I have no doubt it is that old. I bought it for a really low price, just to use as an analog integrated amp, which it does quite well at. The tuner and cd player functions are just a bonus, and work well and sound good as well.
With the replacement screen installed, it is a lot easier to use, and I am even able to get rudimentary UPnP playback, with proper indications on the display, and remote control capabilities.
In addition, i have a friend who is willing to loan me a working Olive 250 amp, as well as a Staeline N, and a spare Hi-Cap, so I can go further down this rabbit-hole (which is for my home-office).
I still do not have app control capabilities, and only 24/96 for digital (worrisome only fr compatibiity rather than simply wanting a higher number). Thinking about getting a Naim streamer -ND5 XS2, given how good the internal streaming connection sounds. I am in contact with Focal-Naim NA to get some firmware assistance.
Itās basically a really nice unit. It would be well worth getting the connectivity with the app sorted out and there are all sorts of bugs and updates that have been sorted in multiple firmware updates even since 3.6 (where one of my SuperUnitis was when I got it).
I think using an ND5 XS2 as a front end will work well, but for the money that just that unit would cost you, there are lots of other options.
Anyway good luck and do let us know how you get on.
David, et. al.
Thanks for the kind and helpful guidance. I am trying to figure out what some of the secret sauce is- whether the internal connections (e.g. the sound quality of the FM tuner and CD player) are because they are carefully integrated into the product-as is the network audio, and internal connection to the dac.
I have a very good phono stage, but wonder if the umbilical-style connection of Uniti to Stageline would give it an āunfairā advantage. I would day that the XS2 is a price-y way to acheive the functionality, but wonder if itās just going to synergize better connected via analog cables with the Uniti, price-aside, vs using other streamer-only pieces and limiting myself to 24/96 and possible file-format issues, vs a dac-streamer combo of equal sonic merit to the XS2, which would likely not be appreciably cheaper
Great you got the screen fixed. Good luck walking through the firmware updates, that will be a very worthwhile exercise.
If you already have Roon up and running in your house, there is a very nice UPnP bridge built into RoPieee that will enable you to use the Roon app and select the SU as the (UPnP) endpoint. Worth a look, for sure, since you likely already have everything you need (although not the case if you donāt already own a Raspberry Pi at the moment, I guess).
The screen was straighforward, but a bit of an ordeal to install, my end cutters were a bit too girth-y, and my cutting of the 20-ish pns holding the original screen in place, left something to be desired, so they took a lot of coddling to get them to line up and socket properly into the new scren. Lots of dissasembly and reassembly, but it wa quite worthwhile.
I have other streaming products that can do Roon, Qobuz, Tidal, MQA and other services/functions, but feel like Naim has a good take on this stuff, so do want to explore the Naim streaming, but the internal capabilities of the Uniti I have are somewhat limiting.Given its internal ālimitationsā, a streamer/dac combo seems best, Roon capable nice as well (app control, multi-room, already have it etc). Godd to great Dac-streamer combos are, price-wise, in line with Naimās pricing.
The quest continues.
Iām not so sure itās as dire as you thinkā¦ the local UPnP capability of the original Uniti series was actually quite good, albeit the small buffer placed fairly tight constraints on latency and stream-delivery consistency. That became more apparent with the rise in online streaming services, a little bit with Spotify and a lot moreso with Tidal; the struggle was simply too large and the on-board memory too little for Naim to to shoehorn a Qobuz client in there, and so that was never added.
With a Roon (or other) bridge, however, all the external network hassles are isolated from the Uniti device, which effectively sees only a local UPnP feedā¦ its exact area of strength. I can practically guarantee that setting up a Roon Bridge will be way easier than swapping over your screen, and almost as satisfying!
Further, the original Naim products had varied and various sensitivities to the quality of the input, which were manifest as sometimes quite noticeable performance differences on different inputsā¦ there were (are?) endless threads about sound quality differences due to using different streamers, USB-to-coax adapters, filters, cables, and so on. Sorting out a nice clean UPnP service was one way to step aside from those issues - and a good Bridge will do that for you as well.
Okay, Iām pushing pretty hard hereā¦ time to back off! But you seem like a guy who experiments and has a large range of stuff to try out. My suggestion is that using Roon, which you have and enjoy, directly into your SuperUniti, which you have restored to its original glory and seem to enjoy, via an-easy-to-try Bridge is definitely a simple and clutter-free alternative to some of the other cool stuff you are also considering.
Best wishes for future fun! Thanks for sharing a bit of extra information on the fiddly bits during the screen replacementā¦ makes me regret selling off my original Qute just a little bit less!
Edit for ps: Iāve been delighted with my decision to upgrade Qute and SU to Atom and Nova. The improved streaming and service integrations are nice, but they also improve overall sound / control imho. If you are in a spending mood, these are still great options to look at!
Heās actually got a Uniti version 1, without the 192/24 board, not a SuperUnitiā¦
Fair play, I got mixed upā¦ thanks David.
That said, the Bridge solution is still viable and my original Qute with the old 24/96 board was a good intranet streamer. I wonder if anyone who didnāt upgrade has actual positive or negative experience to share instead of me just running my mouth haha.
For the other part of the record, I agree that looking completely elsewhere for a modern solution makes great senseā¦ but I sorta read the āI got a great deal on a slightly broken Gen 1 Uniti and fixed the screenā as an indication that this was a ārescue missionā project. I was suggesting the exploration of Bridges since Roon is already in the house, as thatās probably the easiest next thing to try as part of the rescue.
FWIW, I have tried the RoPieee Bridge to my Nova just to see if it works and to learn whether I can hear anything different between, say, Tidal via Naim app and Tidal via Roon RAAT and Tidal via Roon UPnP. I donāt think I can, so am content to use whichever interface pleases me the most on any given day. I think @simon.pepper is also using a Bridge (maybe the Sonore one? It was a standalone hardware thing iirc but Iām not sure of the brand) and he likes it fineā¦ albeit on a 192/24 board 272 I think.
Thanks for the thoughtful and comprehensive reply. I have the original standard Uniti model, not the super. I spoke somewhat overly vaguely when i used the term ālimitationsā. What i should have specified more clearly is that in order to run it from any current version(s) of the Naim app, it would have to have its internal 24/96 board rplaced with a 24/92, which are long out of production and out of stock. Could be done, but would require cannibalizing a unit with a working 24/192 board, bought in some āfor parts onlyā status. (this, from what I have been able to gather from reliable sources). This makes the OG Uniti the only device that i have to control either by touching itās front-panel buttons or from the IR remote (I know i could set up some sort of blaster/repeater rig). Defintiely a first-world problem.
The screen offers some fie naviagation features, but nothing like the Roon/Bluesound sort of smartphone/tablet/desktop/laptop harem of possibilities offered in both Apple and Windows/Android flavors by the above-mentioned ecosystems. Thereās also a click between tracks- so defintely not gapless. The on-screen navigation seems to place 'album tracks in alphabetic order (reminds me of some older-school portable audio players, where the work-around was to put the track number as the leading character(s) of the file name to get proper playback sequence).
I will investigate the bridge approach - although I donāt have a pi in my aresnal at home (yet). I assume you would use it spdif into the Uniti, in which case the 24/96 barrier is still there. Am I misunderstanding how the 'bridge would connect to the Uniti?
Yes, I got lost, sorry! I had a Super that was super, hence the ease of my confusion!
So this will have to go on āholdā for a while longer anyway, since RPi arenāt quite available on shelves yetā¦ although the outlook is supposed to be improving as supply chains ease up a bit.
Yes, it was probably making too many assumptions here! When you put on the Bridge, the Uniti sees a UPnP feed which it can process and playā¦ and on the other side, Roon sees a Roon Ready device that can be selected in your control app and treated just like all the other modern gear youāve tried. You would use the Roon app transparently, and completely avoid the need to install or run the native Naim app.
In my tests here, the Roon app via the Bridge puts the Nova into Server mode and just starts playing. The Nova shows itās āStreaming from LMSā (the engine underneath the Bridge), but has no metadata for the stream (in my case, neither album/title/artist metadata, nor cover art). Iām guessing that you might have to use the Uniti remote to select the Server input, then see how things go when the Roon app āpushesā the selected stream out over the Bridge via UPnP.
TL;DR: with a Roon Bridge, your UPnP capable streamer becomes a āregularā Roon Endpoint
I bought the Uniti for US$350 with the notion that I would simply use it as an analog integrated amp, so i could use speakers in the large-ish bedroom i use as my work-from-home office. I did not know it had FM, and cared not whether the cd player even worked. Did not realize that tthe screen was dead when I bought it (completely my fault) and did not know that the app would not talk too it. (Again, my bad).
Once I hooked it up, and figured out which buttons on the remote were mapped to which analog inputs, i discovered the Naim magic, and love the way it sounds with my speakers. (I am not a fan of Class-D amps yet). Then, come to find, that the cd player not only works but sounds good, and that it has a tuner in it, and i just happen to have an unused Magnum Dynalab whip FM antenna languishing in my basement. And, guess whatāthe tuner sounds pretty darn good too, and i am even listening to some FM, which I have not done for years.
Next up was figuring out if i could do any sort of network or file playback. I tried some USB drives, and discovered that my Uniti likes FAT32 formatting, but did not like many of my higher-res flac files, and i don[t think it played and DSFs (but dont quote me on that one yet).
I was able to get it to play via Twonky, using the Twonky āappā installed on my ASUS NAS, and the little player app on the ASUS IP web browser page. T would play while saying āno server foundā on the Uniti screen, which made me smile.
A day later, the serveers I had enabled on my netowrk were proerly showing up on the Naim screen (it may just have been because of my relatively large directories and relatively slow ARM-based cpu NAS devices, but now i could use the navigation and transport controls on the Uniti remote, but this is not an optimal solution.
I have an iFi zen stream (borrowed) connected spdif to the Uniti, and a HiFi Rose 150B connected analog to it. Have not tried to properly A-B-C them. The thought of trying an ND5 XS2 would be if i can find a great price on one, and primairly as i would imagine it has even more of the Naim secret sauce that I enjoy.
Thatās truly awesome, and great to hear how much your ābargain basementā purchase has given in return.
You could also check out the Super SuperUniti thread Super Superuniti which is running simultaneously and mentions BubleUPnP, yet another way to stream Tidal (and Qobuz I think) to older gear. If youāre comfortable installing UPnP servers on your NAS, thatās also easy to set up and test out (I ran it in a Docker container on my Synology).
Truthfully, you may never spend a better $350ā¦
This still surprises me, as I had no idea that the latest Naim app does not work with the 24/96 board devices. It is definitely worth checking in with Naim Support to step your way through the upgrade process and get the Uniti on its latest firmware version, as thatās a more likely (and solvable) reason for the app fail imho.
If I understood things correctly, the app has capabilities that require āmoreā than the 24/96 board can provide, and my unit is running super-old firmware, and i wold need to do some heroic, iterative firmware upgrades- perhaps those will work out
so, i guess 'never say āneverā '-- but am waiting to hear from support on how to walk thru the upgrade stpes for the firmware
No this is all wrong guys! The Naim app works just fine with all the products whether they have the 192/24 board or not.
What doesnāt work without the 192/24 board is 1) screen replacement done by Naim 2) Spotify 3) Tidal and 4) any DSD playback. But this is nothing to do with the app. Itās a shortcoming of the original Uniti.
But if this is really on firmware version 1.1 then there could be all sorts of other things that donāt work. There must be lots of bugs that got sorted on the way to 4.8
If it were me, I would try to get the firmware sorted out (it should be on 4.8 which also works fine on units that donāt have 192/24 boards). But I would be concerned that there may be a fault on its network card.
Back in the day, beta testing firmware for the original Uniti hardware, what once seemed heroic - finding or making cables for RS233 or adapting to new computers that lacked drivers or cautiously reading and re-reading the step-by-step process - soon became routine and much less fraught. Upgrading and reverting was a normal part of problem solving with the Naim team. After youāve gathered the bits and done the first of probably less than seven version updates, youāll be an expert and will quickly find yourself totally up to date.
And, afaik, the additional app capabilities are there to support newer hardware with additional capabilitiesā¦ but you should have control over all of the features that your unit is capable of - it should be transparent to you and you will only be offered controls for the functions that your device supports (ie there wonāt be a Tidal button since your board canāt support Tidal natively). That was my experience with a 24/96 Qute (no Tidal) and a 24/192 SU (Tidal).
Let the complete resurrection continue!
Snap, Davidā¦ our posts crossed, but I totally agree that (subject to up to date firmware) the Uniti should work with the current Naim app.
Maybe, but the Uniti seems to be finding the Twonky server on the Asus NAS and playing from there (via remote control or front panel selection), so I view that as a very positive sign!
David, et. al.
Thanks for helping me sort this. I am in contact with Focal-Naim USA support to help me get the firmware thing sorted. I have (for other reasons) alrealdy got a USB to Serial cable to make the connection, and now that I have a working screen, it can help me get the firmware sorted. It is realy running an ancient version, and it looks like I may have to load a few versions in the proper sequence, to get it modernized. The I will be able too see what it can or cannot do via app control. Itās an intellectual puzzle/challenge at this point, but i do have some notion that the internally-connected 1-box apporach has some benefits sonically- grounding, i2s vs spdif and external cables and connectors for example.
in the interim, I have installed roon brodge in an older unused laptop, and have it connected to an old Musical Fidelty V-Link 24/96 USB to Spdif converter, via AQ Diamond Toslink cable into the Uniti, playing from Roon as I type this. (I had to set the iFi Zen streamer to downconvert to 24/86 for it to work via coax digital into the Uniti. I think the Birdge gizmo may sound a bit better, but just judging from poor memory so far.
I also have an old M2Tech Young Dac, with a me-built upgraded psu unit, which I may try out as well - using its anlog outs into the Uniti.
I remember going thru the whole cics cply ritual on Audioasylum, doin ghte stripped o=down win xp builds etcā¦
My first pc was a Kaypro IV (i am old!). I remember the whole āplug and pRayā aspect of home computiing and the budding file playback stuff. Have a stack of old portable music players as wellā¦
Sounds like weāre comparable in age - I remember the Kaypro and have bricked my share of things during upgrades (and let the magic smoke escape from more than my fair share of transistors). The scars remain, however, and I still tremble a bit when, say, doing a bios update on my laptop or a Nucā¦
With that proud heritage, this stuff should be easy for you once the Support team sends you all the sequential firmware versions you need.
For sure keep us posted!
(I worked with a friend who had a Kaypro IV āluggableā to develop the code and hardware to energize muscle stimulators that are now commonly used in physiotherapy. He quit school early to become a zillionaire. I did not. )