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

Obsydian posted:

Well maybe let's setup a poll and survey forum users.

My response related to the Naim response ( I was clearly told, tough it's approved and not for debate)  prior to Trevor post, but if that direction is to email Naim then I and others have already repeatedly done that, should we do so again.

Accept this maybe a Marmite topic, but lets imagine we changed the Naim sound on amps, again some may like it others may not - the option should be given which you want and supported by Naim.

Hi Obsydian,

You are correct that you have emailed us (18th April at 20:17 in the evening) and I replied back (19th April at 14:18) with rollback information for you so I'm not sure why you seem to be implying that we have not been (or are not) assisting those who have requested the rollback information.

Prior to that you had contacted us (24th March) and I had explained to you that we do not offer the facility to roll back firmware (which we do not).

We have had very few users contact us regarding sound quality issues on 2.6 or for rollback information, we do have accurate numbers though (and also how many people have actually downloaded the 2.3 rollback file to use it to roll back a unit) and are very much aware of how many units have been updated to 2.6 in the field as well as other feedback from customers across the board. We are very aware that the world of users extends beyond the forums too and as such we have specifically wanted to have customers contact us if they wanted the rollback information to ensure that we could get an accurate gauge of the scale of the issue as a whole.

Best

Phil

Richard - i will email again.

Phil - Response 26/03/18 reply was "There is no way to downgrade the firmware on your unit but having spoken with the listening panel representative here they approved the code before it was released as being a sound quality improvement over the previous release".

Thereafter when requesting the downgrade after this thread was "Be aware though that as we move forward with functionality / fixes etc. then if you decide to stay on older firmwares then you won’t be able to take advantage of any of that new functionality or those fixes."

Obsydian posted:

Richard - i will email again.

Phil - Response 26/03/18 reply was "There is no way to downgrade the firmware on your unit but having spoken with the listening panel representative here they approved the code before it was released as being a sound quality improvement over the previous release".

Thereafter when requesting the downgrade after this thread was "Be aware though that as we move forward with functionality / fixes etc. then if you decide to stay on older firmwares then you won’t be able to take advantage of any of that new functionality or those fixes."

Hi Obsydian,

(It never quite feels right using someones forum name when you've been in touch by email and know their real name...)

Absolutely - your specific quotes from our emails are accurate given the points that they were sent and received.

Best

Phil

So Phil or Trevor,

I have already made contact with Naim and requested a download link to 2.3, I also received the warning in the email about not staying current and loosing future improvements.

I had to revert back to 2.3 because quite genuinely I couldn't stomach or enjoy the sound from 2.6. The temptation to hit the off button due to fatigue whilst listening to music I had loved and enjoyed since getting the Atom was very surprising. I no longer experience such fatigue being back on 2.3.

I have had to forgo the multiroom functionality to my 2 Mu-So, but I am hoping another later firmware update will prove to be better sounding and ultimately allow me to use the touted multiroom functionality.

So Do I need to contact support again to register my issues or do you already have my details since requesting the downgrade?.

"Be aware though that as we move forward with functionality / fixes etc. then if you decide to stay on older firmwares then you won’t be able to take advantage of any of that new functionality or those fixes."

I don't  recall signing anything to say the product can significantly change or not work as advertised when I purchased it. Very poor by Naim.

Pulse Code, if you keep the firmware upgraded you'll be fine. All Naim are saying is a reminder that while you can stay on the original firmware, you won't have any improvements or new functionality that way.  To get that you have update the firmware. That's just how these things work.  Naim are trying to get to the bottom of why some are reporting experience of poor sound following the latest update.  It may possibly be something to do with the file itself and how its downloaded, but as I say it's being looked into and Naim are just asking for help in this from those who have reported poor sound. 

Pulse Code, if you keep the firmware upgraded you'll be fine. All Naim are saying is a reminder that while you can stay on the original firmware, you won't have any improvements or new functionality that way.  To get that you have update the firmware. That's just how these things work.  Naim are trying to get to the bottom of why some are reporting experience of poor sound following the latest update.  It may possibly be something to do with the file itself and how its downloaded, but as I say it's being looked into and Naim are just asking for help in this from those who have reported poor sound. 

They are saying that I have to accept the new sound to get bug fixes, if I don't like the new sound then I can't have bug fixes (by staying on the same firmware). I can accept this temporarily whilst they decide on the course of action to take but not as a permanent rule going forward - as their email seems to suggest. There should be no link between sound and bug fixes.

The problem with that is that whenever you make changes to the firmware then it always affects the sound in some way or other so it's always far more involved than it seems on the surface. The two things are to some extent interlinked. The trick is in making changes that give you the stability and features you want while also maintaining or even improving the sound performance as much as possible. 

Naim are experts at optimising the sound of their products and send a great deal of time ensuring it meets their extremely demanding standards.  If it sounds bad, then something is wrong, and contrary to what most have experienced and what has been experienced within Naim.  Obviously Naim want to find out why this should be.  That sounds reasonable to me.

Mercky posted:

I can’t get my head around 2.6, tonight I was listening to a favourite prog on iradio which plays an eclectic mix of music, it’s only 128k but it sounded excellent I have to say. Right now I’m listening to Jon Hassell ‘Tonight the Moon came dropping it’s clothes’ on Tidal and it sounds sublime, bags of detail AND bass! Am I burning in to 2.6? 

This has happened to me to. I downgraded back to 2.3 and then after some listening went back to 2.6 to compare. This time 2.6 sounded completely different , gone is the harshness and the depth has returned. Its a complete mystery to me. I have to say I am happy to stick with this 2.6 now.

SimonPeterArnold posted:

Mercky posted:

I can’t get my head around 2.6, tonight I was listening to a favourite prog on iradio which plays an eclectic mix of music, it’s only 128k but it sounded excellent I have to say. Right now I’m listening to Jon Hassell ‘Tonight the Moon came dropping it’s clothes’ on Tidal and it sounds sublime, bags of detail AND bass! Am I burning in to 2.6? 

This has happened to me to. I downgraded back to 2.3 and then after some listening went back to 2.6 to compare. This time 2.6 sounded completely different , gone is the harshness and the depth has returned. Its a complete mystery to me. I have to say I am happy to stick with this 2.6 now.

Although I was one of the lucky ones who got good SQ the first time around, I find this worrying. This suggests that there is some state interaction on the Unitis where new firmware works differently on the same device in different circumstances. Obviously I'm delighted for you Simon that you have got the system working properly again, I've felt almost guilty having a system which didn't deteriorate. But I feel nervous that we seem to have a situation where a box responds differently to two installations of the same firmware.

Yep its worrying. and frustrating.

SimonPeterArnold posted:

Mercky posted:

I can’t get my head around 2.6, tonight I was listening to a favourite prog on iradio which plays an eclectic mix of music, it’s only 128k but it sounded excellent I have to say. Right now I’m listening to Jon Hassell ‘Tonight the Moon came dropping it’s clothes’ on Tidal and it sounds sublime, bags of detail AND bass! Am I burning in to 2.6? 

This has happened to me to. I downgraded back to 2.3 and then after some listening went back to 2.6 to compare. This time 2.6 sounded completely different , gone is the harshness and the depth has returned. Its a complete mystery to me. I have to say I am happy to stick with this 2.6 now.

Sounds like exactly what happened to me except my Atom came good on it's own without the downgrade/upgrade process. It's as if the 2.6 download dident actually initiate itself properly but then sorted itself out, I only did a reset early on and it was a bit better after I think but nothing like the improvement that appeared out of nowhere last night. I accept that it can take a bit of time to adapt to a new presentation but this was more then that and definitely not my imagination or some sort of bias or placebo. Bass extension reappeared, simple things like Radio Paradise which sounded crap before now sounds lovely, the low volume thing that a few noticed and I'm fairly sure affected me too seemed to vanish, I normally listen at 40 if I want a slightly loud presentation but found I had to up it to around 45 before, now 40 seems fine and perhaps louder if anything. There's definitely a lot more definition and detail though but I like it a lot and from memory it sounds more like 2.3 but with added definition. I'm just hoping it stays this way , I requested a 2.3 downgrade but heard nothing back, happy to stick with 2.6 but I wouldent mind going back to 2.3 as a reminder and then back to 2.6 in the hope that it loads correctly second time around. It would seem there is perhaps some technical reason or bug as to why 2.6 does not always 'take' fully when downloaded and would explain why some units are not affected at all, some are ok after reloading, some are not and some (in my case) sorted themselves out. Odd. 

Eoink posted:

SimonPeterArnold posted:

Mercky posted:

I can’t get my head around 2.6, tonight I was listening to a favourite prog on iradio which plays an eclectic mix of music, it’s only 128k but it sounded excellent I have to say. Right now I’m listening to Jon Hassell ‘Tonight the Moon came dropping it’s clothes’ on Tidal and it sounds sublime, bags of detail AND bass! Am I burning in to 2.6? 

This has happened to me to. I downgraded back to 2.3 and then after some listening went back to 2.6 to compare. This time 2.6 sounded completely different , gone is the harshness and the depth has returned. Its a complete mystery to me. I have to say I am happy to stick with this 2.6 now.

Although I was one of the lucky ones who got good SQ the first time around, I find this worrying. This suggests that there is some state interaction on the Unitis where new firmware works differently on the same device in different circumstances. Obviously I'm delighted for you Simon that you have got the system working properly again, I've felt almost guilty having a system which didn't deteriorate. But I feel nervous that we seem to have a situation where a box responds differently to two installations of the same firmware.

While some of the results reported in this thread could, in principle, be explained by conjecturing differences in the hardware of units of the same type, Simon's results suggest that, for the very same unit, the outcome of an upgrade can depend on the unit's state.

If confirmed, this would certainly be annoying but not something to be particularly worried about, in my view: it would merely indicate that the upgrading software contains errors. We know that software can contain errors. Firmware certainly can do so: this is the very reason why we require and expect firmware upgrades. If firmware can contain errors, so does the software that actually performs firmware upgrades. 

I am not a Nova or Atom owner but I am wandering whether these devices do not have an option for restoring the unit's factory settings. Perhaps users that have experienced sound quality degradation in upgrading from 2.3 to 2.6 and have meanwhile reverted to 2.3 could try upgrading again after having restored the factory settings? Just my two cents, of course. I hope Naim will readily sort out the problem!

You can restore factory settings on the Atom/ Nova/Star. I did this both times I upgraded to 2.6 but with different results. But I did not do a factory reset when I  downgraded, Maybe this combination of events made it work. Who knows?

SimonPeterArnold posted:

You can restore factory settings on the Atom/ Nova/Star. I did this both times I upgraded to 2.6 but with different results. But I did not do a factory reset when I  downgraded, Maybe this combination of events made it work. Who knows?

Naim seem to have a strong tradition in puzzling users with firmware upgrades: after my first nDAC firmware upgrade, the device could not read any music file from the very same USB stick that I had used for upgrading the firmware! I thought that I had bricked the device and ran to my dealer but it turned out that the upgrade had been successful and the nDAC was just fine: it was just that the new firmware contained no longer drivers for that USB stick! The second and last firmware upgrade went through fine and the improvement in sound quality was very noticeable: I rewarded the nDAC with a new SL interconnector!

The fact that two upgrades from factory settings have brought very different results, suggests that the code that restores factory settings in the 2.3 firmware is broken or that the upgrading procedure is not deterministic. In any case, I'm glad to hear that your device sounds great again!

Spent the day listening to my Atom, whilst I was initially scepticle about posts on here about the sound changing I feel that the midrange has got harsher and it has lost some of the musicality.

nbpf posted:

SimonPeterArnold posted:

You can restore factory settings on the Atom/ Nova/Star. I did this both times I upgraded to 2.6 but with different results. But I did not do a factory reset when I  downgraded, Maybe this combination of events made it work. Who knows?

Naim seem to have a strong tradition in puzzling users with firmware upgrades: after my first nDAC firmware upgrade, the device could not read any music file from the very same USB stick that I had used for upgrading the firmware! I thought that I had bricked the device and ran to my dealer but it turned out that the upgrade had been successful and the nDAC was just fine: it was just that the new firmware contained no longer drivers for that USB stick! The second and last firmware upgrade went through fine and the improvement in sound quality was very noticeable: I rewarded the nDAC with a new SL interconnector!

The fact that two upgrades from factory settings have brought very different results, suggests that the code that restores factory settings in the 2.3 firmware is broken or that the upgrading procedure is not deterministic. In any case, I'm glad to hear that your device sounds great again!

When I said worrying above I meant that I don’t want to think that when I apply a firmware upgrade I might get a downgrade in performance if my system is in the wrong state. OK I might be able to fix it by reapplying one or more times, but that isn’t what I want to have to do. Luckily I think the major feature releases are now in place (multi-room), so I don’t think there is a need for many more code drops. Having said that, there are still some minor bugs reported, and I’d hate to find a drop in sound quality applying a fix for say the frozen album/track art. 

Back to an earlier point, it could be that there is variation in component supply, but given that the Unitis are less than a year on the market, I’d be surprised if there had been a material change in any component. Naim are a very professional engineering company who secure their supplies, look at the threads about the CD players. (And having had my 1984 built 135s serviced in the last year or so I am very impressed by their engineering continuity.)

You can add me to the list of people who were less than impressed with the 2.6 upgrade on the Nova. Then, out of interest more than anything I did a factory reset and bang - it was immediately obvious the bass was back, as was the pace and general life that had gone so audibly missing. The harsh edge dissapeared too so I now am sitting listening with a biggish  smile on my face again, though with the extra detail 2.6 gives now.THere's still a littel voice in my head saying the original sound was better but my memory may be wrong -  I don't think I'll be going back (I haven't asked Naim for the firmware), but, as I said before, I think we should have been told that there was a sonic change to the update so that we were able to chose to install or not.

I can't think of a reason why the update should produce different sonic results for different devices, there should be enough error checking to ensure it's installed correctly. A fault in the routines should surely have affected all installations of the software. I'd have thought "incorrectly applied" software would brick the thing, not change the SQ. I do hope we get to find out.

TallGuy posted:

...

I can't think of a reason why the update should produce different sonic results for different devices, there should be enough error checking to ensure it's installed correctly. A fault in the routines should surely have affected all installations of the software. I'd have thought "incorrectly applied" software would brick the thing, not change the SQ. I do hope we get to find out.

Have you ever written software for non-trivial systems?

I can think of many reasons why a firmware upgrade could produce different results for different devices and there are many possible ways in which a software error can lead to unexpected, even non-reproducible results!

Assessing the correctness of software by testing can be very difficult or even impossible in practice! Proving that a software is correct is typically difficult and requires advanced formal methods. If at all, such methods are at the present applied only for critical software: software for nuclear power plants and weapons, medical equipment, air traffic control systems, trading systems, etc.

Even if Naim and the beta testers have worked very thoroughly, software errors cannot be ruled out and their effects can indeed be very puzzling! Spotting software errors can also be rather difficult and time consuming. Establishing the absence of errors is, in most practical cases, impossible.

Just read this and did a factory reset on the Atom, is it really this simple to solve or haven’t my ears adjusted after just getting out of bed? 

Initial listening seems to suggest it is singing again

Surely they could programme the update software to factory reset device at the end of the update process. As it seems this is a necessary step to achieve the correct sq.

Ok my ears are awake, I believe that the factory reset has resolved the issues with my Atom.

would welcome some more feedback from others after performing a factory reset, if only to confirm that my ears aren’t deceiving me.

I have contacted Naim about the latest firmware (sq) issues. After reading the latest posts here, decided to do the factory reset. Still confused, but it seems things have improved. Found myself tapping my feet again . For sure Naim has something to improve if updates require a factory reset to work properly.

Hi all Atom / Nova user,

I am using Atom since last July, performed every upgrade released and also suffered sound quality degrade issue. After reading this topic, I also perform reset through the remote control. 

But that sound degrade seems still exist.

i have emailed the support, asking for firmware downgrade option, but still no feed back before this weekend.

Can user king enough (who feel that mojo back after factory reset) list out how they perform factory reset?

as I am afraid that i reset it wrongly 

No amount of resets will restore the sound (or make it better), I've gone from 2.3.1 > 2.6 > 2.3 > 2.6 > 2.3 with endless factory resets before and after and the results with 2.3 and 2.6 were exactly the same.