I downloaded the software today, for a play. I suspect if you had a measuring microphone you might well be able to do a reasonable job of removing bass artefacts, and make bass/treble boost/cut changes relatively straightforwardly. With the caveats that horrendous speaker damage might occur if you mess it up. Looks interesting anyway, and I wonder if this might be a taste of more things to come from Naim in this area.
Considering one for a second system in a new house. Always have problems with the down mixing of movie surround sound tracks to stereo. Where when voices are loud enough, explosions want to throw you into the neighbour’s living room. If this does what I hope it does it could indeed be the solution I need in the location it needs to go.
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Realy nice, thank you!
I took a look at the user manual. Had the impression that one actually could define bass cut off to main speakers. But that does not seem to be the case. It would be great option for the Atom considering it’s relatively low power, and not so desirable for the CI-102.
Also I suspect the alterations to the original sounds (source) are already an enormous stretch to the vision of the late great JV. [Though the world has moved on in the last 25 years and so his vision might have too]
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My UnitiQute can be configured to apply a bass cutoff to the speaker output, for use when you add a sub. Do you mean that? Or that, but be able to set parameters for the cutoff?
Speaker output->small will apply a 100hz cut-off when the pre-amp output is used to power a sub
I think the Atom can do similar
The original Uniti and Unitiqute had these options, but not the Atom and other current models.
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Ah, ok, thanks for the correction ChrisSU!
I’m surprised it doesn’t seem to have balanced outputs. This type of device, especially with the rack mount capability could be expected to be stuffed away and requiring lengthy cabling.
Is balanced for source-pre or pre-power connections? (Where you have low level signals.)
I understand the CI equipment is intended to put everything into a rack (where cabling is short within the rack) and to connect the power-amp outputs to speakers spread across the house.
Or do I miss something, and there’s balanced-to-speaker? (Unless you use active/powered-speakers, of course.)
Active or powered speakers, but I think I understood it’s also generally better to keep speaker wires short(er) and have longer (balanced) connections between pre- and power.
I see.
Maybe a balance towards the effort, to bring the cables (speaker, power, network (once you have power, you could use fully networked/active speakers as well), …) to the places, you want to place the speakers in walls, ceilings, and yachts. Or what people are used to install.
It seems the CI-101 supports some special installation-type high impedance speakers (I just searched what this 70V/100V is about) - but seems this is definitely not about hi-fi.
Great to read these insights into the product, thanks for sharing.
A couple of questions which will pique my interest, does it support multiroom sharing of the analogue input and could that analogue input be fixed level - i.e an “AV” mode ?
Hi @RichardPW
Multiroom of analogue input is supported.
The audio level transmitted over the network is at fixed gain, so not dependent of the “master” device’s output volume, but each multiroom client device has their own output volume. We don’t current expose AV Fixed gain (aka no volume control) for the multiroom client player output.
Best
Steve
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I was looking at these to replace the last of my Sonos stuff. Sonos Port into Linn LK140 in the kitchen and the Sonos Amp in my garden. Looks ideal and would fit fine in my rack. Tempting and price looks good.
Does anyone know where there is more information about Focal Naim Manager software?
I am considering to buy a 102, but I don’t have Focal Speakers but would want to set up low and high pass filters for sub and main speakers. There doesn’t see to be much information to help retail customers and it seems a lot more complex than other bass management software.
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Have you downloaded it? It’s relatively straightforward to use, I think the key is knowing what corrections to use and why, and to have a measuring mic to see the results of the changes.
https://www.naimaudio.com/focal-naim-manager-ci-uniti-102
The user manual (also at the link above) is pretty basic, but I think this is a relatively complex topic, and likely not for most consumers, I suspect a manual covering it adequately would be pretty long. Having said that I don’t think it’s magic either, and within most consumers’ abilities to work it out after a bit of reading up around the topic