Greetings forum! What an incredible place this is I have been away from serious sounds for ten years after ditching my XS set up when we moved, having multiple Muso streamers around the house
I now intend to get back to something that I can hook up my old Mission Cyrus 751 speakers up to and wonder if the forum would give me their thoughts on what’s realistically best for my use case? I may decide to get some floor standers at some point but will start with the Missions.
I have a Mac and can rip cds to that and of course have my iPhone loaded with my 300+ albums so wonder is it best to have the cd as a option for now and future (as I don’t foresee me binning my cd’s, in fact I still buy them via eBay used as they are such great value).
Additionally I don’t stream any music much to the amusement of my friends, not sure why but guess I just don’t want even more subscriptions than I currently have for TV streaming.
Peter Tyson have great deals on 1 year warranty mint condition units, Star £2250 or Atom £1620…
Peter Tyson are not my regular Naim dealer, but I did once buy something from them, and they were happy to allow me a 1 month demo period. I had to pay up front, of course, but they were prepared to give a full refund if I changed my mind. I suggest you ask them to do the same, take the Star and Atom home, and see which you prefer.
Personally I would rip those CDs you are buying. Use a lossless format and stick them on a USB drive which you can connect to the Atom or Star.
Don’t feel you are compromising with a one box system. There will always be something better out there, but so what? I’d do as Chris suggested above; rip the CDs and put them on a USB drive. The Star seems to be something of the awkward middle child in the Uniti range and I’d go with Atom or Nova. The Nova has considerably more power, so will give more flexibility in terms of future speaker choice, while the Atom is smaller and more cute.
The Star is a big upgrade over the Atom and it has a CD player/ripper and at the prices you quote I think is the best choice by far.
I bought a Star about a year after they were released and still have it in my second system. I have ripped all my CDs with it and stored them on an SSD attached to it. I did think about trading it in for a Core I am happy with the rips SQ and use them for my 333.
There are lots of folk on here who get great pleasure from a one-box system, so if that’s what you want, go for it.
As for choosing between the Star and Atom, the Atom is smaller and, to my eyes, better looking, but the Star should have better SQ. However, there have been some reports of users having trouble with the CD player on the Star, so worth a forum search, perhaps.
I would second the suggestion to rip your CD purchases. If you did rip them to your Mac, you could install a server such as Asset UPnP on the Mac and then play them on your new streamer and your Musos. But you would need your Mac running of course.
A year or so ago, my brother asked my advice on a system that would look and sound good in his very nice lounge. I recommended an Atom and he bought one as part of a package with some Focal speakers and has been very pleased with his system ever since.
Having lived with my wife for a long time I know j’ll need to wait to have a separate room to listen to music in before separates are an option. I am mildly surprised she has signed off on a pair of speakers in the lounge frankly, although she had been on the lady juice all day at the time…
How much better is the SQ when cds ripped to a “dongle” rather than just streamed from the iPhone via max bit rate on iMusic?
Directly connected via the USB on a Uniti will be better for SQ than streaming from an iPhone.
As for CD vs streaming, that depends. Streaming can yield higher resolution files these days than CD but on an Atom or Star I would be surprised if you heard the difference between the two, given a similar quality fidelity digital file vs CD.
What format are the rips on the Phone? If they are not FLAC or WAV files, they won’t have the SQ of rips made by the Star. I don’t know much about Airplay but my understanding is that SQ is not highly regarded. With the Atom or Star best quality would be via locally stored FLAC or WAV files or from a NAS, ideally connected via a network cable.
As others have said, consider if these are what you want if you don’t plan to stream. OTOH, you never know if you might once you have the ability. They’re both great choices, even if you don’t stream, with excellent sound, but the Star is a big step up from the Atom. A much bigger step than from the Star to the Nova.
I auditioned all three and went with the Star as certainly the best value for money. I haven’t regretted it.
It’s worth remembering that even if one doesn’t plan to stream from Tidal or Qobuz, the streamers open up the whole world of iRadio, and the ability to cast music and programmes from one’s phone. These are great things to have.
By a large margin, the biggest factor determining sound quality is your speakers and your room configuration. By comparison, the difference between the Atom, Star, and Nova is very subtle indeed and perhaps even non-existent when they are working within their respective “performance envelope”. In my opinion one of Naim’s strengths is their streamer implementation (and I’ve tried several), so once you have you selection in house don’t be surprised if you get hooked!
I disagree about the differences between the 3, having done an A, B, C comparison between the three, the differences are blindingly obvious. There is a marked step up in SQ between each one. What can cloud the issue a bit is that the Star offers ripping whilst the Nova offers better SQ. I chose ripping over SQ because at the time I didn’t want to spend out on a Core.
I have been away from serious sounds for ten years after ditching my XS set up when we moved, having multiple Muso streamers around the house