Supernait 2 and a streamer is a good choice. Forget the flatcap as others have said.
Then you can upgrade when you want by a better external dac for instance. The Naim Ndac is still great ( around 1k second hand). Or another brand dac .
You can add later an Hicap to the Supernait 2 too.
If your budget is tight, don’t be tempted to get a Naim Integrated and pair it with a crappy source. You’d be better off with an atom to start with. Especially given your speakers load. The atom is a really great intro to Naim equipment. You get a musical, engaging and non fatiguing sound. Bass won’t be a problem for you. Just give it plenty of time to run in. The flat sound you are experiencing now will be resolved with the Naim dac and preamp in the atom. You need not worry about the 40watts of power with those speakers. If you like what you hear, plan your upgrades from there. Just my opinion. If I could start again I’d still buy the atom all over again.
2 Likes
Thank you so much Mark for bringing me back 
I almost felt lost in the “naim jungle” and the prices started to increase and my head said “no” but my wish for better music was strong …
Let’s just start small… I’m sure oneday i will invest in a separate system (more boxes). But the fact that I currently live in an appartement and my room is only about 20m2 big, I think the Atom will be enough…
You convinced me to just try out the Atom… I ordered one (used but 3months old)
Will receive it tomorrow or on Thursday.
Many thanks for everyone and especially for all your suggestions
(…for future upgrades). Can’t wait to hear the Faital with the Atom!
Looking forward to what this “Naim Journey” has to offer 
I will report back to you guys!
Have a great one and thanks again! Big help!
2 Likes
Also remember that your brand new drivers will need at least 200 hours to loosen up before they sound their best.
If you find the sound a little much in the top end, change the resistor. Attenuating that tweeter will take the speaker from harsh to laid back and mellow. Find what suits you. The tweeter will smooth out after a while anyway but I always knock it back a little whilst it runs in. I prefer a laid back sound. Make that tweeter completely disappear.
Make sure you get some NAC A5 cable too. 3.5 meters or more per side. I feel that anyone buying Naim for the first time needs to get some for a reference as to how it is intended to sound.
1 Like
Thank you so much Mark.
May I ask a few questions:
-
by „ Attenuating that tweeter“ you mean us the r1 resistor with more Ohm?
-
thanks for the cable recommendation. I just bought new cables for the speakers… but didnt know I will buy a Naim Atom…
Do you think the cables will make a noticeable difference in sound compared to my cables?
Description from builder: „These custom built speaker cables will be made with Canare’s 4s8 Star-Quad 4-conductor cable. Each of the 4 conductors is 16 gauge wire. This means when I join 2 wires you’re getting a 13 gauge cable.“
And why do they have to be at least 3.5m?
Many thanks Mark!
Congratulations on the purchase!
Yes, when I mentioned attenuation of the tweeter I was referring to increasing the resistance of R1. This must be tried to understand the difference it makes. It can even make the difference between satisfactory or unsatisfactory low volume listing. It’s one of the perks of DIY speakers building so take advantage of it. Troels usually recommends 3 options. I usually settle on the highest resistance, for my ears and listening environment. You might even find it helps your acoustic issues by reducing treble energy.
Regarding cables, have a read of this link. It is not completely applicable to the Uniti line of products as they are said to be more tolerant of different speaker cables. Although some types of cable are still a solid no, such as litz / woven cable types. When I owned my Atom and switched to Naim speaker cable the change was positive and resulted in greater system balance. Naim amps are designed to work with NACA5 cable. If you can find out the specs of your cables you can work out if they will be appropriate. Also search the forum, there are a million and one topics about cables.
Good luck my friend. Keep us posted.
1 Like
Hello Everyone!
Look what found its way to my livingroom:
The Atom is powering my speakers now
And thanks @Mark84 I also followed your advice regarding cables:
I found a really good deal on a pair of 4m NACA5 cables!
I can tell you it made a big difference compared to my vincent AMP! The sound is much more appealing now. More emotional.
I really love it! And all the convenient streaming options! Great!
But one thing is noticibly worse. The Bass is almost not there… I just put the subwoofer back in to the system… with that it works.
It was listening to songs and didn’t notice I cranked the volume up quite a bit… I guess even my neighbors from the first floor heared the muisc…
One thing I have to change is the Resistor from the tweeter… the tweeter is very very harsh and more pronounced then the mids… is way to high… will change that in a week or two… (no time now).
And one last thing i noticed. The sound dramatically improves again, if I put the balance (in the audio settings) to 10 on one speaker.
It way cleaner and even more „realistically“ and sound better than Balance setting on 0… but offcourrse its just on one speaker…
Do you know why this is?
Many thanks for all your help!
I think i found my brand for Hifi gear.
Reto
1 Like
Sounds to me like you have your speaker connections the wrong way around. You need to check the positive and negative connections on back of speaker and amp.
What does it sound like with the balance at 10 on the left channel?
Whatever I suspect you have something wrong with your speaker(s) connections, if its not incorrect polarity with the cables, its something inside the speaker(s)
Firstly, I think you need to check your crossover very very carefully and make sure you haven’t made a mistake. A channel imbalance tells me you may have something wired wrong. It’s easy to do.
Congratulations on the purchase of the Atom.
Your speakers still need to break in but by the sounds of it, you definitely need to change the tweeter resistor. They should not sound harsh.
Double check your driver wiring too, sometimes the crossover requires a driver wired in reverse polarity. Troels wrote a piece about this. It is a common error to miss this.
2 Likes
I believe it normal in most cases to wire a driver in ‘reverse’ (+/-) when its in series with a single capacitor.
I’ve always use a SPL meter & freq tone to check all my self built speakers or serviced speakers,
and would not be happy to not do this.
I checked the Faital3WC-10 circuit diagrams & see the tweeter is show as wired +/+
I don’t doubt Troels expertise, but I do question this. Then when looking at the frequency response graph, there is no sign of a suck-out the the crossover region, so it must be right.
1 Like
The midrange however, is inverted polarity on this design.
There’s a page written about why it’s required with certain crossover topologies. Not far down the updates section. Although I’m sure you already know about why it’s done. Bringing the drivers back into phase if I understand correctly.
I do hope @Retm gets this sorted out. Something sounds fishy.
3 Likes
Hi Mike
It‘s exactly the same. If I put the balance to 10 on right or left doesnt matter.
It sounds way better (it‘s noticeably more „open up“ than when I put it on 0 (both). Off course I listen on setting 0 as I have 2 speakers…
Thank you Mark!
I checked the crossover real quick and everything looks alright. Will check in more detailed again in an hour or two and report back.
Yes, you are right. We have an inverted polarity on the midrange driver
I will double check that later, but i think I did it right… will report back!
Thanks guys!
I see! I‘ll check everything and report back guys! Interesting topic… i learnd quit a bit from you two now! (@Mark84 @Mike-B)
Oh OK it looks like I misunderstood what you were saying with … “The sound dramatically improves again, if I put the balance (in the audio settings) to 10 on one speaker”
No i think you didnt
Let me make it clear:
It sounds good if I have it on setting 0 with 2 speakers playing music. But it sounds less open up.
If I put it on setting 10 (left or right doesnt matter) it sounds way better. The sound is more open up… and more lively but oc just one speaker produces sound.
So if i would only have 1 speaker:
Setting 0 would sound inferior to setting 10.
Update:
driver-cables are all connected correctly on the driver itself and also the crossover are exactly made as shown on the plan from Troels. …
Hmmm what could that be ? Any other ideas?
Bottom line is that two speakers sound worse than one, which is unusual. So it’s likely a speaker problem.
I would try reversing the polarity on one whole loudspeaker. What does that do? It should make things much worse with both connected.