Does Uniti Need A Competitor?

Strange question. Rumours from Glasgow ?

james n posted:

Strange question. Rumours from Glasgow ?

"a nod’s as guid as a wink tae a blind horse”, Jimmy.

The sincerest form of flattery?

Nonsense question. There are similarly priced all in-ones from a variety of hi-end manufacturers if you care to look. AVM, Esoteric, Linn and the list could go on and on if I bothered searching a bit more.

Naim have these products already in a market with competition. Therefore, they were never designed in a niche vacuum in the first place and by all accounts, they are pretty fine products.

The hi-end all in one music player is a fairly common modern phenomena brought about by massive changes in society. With home sizes shrinking and home ownership down in many countries, a hi-fi in a box fills a need that many manufacturers have identified. In fact it is merely the level of product that is new. In essence, these all-in-ones are "receivers" from the 70's brought back to life for the modern age.

In fact, some retailers simply list Uniti products in their "receivers" section. Which is 100% accurate in my opinion, even if not a word Naim would want associated with their products.

I think “Music Centre “ might fit better than “Receiver”.

Naim have been making these types of products for quite a few years now remember the Nvi?

Bob the Builder posted:

Naim have been making these types of products for quite a few years now remember the Nvi?

The n-Vi was a very different product.  Very much Multichannel AV focussed with its internal DVD player, multichannel processing and amplification.  

The original Uniti was where it all began. Hard to believe it's almost 10 years ago since it was released.

The Nvi was an all in one player albeit AV based as is the Uniti they are similar because they both have a source, pre and amp in one box in the same way that a Valve amp is similar to a digital amp they both amplify music.

Getting back on thread Linn (if it is Linn) usually have the jump on Naim when it comes to source products apart from maybe CD players and made their first all in one player back in 2003 remember the Classik?

If Linn have developed an all in one to compete with the Uniti then I would expect it to be a very close run thing between the two.

The big problem with any all-in-one AV processor is that in 10 years time, the unit might still be excellent quality but formats move on (DVD to BRD), as do audio formats and connections.

Even with just an AV receiver, I've had to effectively ditch perfectly good items simply because they had D4 instead of HDMI needed by a new TV or I wanted Dolby True HD or DTS-MA. Which is really odd, AV is the one area really dominated by the receiver model yet it is the one area that would benefit from decoupling of pre and power far more than stereo. I would have so preferred to have just swapped out a AV preamp rather than the whole unit.

Naim, if you are listening, a shoebox AV "preamp" designed for use with a stack of NAP100 would not go amiss.

Bob the Builder posted:

If Linn have developed an all in one to compete with the Uniti then I would expect it to be a very close run thing between the two.

But they do. Majik DSM is not new. I demoed it against a Uniti in 2013.

I don’t even understand the question. If someone introduced a competitor, would it be better than the Uniti? Would it make Naim improve the Uniti? Would it reduce Naim’s customers? Would it reduce the overall customer base? If it looks like a Uniti, does what a Uniti does and sounds like a Uniti, then it might be a........ Uniti. There are loads of similar products out there, all of which do their own thing in their own way. What’s the question?

hungryhalibut posted:

I don’t even understand the question. If someone introduced a competitor, would it be better than the Uniti? Would it make Naim improve the Uniti? Would it reduce Naim’s customers? Would it reduce the overall customer base? If it looks like a Uniti, does what a Uniti does and sounds like a Uniti, then it might be a........ Uniti. There are loads of similar products out there, all of which do their own thing in their own way. What’s the question?

I don't think its a question HH, its a subtle hint about what may or may not be announced later today 

I wonder where they got their design styling cues from?

Gazza posted:

I wonder where they got their design styling cues from?

My smoke alarm.

Well not sure about no plastic without seeing in the flesh. But after a year with my Nova and our visit to Naim HQ where they stressed the effort needed to regain SQ due to screen......I would much rather have no screen and better SQ

Alba1320 posted:

 

 (From "the-ear")

If this is one of the products that Linn has been so secret about,..Then it is only to note that Linn succeeded with their industrial espionage ????.

But at the same time,Linn seems here to go back to their earlier LK-series format,which they used for a long time from the 80 century onwards.

/Peder ????

But once they had the sound quality they wanted with the screen would deleting the screen require further changes to retain the sound quality? I've only used the screen in order to access the settings to turn it off and if I don't it keeps getting stuck on an album at some point and won't display the current one anyway. On the whole I'd rather do without it. (this refers to the ND555 rather than the Uniti but it's still a redundant screen). Perhaps they could offer a screen deletion kit as an upgrade or for when it fails.

I would rather the time and money spent putting in a screen, software etc...then even more time and money spent recovering SQ.....just spend the finite budget on SQ, not a screen. It’s a bit of a novelty at first, but it’s not legible from where I sit anyway.

ho hum... whatever... 

feeling_zen posted:

The big problem with any all-in-one AV processor is that in 10 years time, the unit might still be excellent quality but formats move on (DVD to BRD), as do audio formats and connections.

 

Sounds like some other all in one players I could mention.

It looks like the war of customers have started,so here ended a large English Hifi magazine its writing....

It seems Linn is coming after Naim’s five-star Uniti range in a big way…
◾ Naim Uniti Nova review
◾ Naim Uniti Star review
◾ Naim Uniti Atom review

Whether the Selekt DSM can ultimately knock certain class-leading competitors off their perch remains to be heard,but regardless of rivalry we have a sneaking suspicion it won’t have trouble finding a fanbase.

/Peder???? 

Now that does look rather nice and connected up to a Naim amp would sound rather nice to I suspect.  It's areal shame that Linn and Naim can't get together like they used to create something very special Linn Source/Naim amp a modern day LP12/32.5/Hicap/250.

Peder posted:

It looks like the war of customers have started,so here ended a large English Hifi magazine its writing....

It seems Linn is coming after Naim’s five-star Uniti range in a big way…
◾ Naim Uniti Nova review
◾ Naim Uniti Star review
◾ Naim Uniti Atom review

Whether the Selekt DSM can ultimately knock certain class-leading competitors off their perch remains to be heard,but regardless of rivalry we have a sneaking suspicion it won’t have trouble finding a fanbase.

/Peder???? 

 

 

 

To get to the same spec as the Nova you would have to add a Dac and Amp module taking the price up to £6750.....that’s over £2500 more expensive. So I would expect it to be good. Reviews should be interesting as others on the forum have yearned for modular systems. But if it’s only found to be as good as a Nova, then at that price to me they have failed. But let’s wait and see what unfolds.

???? Bob The Builder,...The cessation of "cooperation" is due to the fact that Linn went behind the back of Naim,..All of a sudden 1985, Linn released his own Pre/Power-amp LK1 and LK2.

???? Without Naim knowing anything.

/Peder ????

is it a competitor for the Nova as the Nova costs 4200 GBP?

the full Linn package costs  GBP 5250 GBP with the built in class D 100 W amplifier.