I’ve had my Star since Nov. 2022 and have had to send it back to repair a fractured solder on one of the chips.
It’s also behaved erratically (won’t power off, stopped playing music, power button blinks and can’t power off) in which I’ve had to unplug the power cable to ‘reset’ it (since the reset procedure wouldn’t work), and it’s getting frustrating and while the 5 year warranty is great, I’m concerned something more serious will occur after the warranty expires and I’ll be stuck with a very costly repair (let alone $100 to ship to Naim to begin with).
Is this a ‘norm’ for the Star and I shouldn’t be too concerned, or perhaps going old school and moving towards an integrated amp + streamer is a more stable option?
I’ve never had a Uniti product so I can’t compare. However I had a SN3 with first an ND5XS2 and then an NDX2. I found these combinations to be very stable and yield good SQ. I suspect which integrated you choose will make a big difference. Furthermore I suspect a separate high quality streamer as per the ones I noted or better, would yield a very significant increase in steaming SQ. I suspect the Uniti is a compromise where you gain the convenience of a single box at the expense of SQ. It would help if we knew your budget.
Can’t say if its normal but I had two Stars replaced before giving up. To be fair i also hated the way it handled CDs (massive buffer thus massive lag) even when it decided to give them back. I got a Nova plus proper cd player. The nova likes to make me jump by powering its main supply up on its own occasionally but i decided to ignore it. (I drive an old Alfa Romeo.)
Curious what issues you had w your Star and if they were similar to mine. Also, when did you originally buy yours? I’m wondering if mine was a COVID produced unit when quality labour was short and hard to come by. I bought mine in 2022.
Hi. Purchased April '24. Basically it ate CDs and wouldn’t return them. I had to poke opened paper clips in the little hole to get them out. Slot loaders eh. It was replaced twice. Same problem, twice. Replaced with Nova, which turned itself into standby randomly, or just crashed needing total power-off recovery. Sent back for repair. I was close to demanding all the money back for this premium brand crap etc etc gimme back my arcam gear. Streamer board replaced I think. It’s been ok this year. I had been tempted to swap it out again but it does sound quite nice.
Also I now love my little pro-ject cd transport. Much better.
And breathe…
I can’t comment on the Star, but we regularly listen to Atom and Nova. In the holiday cottage, we could have had a Nova but opted for ND5XS2+82+Hicap+250 on the basis that it just sounded better.
Had I not had the 250 and Hicap already spare, I would have picked ND5XS2+Supernait 3.
Since the Star falls between Atom and Nova, I suspect that you will get similar results if you compare 1 box and multibox options, but t is best to check that yourself.
