Naim Uniti Nova & Klipsch Heresy IV

Hi,

I picked this combination up at the start of Feb this year in Singapore and have been running them in. I am mostly streaming from Tidal via the Naim App. At the beginning I wasnt able to replicate the aural experience I had at the dealer. I tried all the usual things but couldn’t get the magic to flow.

Then yesterday, I decided the spin up Roon on my Macbook and try streaming from Roon + Tidal to the Naim via the Roon interface. I don’t know what tf happened but the sound transformed. It sounds fuller, vocals pop and both the bass and sound stage is bigger and crisper. It now sounds like fkg magic - alive and kicking. I switched back and fourth between Naim App + Tidal, Tidal + chromecast, and Roon + Tidal just to be sure I wasn’t hallucinating, and yes, the improvement with the latter is vast to this audio dilettante.

I don’t know why? I’m not sure I actually even care. But I am a little bit cheeved I had to splash out on Roon and a Mac Mini M1 to get here. Otherwise, I’m a very happy camper. I can’t imagine music sounding much better than this.

Also, while I’m here with all you experts. Streaming Primephonic Hi-Res (just the Hi-Res) tracks doesn’t seem to work - lots of breaks/stuttering/stop/start. It’s not networking/wifi related. Is it just me or is there something up here?

Hi, the consensus opinion, particulatly with the 1st gen. Naim streamers, but perhaps also with the current models, is that Tidal via the Naim app doesn’t sound as good as streaming from a local source, such as CD rips served from a NAS.
If you use Roon instead of native Tidal, the incoming stream is buffered by the Roon Core, and then streamed to the Nova in exactly the same way as a local stream from a NAS, and there should therefore be no difference in sound quality. Perhaps this explains the improved sound quality you have discovered.

Have you tried using Qobuz? You may find that this sounds pretty good through the Naim app, and there’s the added bonus of lots of 24 bit material. Maybe worth a free trial, and you can give it a spin, with or without Roon.

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I use Primephonic every day. I use it for two reasons. First to see what New Releases are up and to dip into them. Secondly to research a particular piece. You can be astonished how many recordings there are of some works and it is so easy to use it for comparisons.

I get very occasional slips in a track but it is quite rare and you may have been unlucky. We should encourage them to have a simple feedback process as I suspect there are occasional data upload errors. I have had that with my Naim HDX too

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