Hey!
I just bought Naim Uniti Nova, my family loved the looks, and the perfect timing listening to older rock pieces. It works great with those… we tested it with Focal Aria 936 K2. Those are a bit too big for our room, what’s worse we have a terrible scenario with corner speaker placement, 4m distance listening… and 27m2 room in total. I did read all the proposed speakers, Proac, Kudos, Spendor… It might be tricky for me to test all of them, so I would like to kindly ask You to advise speakers that would make… Nova sound a tiny bit more sweet and airy. Maybe it’s the fact that it is just the third day, but as amazingly energetic, rhythmic, and powerful it sounds, it does lose a tiny bit of reverbs here and there and does miss the air a bit. It sounds super serious and as results less rhythmic pieces slightly struggle. I read that Kanta 1 does soften Nova a tiny bit and ads a wide stage, but I wanted to hear what would be Your take on that… I would love to have a tiny tiny bit more air, a wider stage, and a tiny bit more sweat presentation. Kanta 2 is out of my budget
Maybe you could post a picture of your room. You really need the speakers somewhere around 2.5m apart and in front of the listening position. They are never going to give you what you want when positioned in corners. Speakers need space around them to breathe.
I heard some lovely Sonus Faber standmount speakers at my dealership a few months ago (not a formal demo) just had some time to kill. Not cheap but they were incredibly musical and involving and I honestly wondered why I’m persevering with 20+ year old SBLs.
Yeah, last year I considered the Olympica Nova III or V and heard the III with 282/250, they were really nice and in the top 2 of my auditions. Went a different way eventually, but if someone is looking for smooth/romantic, SF should be on the list
Pretty sure it was these Sonus Faber Olympica Nova I speakers - powered by an Atom! Some would say mullet (they are a shade under £6,000) but they sounded amazing.
Appreciate these may be outside the price range but SF prices at my dealer seem to start at just under £800. I’d certainly consider SF speakers if I were to replace my SBLs at any point.
If you need corner placement then Audionote UK could be on your list, the K or Js probably. No need to get too exotic with the wires, copper will do fine, which keeps the cost down but ply rather than MDF cabinets are worth considering. If you’re UK based I know Audio T in Reading stock these and the Nova so you could check with them if they think the combination works. They did sell some Es (no not that sort) to a guy with a 282/250 that I spoke to at an ND555 demo night and he preferred them to his NBLs. With Audio T they will lend demo stock to other stores in the group.
Basically, it should give you the things you say you are looking for. I’d give it a good 6 months or more to settle in before thinking about changing the speakers. Also, play with speaker positioning as well. Good luck.
Happy owner of a Nova, I paired it with a pair of NEAT Acoustics Ekstra and NAC A5 cables. The sreamin audio provider is Qubuz commanded by Roon Labs Software installed on MacBook Pro.
Very natural and never tiring sound, dynamic and with an exceptional low range yield. The ribbon tweeter, which many consider too unbalanced, is transparent and linear. A competent speaker with all genres, including classical music, which renders in a present and natural way. Highly recommended.
They are not particularly critical in positioning, I keep them less about 50cm from the rear, and have an absolutely controlled bass response. Please note that I mainly listen to Jazz and classical chamber music. Be careful in the orientation of the tweeters, it is not always necessary to create the classic “triangular” listening front, I tried to place them parallel to the side wall, at a good distance from the ear, and I found an excellent scenic reconstruction of the sound front . Experiment by shifting the orientation of the tweeter centimeter by centimeter, you could have good yields.
