Uniti 2.6.1

fred47 posted:

2.6. versus 2.6.1 on my Nova. I hear no difference.

Thx. Fred,  no reason to update than.

I’ve also updated my Star to 2.6.1, with a hope of some reward, however like most I don’t see much difference compared to 2.6

However - Playing around in the App I stumbled across the Audio Settings Screen, the top bar apears to be a Maximum Volume Limit, mine was at 85 out of 100.

I increased it to 100 and noticed an immediate increase in both volume and the sound quality, despite only listening at 35 on the system.

It clearly isn’t a max volume limit, it seems to throttle the entire output regardless of what volume your listening at.

Can anyone else try this, I’ve never changed this setting before, I don’t profess to be an Audiophile but I’m now enjoying my music again.

Anavrin posted:

I’ve also updated my Star to 2.6.1, with a hope of some reward, however like most I don’t see much difference compared to 2.6

However - Playing around in the App I stumbled across the Audio Settings Screen, the top bar apears to be a Maximum Volume Limit, mine was at 85 out of 100.

I increased it to 100 and noticed an immediate increase in both volume and the sound quality, despite only listening at 35 on the system.

It clearly isn’t a max volume limit, it seems to throttle the entire output regardless of what volume your listening at.

Can anyone else try this, I’ve never changed this setting before, I don’t profess to be an Audiophile but I’m now enjoying my music again.

This has been noted before by others who have increased the max. to 100. Naim assure us that there is no difference, and that any perceived improvement might be down to the simple fact that louder sounds better. 

Hi!

My Unity Core shows Firmware version 2.5 (9144).

How can I update my Unity Core?

Thank you.

The firmware update was for Atom, Star and Nova only.

Oh...thank you. My bad...I thought the Core is in the photo too of the announcement...sorry.

It’s OK I did a check on my Core, just in case

Have I missed an email or something else, my Nova/app can’t find 2.6.1from the check for updates.

If you restart your Nova it should find the update.

best

David

Thanks David.

So not much feed back at the moment or are people not bothering or seeing it as purely a bug not DSP change?

Obsydian posted:

So not much feed back at the moment or are people not bothering or seeing it as purely a bug not DSP change?

I suspect the majority never noticed the issues the firmware update addresses in the first place, those that did will be happy if those issues are fixed which is nice for them, but if a post above is anything to go by, those of us who dislike the newer sound are 'carping on about it' and presumably many of the 'I'm alright Jack' brigade have little interest.

I uodated last night and  listened to Gogo penguin in MQA last night on 2.6.1 sounded pretty good to me. Need more time with it to listen to others to compare to 2.3. 

I too did the upgrade today. Need some time to listen now. 

Obsydian posted:

So not much feed back at the moment or are people not bothering or seeing it as purely a bug not DSP change?

To be honest I lost track off what"s it all about?

Hi,
I have to admit, that new DSP version 1.0.28.0 which came with firmware update 2.6.1.9794 is wonderful for me. Much better then in 2.6 and 2.3.

More controlled bass, better soundstage and detail. I like it.

My system: Uniti Atom + Focal 926.

Really happy now.

tony123 posted:

Hi,
I have to admit, that new DSP version 1.0.28.0 which came with firmware update 2.6.1.9794 is wonderful for me. Much better then in 2.6 and 2.3.

More controlled bass, better soundstage and detail. I like it.

My system: Uniti Atom + Focal 926.

Really happy now.

Good to hear.

Difficult to say for certain how different the sound is with 2.6.1 compared to 2.6 as we can't go back to 2.6 without a copy of that, plus I didn't do much listening on 2.6 before going to 2.6.1 as there was a lot of noise in the house so I just tried the update.

My immediate feeling was that 2.6.1 is still quite harsh and loses the warmth of 2.3 which I still prefer, but I did feel that on several tracks bass seemed a lot fuller fuller (yes and much better controlled though perhaps that's what gives the perception of loss of warmth) than with 2.6 where several people felt the need to crank the volume up a fair bit to get the same subjective sound levels as 2.3.  Maybe this DSP is a compromise with the better detail in highs/mids retaining taughter bass of 2.6 but not attenuating it as much.

I strongly suspect if you liked 2.6 you'd like or prefer 2.6.1 but not necessarily so if you preferred 2.3 to 2.6.

All very interesting, and of course our musings are conjecture unless we know officially that a different DSP was used for its sonic characteristics to try to re-dress the balance a bit between 2.3 and 2.6 sound.

So 2.6.1 to me was more of 2.6 as well, but I seemed to have (fingers crossed) tweaked my way back to a boogie factor, still not what I recall with 2.3.1 which resulted in much singing (which is dreadful).

My concern is now every firmware will result in a DSP tweak to maintain or compensate or 'improve' the sound.

Call me old school I just want a sound I know from the day I buy, through years of upgrades, not a F.M.H.A. scenario.

I have seriously started looking at other non Naim streaming options, as one it is clear there are options out there (some say allot better) and for sure the way they manage firmware and apps is user drama free.

Makes you wonder why the DSP settings are being altered in the first place? 

My latest conspiracy theory it’s to try and make a good match to Focal speakers.

Unfortunately at the expense of others, ive seen a couple of comments from people with Focal who are happy with the sound and guess what 99% if dealers have on their demo systems? Also Focal being a step sibling to Naim it would make sense if the step kids could get on well together.

I am an engineer myself, not in audio, but I’ve worked for some large electronic companies, the likes of Philips, Toshiba and now Canon.

Whats exiting to me is the potential flexibility of these systems now that the firmware can so much alter the characteristic’s of the sound, in the past, this would be mostly hardware controlled and not very flexible post production.

For ultimate flexibility, several versions of DSP firmware could be produced and the user could choose based on their taste and/or speaker brand, maybe even a choice to upgrade the system firmware independently of the DSP, however I fear it will never happen that way.

Anavrin posted:

Makes you wonder why the DSP settings are being altered in the first place? 

My latest conspiracy theory it’s to try and make a good match to Focal speakers.

Unfortunately at the expense of others, ive seen a couple of comments from people with Focal who are happy with the sound and guess what 99% if dealers have on their demo systems? Also Focal being a step sibling to Naim it would make sense if the step kids could get on well together.

I am an engineer myself, not in audio, but I’ve worked for some large electronic companies, the likes of Philips, Toshiba and now Canon.

Whats exiting to me is the potential flexibility of these systems now that the firmware can so much alter the characteristic’s of the sound, in the past, this would be mostly hardware controlled and not very flexible post production.

For ultimate flexibility, several versions of DSP firmware could be produced and the user could choose based on their taste and/or speaker brand, maybe even a choice to upgrade the system firmware independently of the DSP, however I fear it will never happen that way.

 

well I suspect it's tested on Focals in the factory so yes, you could perhaps say it's optimised for Focal. Then again there are beta testers who presumably have a diverse range of speakers. Having listened to 2.6.1 for a week or so now I'm not convinced it's identical sonically to 2.6 but it's so hard to say in reality.

As has been confirmed elsewhere, Focals are just one of a number of speakers used at the factory for evaluation, most of them being Naim's own designs, including DBLs.

As for DSP changes, I'm reliably informed that every little change you make to the firmware potentially has a knock on effect to performance. I'm no expert, but this I guess makes sense, as it's consistent with Naim's discovery way back with their CD players that optimising this area was important to get best sound performance.  It may be small or perhaps insignificant to some but I imagine not to Naim, particularly at this level where even the smallest changes are audible.   As such I imagine the DSP sometimes needs to be tweaked to ensure the high performance is either maintained, or if opportunity presents itself, even improved.  On the latter point, Naim are always looking to get the best sound performance regardless, so if the DSP can be tweaked to improve this then Naim will do it.

By the way. Although at that moment I'm glad with sound quality from firmware 2.6.1, but I'm also afraid that the quality will change in the future (installing upcoming updates). I would like to fix the quality as it is, but I can't do that, and as I understand Naim also can't guarantee that.

I really would like to avoid such changes. Nobody knows what surprises are waiting us with new updates.

Does anybody know, If I switch to "NAIT XS2 + ND5-XS", will I avoid such sound quality changes from firmware updates? I think ND5-XS is also updatable via internet. So maybe this can also change sound qyality. Also is this setup considered better quality compared to Atom?

The ND5XS has updateable firmware too, although it's a lot more difficult to do and not just selected in the app like with the Atom. You would have the same uncertainty about sound changes with firmware updates. Also note that the ND5 XS has been discontinued, shortly to be replaced by a ND5 XS2.

I would stick with Atom unless you are looking for something that the alternatives distinctly give you.

best

David

The new ND5XS2 will be updated “over the air” but the original ND5XS is updated manually by downloding the update file from naim’s website so you would have the choice whether to update or not.

Richard Dane posted:

As has been confirmed elsewhere, Focals are just one of a number of speakers used at the factory for evaluation, most of them being Naim's own designs, including DBLs.

As for DSP changes, I'm reliably informed that every little change you make to the firmware potentially has a knock on effect to performance. I'm no expert, but this I guess makes sense, as it's consistent with Naim's discovery way back with their CD players that optimising this area was important to get best sound performance.  It may be small or perhaps insignificant to some but I imagine not to Naim, particularly at this level where even the smallest changes are audible.   As such I imagine the DSP sometimes needs to be tweaked to ensure the high performance is either maintained, or if opportunity presents itself, even improved.  On the latter point, Naim are always looking to get the best sound performance regardless, so if the DSP can be tweaked to improve this then Naim will do it.

That all sounds reasonable Richard and if Naim can improve on something then why not let their customers benefit? The only problem lies in what actually qualifies as an 'improvement'? Sonically that is, as it's so subjective. I guess one gets a consensus from all the testers, factory and beta. One mans medicine is another mans poison as they say and that seems to have played out in recent releases.