Hello, new to Naim and delighted with my Mu:so Qb 2. My only niggle is one I bought with eyes wide open, which is that the sound obviously and understandably emanates from a single point, which I find jarring, being used to a stereo set-up with a few metres between speakers.
Now I know that the Mu:so system is not capable of stereo left and right separation but what I’m seeking is more of a sense of a distributed sound. I’m thinking of going for either a second Qb or the big brother Muso:2 to pair with my existing one (I wouldn’t mind a bit more low-end grunt). I have a large, very open plan living room/kitchen with an archway to the rest of the house, so acoustically, it’s a nightmare.
Is this pairing for the same room a daft idea? I know that there would be sound/power differences between the Mu:so and the Qb to contend with, but they might be mitigated by their placement.
What attracted me to the Mu:so series was that it has Chromecast AND Airplay 2, so I would want the system to maintain that, ideally. the €1,400 of the Mu:so is the top of my budget, thereabouts.
Please be gentle with me: I know little about hi-fi, I’m just a music nut. Thank you!
Hi, you can use another Muso (or any Naim streamer) in multiroom mode so that two or more of them will play in sync. It won’t be stereo, but it will obviously distribute the sound more evenly around the room.
Still, it sounds to me like what you really want is a proper stereo with a pair of speakers.
Thanks and yes a conventional stereo set-up seems the obvious way to have gone. I looked at a Cambridge Audio streamer that handles Airplay 2 and Chromecsst but it needed an amp and speakers and then you are into £4k if you’re not going to ruin it by adding cheap stuff. My budget couldn’t stretch to that.
How about an ex dem Uniti Atom for under £2,000 and some Dynaudio Emit 10s for £400? Or if you can manage with its more limited functionality you can get a UnitiQute2 for £400.
That would be a very nice set-up, thanks, though possibly making my existing Qb a bit of a third leg. I could put the latter in the office, but I think I hear my other half’s teeth grinding at the extravagance! Also, I live in Lisbon now so getting ex-demos and such like, especially of UK equipment is probably wishful thinking as it tends to be new and by order only, they don’t carry it in store. If you know of somewhere in the Eurozone that sometimes carries ex-demo stuff of this ilk do please let me know.
Yes, the symmetry would make a lot of sense and I did not know that about the Chromecast stereo function, so thanks for that. My only reason for not just getting another Qb at this point would be the innate limitations of the output as opposed to its wider distribution. It might be the latter might paper over that limitation satisfactorily. It’s not like I often get above 80% volume and find it wanting.