We’re talking the control ring as found on the top face of the Muso and Uniti models. On my Muso QB2 the dust has got in and made it feel stiff and a bit gritty when it does move and this after just four years. I’ve got some of it out with a couple of business cards in the gap and the rest has gone sideways and out of the way for now. Naim service in France tells me it’s not feasible to strip and clean it so it’s a matter of making do.
As this control on the top idea has been in use for a while now on several models I’m wondering if a stiff or gritty feeling control ring is a common occurrence?
my control ring feels silky smooth
my control ring feels stiff and/or gritty
I never touch my control ring and just use the app/remote
One of our Qb2s is in the kitchen and on occasion the odd crumb gets stuck in the gap between the volume control and the top panel. On one occasion I managed to extract it with a knife and once I used the duster attachment on the Sebo to vacuum it out. How crumbs manage to leap in the air from the breadboard I’ve no idea. The other two Qbs and the Atom HE remain dust free.
Mk 1 of this post didn’t contain the word control anywhere, I see I missed adding one, it’s more fun with less control but would have probably been less informative, still great restraint all round until this evening I thought.
This particular MuSo QB2 has been in the custody of my elderly aunt in Montpellier for the last couple of years, she tends to leave a balcony window open if it’s warm enough and there’s been some Saharan dust blown across the Med in the spring so that could well be what’s got in the gap. So far no one here has reported trouble with their ring control.
I have a Mu-so 2 I use as a simple soundbar for the bedroom TV. I have no idea of the control’s condition. I really never even adjust volume since it’s just used for TV shows, and if I need to change volume I use the app, or the crappy little remote when it actually works.
I have a Qb2 I use outdoors on our deck. I only use that for Roon or Qobuz Connect, and control volume via the client apps on my MacBook Air or iPhone. It is probably a bit crunchy by now, since it spends a bit of time outdoors.
My office system has an Atom. I use my desktop Mac to control it via Roon, Qobuz Connect client apps and never touch the control. It probably has a bunch of dust. If it’s crunchy I don’t know about it yet,
When we had two Muso QB2’s I always felt that the design was less than satisfactory in terms of dust etc. collecting around the volume control. There’s a very clear and obvious potential for this to happen. I guess the simple answer is to pay regular attention to it to keep things clean rather than waiting until it becomes a problem. Easier said than done though. For people who are working with busy lives and are relatively time poor cleaning out the accumulating gunge in the top of the Muso QB is not likely to be anything even approaching a priority. C’est la vie.
I really don’t like dust. Probably OCD but I dust and hoover once a week. When hoovering, I have a soft attachment and usually hoover around every knob/dial, headphone socket, ventilation holes and rear cable sockets. Had I any controls on top of a device, such as on the Muso I would definitively make a habit of hoovering there regularly. I guess it works by ball bearings?
Just remembered, my Chord DAC has up facing controls and is part of the weekly clean.
We used to do it once a week when we were working. Now we’re retired, my wife does it every day. I would be happy to do it myself, I’ve always enjoyed housework (strange guy!) but my wife insists. My parents always vacuumed and dusted daily without fail no matter what else was happening. It was just a ritual for them and so that’s probably why the daily routine seems normal to me. I knew a guy at work, a senior manager, who openly declared that he and his wife despised housework so they just never did any. He once came into work and was clearly miffed about something. He had apparently engaged a cleaning company to give the whole house a thorough clean and they took one look at it and refused, declaring it too dirty for them to tackle!
Perhaps, but I rather doubt it. We’ve not experienced any grittiness on the control rings on either of our QBs. But the rotary control on our Selekt does indeed use a fancy ball bearing assembly and feels a lot silkier in operation than those on the QBs. Mind you it jolly well ought to given the price difference.
Option 3 does not exclude the others. I rarely use it (so voted as such), but did find the one on my Star “gritty” when I tried once a while ago. I haven’t yet experienced it on my Mu-So and Qbs.
A good blast of an air compressor should sort it, you can also buy aerosol cans of ‘dust air’, whilst not as powerful as a compressor it might work too
