Naim streamer or... ? Help needed!

Hi all, I have a first version Uniti (2010) at home which I enjoy daily with CD playing and Spotify streaming through a pair of Q Acoustics 3050i, but I feel the need to upgrade my system going the separates route.
Supernait 2 would be the amp of choice, along with a CD transport (6000CDT or CXC, don’t know yet), but I can’t decide which streamer+DAC combination to buy. I lean towards the all in one solution (ND5XS2), but I’m also tempted by the Raspberry + Chord Qutest route…
In the forum I see a lot of people adding the Qutest or Hugo to their Naim streamers (even to the NDX2!) bypassing their DACs. Are the built-in Naim DACs so inferior to the Chord models? The ND5XS2 is still a +2500 Euros piece of kit! How’s that? Is there such a difference?
All in all, I can’t make up my mind and need help… :slight_smile:

I think your NaimUniti has digital inputs - you could add a simple streamer (Bluesound Node, Primare NP5 etc) to give you Qobuz, Tidal etc.

With your speakers you may be surprised at how good the result is. I have run an NP5 into an NDX and the result is better than the bare NDX.

Your NaimUniti is not a shabby bit of kit…

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A shabby bit of kit by no means, for sure. :slight_smile:
I bought it used from England about five years ago: rock solid. The 2010 Uniti is already a streamer, I’m using Spotify every day with it. It is an all in one solution (amp, cd player, streamer and DAC) so I thought that going with separate pieces of the system I could gain an increase in sound quality.

Well you could improve by going separates but it’s just a lower cost option to try the streamer into NaimUniti, that’s all (and from my experience get a lift in sound quality through the in-built Naim DAC).

You may find that you may also need to upgrade speakers to fully realise any increase in sound quality with separates though?

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Hi, there are certainly big gains to be had from upgrading if you have the budget. The NDX2 is a good partner for the Supernait, although an ND5XS2 is also excellent for what it costs.
I would suggest that you consider one of the lossless streaming services as a more revealing system will show up the limitations of Spotify. My choice would be Qobuz, or you could try Tidal. Sign up for a free trial and see what you think.

There are two possible upgrades for Naim streamers, either the power supply or the DAC. I preferred to upgrade the DAC, but there are many different options, and you really need to hear them for yourself and decide what appeals to you.

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