Thanks Clive, indeed!
In that case i would sell the Nova and carry on with the other 4 sets. I feel that no one here is going to be able to provide you with the right answer.
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Your rightā¦the only thingg I can think of is the placement off the speakers. Although I must say thr bass with the QUAD is more coherent then on the Nova. But still a bit muddy.
I owned the Nova for a few months prior before I bought the Subs.With my Xs set I did not have any bass issues. That only started with Nova. And althoug the Qaud produced a better bassā¦it lacks Pratt , and thats what we want isnāt
I,m getting more and more convinced like you and some other Nova owners that it is a Nova problemā¦maybe a software upgrade will do the trick in the near futureā¦or an audition with separate boxes again.
Funnily enough I was going to mention you might not want to rush to move things around as there is a supposed firmware update coming - they are not designed to alter the sound but can do indirectly it seems. Each update normally brings a range of comments from positive to negative simply I believe due to synergy or lack of synergy from the new sound with your other system components.
Thxā¦it is better to wait then before buying a statement 
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Much of what you say about the Nova bass performance, I recognise in the Superuniti I used to own. The Nova is, overall, an improvement on its predecessor, but the two players have much in common.
For me, the solution was to move to separates. Now you might argue that the move to a much more expensive separates system (NDX/282/200DR in my case) should result in improvements across the board, and it did, but nothing prepared me for the radical improvement in bass performance. It was specifically the preamp upgrade that did this. Muddy, poorly controlled bass that I was convinced was caused by room acoustics changed radically with the introduction of the 282. It became tight and well defined, and nulls in bass around the room became barely noticeable.
I now have an Atom in the same room, and again the bass is less problematic, although with smaller standmount speakers and less power, thatās not surprising.
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Yup. Iām not sure or 100% convinced that the Nova is the root cause (though I think it probably is), but what you say is true without exception.
There is a somewhat unrealistic expectation from the low box count brigade that you can have our cake and eat it. Get rid of most of the boxes and lose nothing. There are no magic bullets here though. Ultimately, the cost of high end one box solutions should have performance compared to other one box solutions rather than similarly priced groups of separates.
Donāt get me wrong, I love low box count. I have Qbs and a UQ2 and have gone from 8 boxes to 2 in the main system (out of short term necessity). But Iām not kidding myself either. Thereās definitely a psychological aspect too whereby if the aesthetics and space saved are really important to someone, they are less likely to hear much, if any, of the shortcomings of the solution that allows that.
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Iāve never used a single sub-woofer much less two of them, but I do know that they are often difficult to integrate properly, so first thing Iād do is take them out of the room completely to start and once the sq is as good as you can get, then try integrating them, if you still feel the need. Since both the quad system and nova seem to have the same muddy bass, Iād concentrate on finding the very best placement for the harbeth. Further out, may reduce the bass but may create a cleaner sound, and then if you still need more bass you can re-integrate the subs. Start as simply as possible- room acoustics can make a tremendous difference. good luck
I have a Nova with N-Sats and a Velodyne sub and the bass is superb. I used to have 52/135s into large Monitor Audio floorstanders (GR60). I went from the separates to a Superuniti with the same speakers and the bass was still very good though understandably not quite up to the separates. I also heard Nova versus separates (272/250?) in the Naim factory dem room and the Nova was not disgraced by any means.
Obviously all this is room and personal taste dependent but from my experience there is nothing inherent in either Nova or Superuniti that precludes having very good in at least some circumstances.
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Not sure what the single lines mean on your room plan.
But it seems that the speakers are firing towards a glass wall.
And that the left speaker fires quickly and obliquely into the Glass and reflects off towards the listening position.
Seems ripe for sound wave reflection problems.
But anyway surely try moving the speakers out a bit and see if that helps.
I also had similar bass problems on Unity Nova. The bass had a prolonged resonance and was muddy. Before Nova I had a Star and it was a similar situation. After that I bought the Exposure 3010s2 power amp and now everything is perfect. Bass is very precise and cut. I would say that it is therefore a bigger sound scene because it does not spoil the middle tones.
So it is A Nova problem, you might think reading some comments.
or not a Nova problem reading other commentsā¦
Have you tried moving your speakers as was suggested earlier ā¦
Comments are scattered all over the place.
Not yetā¦this weekend I do some wrestling with the speakers.
Weāre only trying to help ā¦
Much appreciatedā¦but i can not doing suggestions atonceā¦some people have to work during the day.