Bought my Atom early this year, and it’s without doubt the finest bit of hi-fi kit I’ve ever had. Didn’t think I could ever prefer digital to vinyl, but the Atom convinced me - fabulous! Running it through a pair of B&W 705 S2’s.
However, I kept reading and hearing about how much I could get from a Nova…
With Christmas looming, it was time to treat myself - so the deal is done - and my new Nova will be here (hopefully) tomorrow afternoon!
Given the cost (never gone this high end, ever), I’ve managed to agree a trade-in with my Atom, so the gap isn’t as drastic as it otherwise may have been.
Looking forward to finally getting my hands on one of these - it’s been a bit of a ‘dream purchase’ since I became so enamoured with my Atom.
I did exactly the same and no regrets. Great thing about the Nova is that there is no upgrade fever (assuming you want to stick with one box) and it’s a great piece of kit
I did exactly the same upgrade. Plus I have the same speakers. The B&W definitely benefit from the power, especially at low volume levels. I added a B&W DB4S subwoofer when I had my Atom as I felt the bass was underwhelming. Now I don’t use it so much
Enjoy!
My turn…lol…Yup. But I started with a Mu-so Qb (V1) because I was in a little condo. Then bought a house and the Atom with Focal Chora 816. But the screen was screwy so it was going back and I had the chance to swap…so I grabbed the Nova. GOOD MOVE! The whole time I waited I wondered if I was being frivolous because I loved the Atom. Wow. It’s…wow…you just wait. The difference is astounding. And the Atom, again, is great. Really a fine kit. But. Dig the Nova for a month (or the time required to save the money for a Powerline.) And yes. Don’t listen to anyone that suggests others…buy a Powerline. Really. It’s like another 20%. Crazy. Adds balls. Enuf said.
Oh…and you want NACA5 cables with the Nova. The Atom isn’t so finicky…the Nova is. Mine shut down with the wrong cables.
If you have registered accounts of your streaming services on the Atom, you might want to disable those. If you trade it in as you said, a “factory reset” might give you piece of mind, that traces from your use have been wiped.
PS: You can do this, after you have confirmed your new Nova is working. No need to do this beforehand.
Got it! I’ll report back in a day or so, as it didn’t arrive until quite late, and I always have to be in work very early!
Managed to get it up and running, so tomorrow I’ll really get to know it.
Small question…I did read about the benefits of setting a lower volume on the app limiter? Could anyone please share if is worth doing, and if so, how I do it?
Tended to have it on about 25-30 on my old Atom, give how some streams vary in output!
Max-volume setting: when I joined the forum 2018 (?), people argued that a value of “100” (=no limit) was best for sound quality; I did not follow this.
Actually had 50/100 on both Atom, now Nova. The IT person in me believes, the 1/2 should be especially easy/smooth to calculate for the computer part of the box.
On a practical note, I’ve turned volume up to about 80/100 (=40/100 total), which is about the maximum I would give my neighbors (living in a flat). That way I have a bit headroom for low volume streams and especially digital-in from my TV, which comes in around 10-15 points lower than most streaming sources. (Even thought I use the input-adjust with +10; there’s a note on down mixing multi-channel audio to stereo, which reduces volume to avoid clipping.)
While still being sure, a glitch in any app (Naim app, AirPlay/Chromecast source, …) which would make volume jump to “100” does not bust neither my hearing nor the speakers.
This will depend somewhat on the speakers, room size, etc. pp. of course.
Haven’t owned a Nova but with the Naim boxes that have passed through chez nous I have never encountered the massive down swings in SQ that some report. The sound has usually improved with time, though how much is the unit and how much is me I’d be hard pressed to say. So I just focus on enjoying the music with my new toy. I’d just play lots of music on it, hopefully getting more pleasure as time goes on.
