

Very interesting reply from Naim support. Makes me feel like we need presets to choose the flavor one prefers, like eq presets that usually do not exist in highend audio equipment like naim. ????

Pev posted:

Another Nova owner happy with 2.6 here. I'm a beta tester and we kissed a lot of frogs! I'm puzzled at the extreme reactions of some people to the DSP in 2.6  - I've tried quite a few and the differences to me are real but relatively subtle. Even the "worst" still sounded more than acceptable.

Yes, puzzling, the differences are far from subtle for me sounds like a completely different device.

My Nova sounds just as you described earlier with 2.6. Dry, liveless, thin,no mojo. fatigue setting in early.Norah jones sounds as she is shouting 

Alley Cat posted:

nbpf posted:

Pev posted:

Another Nova owner happy with 2.6 here. I'm a beta tester and we kissed a lot of frogs! I'm puzzled at the extreme reactions of some people to the DSP in 2.6  - I've tried quite a few and the differences to me are real but relatively subtle. Even the "worst" still sounded more than acceptable.

It is also conceivable that on some devices something unexpected took place during the process of upgrading to 2.6. Perhaps it would be useful if some of those who have reverted to 2.3 (and found back the sound that they were missing under 2.6) would try to upgrade again. This would confirm (to a certain degree) that the differences in sound quality are due to differences in the firmware and not in the upgrading process.

I've done that a few times now.

The difference between the 2 firmwares is night and day for me, and this implies to me that most people either like it so have need to search for a solution or post, haven't done the update yet,  or worryingly (for people who pay a premium for audio equipment) that they simply haven't noticed any difference at all before and after.

It's significant enough for me that I don't think I'd have bought the Nova in the context of other system components if I'd demoed it with 2.6.

In this case, the final test would be to borrow another unit from a dealer and verify that the differences that you hear between 2.3 and 2.6 in your unit can also be heard on another device. A positive result would provide a strong indication that the differences that we are talking about are differences between Nova listeners and not differences between Nova units!