Sadly, no can do. I live in the French West Indies and it would be a special order for me. Unless he had one ordered for another client who was willing to let me have a twiddle.
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Urgh. I understand the issue now. Buying premium sound on hearsay certainly has its challenges.
The best I can do is comment on the headphone usage. It really is a lot better than my Star.
I would be very surprised if the preamp out does not make use of the same improvements.
Perhaps some day I may make use of this feature but I live in a house where I can best listen to headphones , and for that it is an amazing piece of kit.
I suppose because Naim is not offering a recommended power amp for it (yet) it is hard to get a cut and dried answer.
Checked your system setup in your profile and with a set of Focal cans I would be very surprised if you are not very happy with it for that alone. Been investing some time upgrading my headphones this week and took a demo set of the Celestee home. I’m in a little piece of heaven listening to them on the HE.
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I know I’m agonising over a little thing, in the sense that it’s likely to be a massive upgrade from the UnitiQute regardless.
The headphone upgrade is just icing on the cake for me, as I can’t/don’t listen to them in the configuration that it’ll be in. (The qute is the TV amp via digital not HDMI)
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Hmm yeah buying something designed for headphones and not using headphones would also have me concerned. I hope that someone comes with the answer here soon.
I’m very happy with my headphones. I use them with a Dragonfly Red and Apple Lossless on the iPhone12 and I love them.
Can imagine. I was an instant convert to Focal this week.
Looking forward to a set of Clear MG arriving soon that I can try on the HE.
Yeah, the Celestee is really for the lounge with the Star so Mrs Kryptos does not have to listen to everything I am listening to when downstairs.
The new preamp serves the entire unit not just the headphones it’s for the preouts as well.
Some days ago, an interesting post too, in this thread :
Hi, this one is a bit of a play system in the front room so has had a few iterations:
Nova + Special 40’s
Nova + 300DR + Special 40’s
Atom HE + 300DR + Special 40’s
Atom HE + Luxma M700u + Special 40’s
Using the Nova by itself I found the sound a bit “thin”, good but not great. Adding the 300DR made a huge difference with a whole load more presence to everything.
Switching out the Nova for the Atom HE made little change over the Nova, again a very acceptable sound but now with a better headphone amp and of course at a much lower system cost. The main sound complaint I would have is that both the Nova and Atom were a little shrill at times with the Special 40’s. I did wonder if replacing of the Chord Epic (silver) speaker cables might help but never got round to it as yet.
Staying with the Atom HE and fitting the Luxman the sound rounded off a bit, less grating at times. I still intend to try some good copper based cables to see if that further improves things.
Overall this is a very acceptable solution. I intend to move the Atom HE to the other side of the room by the sofa and use long balanced cables to the amp. I may also change speakers, the 40’s are really good at their price point but don’t necessarily suit the indie rock I usually play - they may actually be the limiting factor here.
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I suggest you follow the thread « upgrading from Uniti Star ». You may have some responses also there.
I believe however that the Nova is already better than Uniqute / Nap 100.
Not yet, I’ll do it this weekend.
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I went from a UnitiQute2 / NAP 100 to a Nova, and the Nova is really quite a lot better I found.
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Hi everyone!
So I compare since yesterday afternoon the HE to 272 with 250.2 and Focal 1028be with NACA5, ethernet cable Wireworld Starlight 8 (better than wifi), Powerline, RCA-XLR Flashback cable for HE, DIN-XLR Naim cable for 272 and Qobuz Studio (Eric Bibb, Paul McCartney III, Robert Glasper, Oscar Peterson, Miles Davis, Youn Sun Nah, Rodrigo et Gabriela, Mogwai, A.A Williams, Tricky) and let the two warm up for several days (two weeks for HE) and controlled the phase sector, important for Naim!
I confirm the quality of the headphone output with the Focal Clear MG, of better quality than the 272 at all levels but now it is the preamp output that interests us…
I must point out that the differences in listening are not huge and that the HE defends itself well, but they are there… I will continue listening, if necessary I will comment again.
The FR is wider with the 272, the bass are better held and go down lower and I hear a slight bump in the low-bass that is not there with the 272, and even if the details and transparency, the voices are very good with the HE, the treble runs better and longer (especially with jazz), and there is more presence (vocal jazz) and texture (acoustic music, jazz) with the 272. The sound image is equivalent in width as in depth, although the readability of the notes is good on the HE, it is better on the 272, the space is better tiered.
The HE does not demerit and without comparison the HE is good but the system is, I think, of too high quality for the HE.
It’s a shame because I would have kept it for the headphone output (and is beautiful) and replace the 272 but I place in first the SQ of the preamp before the sq of the headphones…
To sum up, I think that it is above all a headphone amp that can be used as a preamp but it is not that primary function for the one that puts the SQ in priority.
I hope this debrief will be helpful but don’t take it literally and go listen the HE… 
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Super ! Merci beaucoup pour ces infos très intéressantes. 
I think that’s pretty much settled for me then. The HE seems to be the best overall option.
Thanks to everyone for their input. It helps.
Thank you for this, very helpful.
Thank you for taking the time to compare. Very interesting to read!
How did you use Qobuz with the 272? I thought it is not supported…
Thanks for taking the time to test and report back. This is how I imagined but it is nice to have it confirmed. 
well done. Enjoy it with your very nice headphones!
It surprises no one has requested the clearly very good headphone amp of the HE to be made available as a separate upgrade for existing Naim pre-amp/streamer combinations. Now that would be useful.
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I use the Mconnect (or Bubbleupnp) app with my IPAD or smartphone, it works very well. The iPad only serves as a remote control, the feed comes directly to 272.
@cdboy, I agree, so I won’t keep the HE.
I hope that Naim will release a NOVA HE and that it will be at 272… 
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