Thanks Richard. It looks as exactly what we need. I believe we have similar sized families with young children and having a personal space with headphones to isolate a bit & many other streaming options for the rest of the family is very much what we need.
A concern though, my Allo Digione/Chord Mojo/72/hicap/140 sounded really, really good this weekend. Big shoes to fit for the Atom HE. Only one answer to that: audition. I’ll have a word with my wife and then dealer.
It’ll sound better. IMO it’s a significant improvement vs the Hugo. It’s about 90% of the Bartok. It’s arguably the best product Naim has ever made.
This is great to know, Katz. I’m a big fan of the Chord Mojo - I like that sound very much.
Having owned the Hugo myself and two friends who own a Mojo, I feel confident to say that I agree with @Katzky2021. But it is all about careful matching as well of course.
Well I should qualify my statement. It’s different than the Hugo sound. I use 300 ohm HD800 headphones and the Atom appears to drive them with more weight than the Hugo. It’s not the best at absolute details and precision and there is a weird emphasis on certain mid bass frequencies that I think a professional reviewer referred to as “bouncy” which is very accurate description. This is to me the major issue with the Atom HE. The bass is too hard driving. The Bartok has very tight bass which I prefer. My guess is most people will like the Atoms sound. My problem is that I owned a Bartok.
As an audiophile, the Atom HE isn’t my first choice. I have grown to accept its presentation and deficiencies vs Bartok to the point I can just listen to and enjoy music without needing the worlds best streamer dac headphone amp which for my tastes is the Bartok. However some very well recorded albums sound state of the art with the Atom HE. For instance Sonny Rollins’ “Way out West” is stunning with my HD800. In fact I’ve been listening to it on repeat all evening. Jazz in probably my favorite genre for the Atom.
Before Bartok I listened to string quartets, jazz, blues, and some electronic music. Bartok is so strong with electronic music that I’ve started primarily listening to the likes of Kraftwerk. I found that pretty remarkable given I’m in my 50’s. But I’m about 95% an audiophile and only 5% a person who likes music. The absolute precision of the Bartok takes Kraftwerk to a place I never knew existed. If that’s what you’re into then sell a kidney or whatever it takes to get a Bartok.
Last thing… the Atom HE is the only hifi component I’ve ever owned that very obviously absolutely needs an upgraded power cord. I wasn’t a big believer in power cords until I got the Atom HE. The sound was incredibly disappointing with the stock cord. Using an audiophile power cord completely transformed it. The one I use is from around 2008 with pure silver wire. I’m going to switch to a Naim powerline to compare.
Wish I had some more modern flagship type headphones to compare. The HD800 aren’t really similar to more common headphones. Something from Focal probably is a better match.
Anyhoo… back to the music…
I’m fascinated to hear what you think of the sound with a Naim Power Line in place. I’ve heard that combo, and I think you’re going to love it.
I can’t remember exactly how long the Naim forum has been running, but I think you might be the first person ever to make that particular confession. Well done for being so honest!
I had assumed that this applied to almost everyone here, including me, I might change the ratio a bit but the sentiment remains true. Especially since a sizeable proportion of posts here seem to relate to cables, things not touching, racks, bits of pipe insulation, wooden cable pylons, 3rd party PSUs, network switches, etc, etc, etc.
Really interested to know if anyone has done a comparison between the Atom HE/Nap 250 vs a Nova. Obviously vast improvement for headphone use but what about a speaker setup?
For me it’s the hard driving, bouncy bass that I’m loving with the Focal Utopia. They had no weight with the Hugo 2. They sounded full with the Chord Dave/mscaler but now after owning the Naim HE, I think I prefer the fun bouncy presentation over what may have been Dave’s more accurate presentation.
This is still with the stock power cord. I have pointed out it took about a month for fully break and get to the nice open sound I’m now hearing. Running 50 hours straight and then a few hours a day after. I’ve seen what an improvement a headphone cable can make, so maybe down the line I’ll check out the powerline power cord.
Has anyone tried the Sennheiser IE900 with the HE? If so, how would you describe the sound without EQ? Are you feeding the HE Tidal, Qobuz, or Roon?
As both the HE and IE900 are severely backordered, it may be unlikely that anyone here has both, but I suspect that the resulting sound signature from this combo may be a good fit. I have not heard either, so this based purely on reviews I have read for each.
Delighted to share that Uniti Atom Headphone Edition has been named a CES 2022 Innovations Award Honoree. The CES Innovation Awards program is an annual competition honouring outstanding design and engineering in 27 consumer technology product categories. An elite panel of industry expert judges, including members of the media, designers, engineers and more, reviewed submissions based on innovation, engineering and functionality, aesthetic and design.
More on our fellow UK and European nominees here:
https://www.ces.tech/Innovation-Awards/Paris-Amsterdam-Innovations.aspx
This came up in another forum but wanted to see if the Naim Uniti Atom HE is a truly balanced design. I was making the assumption it was since it has 2 balanced headphone out options and the preamp has balanced output as well. But as seen in other designs like Chord TT2, this doesn’t mean the design itself is balanced. The other argument is there are no specs released to show the balanced headphone outputs have twice the power of the single ended connections.
A journalist asked the same question. This was Steve Sells’ excellent answer:
"The pre-amp output is pseudo balanced i.e. balanced impedance. Great for long runs (for example, to active loudspeakers) and cancels noise pick up. The headphones are actually single ended. There’s only a stereo amplifier driving them. The advantage of the 4 pin XLR and Pentaconn is not to have a balanced connection but to have a 4 wire connection. This connection allows for a separate ground for Left and Right channel. On a 3 pin headphone socket the ground connection for L&R is shared. This shared connection degrades the sound.
Having a true balanced drive would not affect the headphones themselves. Headphones are just a coil in a magnetic field. It doesn’t matter if one end of the headphone coil goes negative and the other end goes positive or if one end stays at ground and the other end moves 2x as far. There will be no pick up like long runs of interconnect cable.
Having balanced headphone amplifiers (or bridged) could in some circumstances sound worse. Not because of the headphone but because now there’ a more complex amplifier driving the headphone. A balanced amplifier will cancel its low order even harmonic distortions such as 2nd. It will then add the odd ordered harmonics such as 3rd. The cancellation of 2nd psychoacoustically exposes the increased 3rd. The 3rd may sound a bit more forward and fatiguing. Each half of a bridged headphone amp effectively sees half the impedance compared to a single ended amp for the same impedance headphone. This again increases 3rd harmonic. Best to keep the harmonics low order. 2nd harmonic is barely audible."
Well, I’ve jumped in with both feet. My trusty Naim dealer was installing a 500 level system and he sent me a NAP 250 DR from the trade-in. I’ve ordered a Chord Signature 2RCA to XLR to use with it.
When it arrives, I’ll see if the Atom HE->NAP 250 will satisfy me. If so, it will replace ND555/NAC 552/NAP 300/Chord Music IC’s/Ansuz D2 level IC and Ethernet cables.
I chose the Signature as good enough and not crazy costly like the Musics and D2’s.
The speakers and space I have simply can’t justify the system I have.
I’ll be interested how this goes, it’s an interesting option, especially compared to the Nova as it would be a better headphone setup and the 250 would give more drive.
If it doesn’t work, I’ll probably go with an SN3/NDX-2 plus the HE.
I am really curious about your findings! Can’t wait. 
I have a 3-4 week wait for the Chord cable so it’s going to be a while.
Big change!
