I have recently sold my RME ADI2 Dac and was thinking of replacing it with a Naim Unity Atom HE. I have read a couple (not all) of posts which seems to suggest there are still a number of issues with the product. However, these posts are related to the Atom and not the HE version. They are,
Volume Dial not responding.
Bluetooth reliability/connection dropouts?
HDMI issues (not for HE)
Artwork freezes after a change in Album…screen tuning grey…than black, distortion lines on screen…pop sound and etc…
Issues with gapless playback with the Naim Core with regards to ripped CDs. (I don’t have a core but good to know if this has been resolved as it may affect it’s used value)
From what I have read, the usual solution is to do a power cycle or reset and running in the product and see how it goes. Are these intermittent issues an occasional one off, a couple of times a month or a persistent /pressing thing waiting for a manufacturer’s firmware update?
I do not have any technical knowledge on the design/Architecture on both the Atom or Atom HE but just assume the headphone version have a “better preamp”, extra headphone connectivity minus the power section.
Any current feedback on these issues and user opinion is greatly appreciated.
They have sold a lot of these units. Sure, I suspect some have been faulty, and when that happens the owners tend to report it. Few report yet another boring day when it worked perfectly.
I have had both Atom and Atom HE. Never had a single issue.
The HDMI-ARC is prone to compatibility issues between devices from different vendors. This is reoccurring and a bit of a game of chance, how good this works. (No idea about statistics.)
The other collected events sound like early, individual, or hardware related issues.
None of those happened for my earlier Atom or (now) Nova. (Which runs basically the same firmware.)
Thanks for the feedback, just needed more current information about the product as some of the older posts that had issues were kind of outstanding and did not seem to have closed the loop.
I’ve had the Naim HE since it came out only had to reboot maybe 2-3 times at most. For most part it works flawlessly. Mostly use it with roon and extremely happy.