Uniti and focal 926 K2 Help Needed

Hi-Fi Corner
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Hi There

Yup. Re-terminated using the naim plug and chord ohmic solder style plugs. Hi content silver solder used both ends. Continuity checked. I’m an electronic engineer so have all of the gear here at home for the task. Both dealers commented positively on the speaker cables when they checked them over.

As for the problem being with the naim units. I would have been leaning this way but it was all my gear being used at the demos at the dealers. The only thing that’s not identical is the AC source and network setup.

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And, of course, the room, and it’s this that can make one of the biggest differences. Have you tried having the speakers further apart and not pointing directly at your head? How does it sound if you sit completely off axis?

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Hi There

Yup nice tried the speakers much further apart. And straight ahead etc etc. I’ve also tried them in other rooms in the house.

Sitting at right angles to the speakers they are unbearable. The top end just sounds incredibly shrill. It just magnifies the issue I’m seeing. The bottom end stays nice and clear.

I appreciate that the room can make a massive difference but surely not to this degree. There must be something else going on here.

I really appreciate the time and input from you all in trying to help get to grips on possible causes. Many thanks.

Tom

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Tom, if you are still stuck, a few pointers.
Appreciate you are trying a lot of options and remain dissatisfied, try to keep it simple.
While waiting for a dealer, consider the following, adding Spendor speakers to your possible options.
No mention as to whether you use ethernet or wifi? Any streaming box - Sky Q?
If you have any plugin devices at all, including remote control lights, Alexa or similar. Isolate / remove all initially.
Ditch the “garbage” sources while evaluating your system - Naim will show up anything that is not a quality source (mentioned in posts above).

Either usb stick with say ten or so quality tracks or take a trial on Tidal or Qobuz and set up a playlist, including good tracks to evaluate.
There are several threads here for good tracks to evaluate systems / speakers.
Good test tracks aren’t necessarily favourite music. Concentrate on Nova and in just one room.

One window has no curtains - either affix a blanket or cardboard (then drop the blind) over the window.
Remove anything reflective - metal chair, the tower thing, if at all possible even tv (temporarily).
Speakers in your pics do look perhaps too close together - try different positions, but keep a record of positions / results - maybe take your time.
Set everything up ideally, then when you have it ok, you can decide on the comprises, for what suits you. Puzzled by why you are sitting off axis - perhaps follow the triangle principle, distance dependent on the speakers you are auditioning.
Keep an open mind - including the music choice / source. Once you have an idea what is causing the problem, then you can make decisions / revert back. Hope that helps a little?

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Make sure the cables are not out of phase, what I mean is make sure the positive and negative are in the correct position when plugged into amp. I’ve seen people get them wrong. And it really messes with the sound.

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I appreciate this must be frustrating for you. Did you remove the many loops you had in your speaker cable? Is your Nova plugged directly into the wall socket and (daft question alert) is the power chord female end clicking after you push it in to the Nova (very firmly)? Finally, going on what you’ve said about source it seems that maybe you haven’t consistently tried a good high res source - try Radio Paradise High Res (they have three good stations in the Naim app).

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Clutching at straws here, and my sincere apologies if you’ve mentioned it (I thought I checked the whole thread, but might have missed it) - do you use an internet over mains setup? No direct experience myself of that, but it is supposed to make a mess of things.

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@TomW half meter from rear wall is ok ( back of the speakers to wall) 1.5 meter apart is Way Way to close. Did you mention room size and how far away you sit from them? Try 2meters to 2.5 and as someone mentioned try pointing them straight a head

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Looking at the picture you’re getting terrible reflections of the Telly that’s right next to the right speaker. It’s probably mucking up everything. At the very least get a big blanket and cover it.

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Looking at the pictures it’s obvious your room is acoustically a disaster. I’m in the US so I can’t really think in metric. Here’s what I’d suggest you try even if temporary. Move the weird black corner thing and your TV out of the room for now. Remove that little end table and basket on the left. You should now have a bare wall. Use the fireplace hearth to put you amp on. Then move your sofas back a meter , take the coffee table and turn it the other way. So it’s the same direction as the wall with the fireplace

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The speakers are really too close. They should be at twice the distance vs what is here. It’s really the first thing to do.
And the tv is much too close. It gives brightness and bad reflections.

1 Like
52

Hello All

Many thanks for all of your replies and feedback. It is much appreciated.

I found some time to have a more thorough play. I set up both the atom with Pmc and the nova with the focals.

I tried many different speaker configurations but as many have said this room is a bit of an acoustic disaster area. Whilst different speaker positions did improve the soundstage and make a difference to the lower end performance the problem i was having with the top end persisted.

Using only higher quality sources did make a big difference. I will obviously have to rethink my music collection and upgrade it wherever possible. This isn’t as easy as it sounds as quite a lot of my favourite tracks are one offs live or acoustic tracks that I’ve only found available on YouTube. In terms of my large collection of mp3s these will obviously all have to go. Even the better quality ones have no resolution in the top end.

I made a few changes that have made a significant difference. Whilst both units are plugged directly into wall sockets I looked at this initially. Approaching the situation as a purely logic problem, as I do in my line of work, I focused on the differences in my setup to the demo rooms.

Changing the power lead to a much heavier and screened cable improved things vastly. Exactly why this should be the case remains unclear but the tops end improvement was significant.

Next I looked at the network. Both units are connected over Ethernet, not WiFi. I do have some power line stuff on the other side of the house but not directly within this setup. Removing these made a marginal improvement. Not big but noticeable. I suspect this has more to do with the mains side than the Ethernet.

That’s it really. I’m now a very happy bunny.

The music source quality is a bit of bummer but I do understand that at this level I’m now using a microscope rather than binoculars. A snowflake will look beautiful because it’s perfectly formed.

My poorer sources are more listenable when streamed via the tv then over the hdmi. Why this should be I don’t know. Obviously nothing is going to bring detail back to a top end that has simply been lost due to compression however.

I’m very surprised that the mains feed has had such a massive impact here.

I move in a few months to a new property and will have much more opportunity to design layouts to optimise acoustic performance at this point. (Expect me to be back on here bitching again when this happens. Lol)

Thanks again all for your time and contributions. You rock.

7 Likes
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Great news and you will have a lot of info to use in setting up at your new place.

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My hifi retailer actually said don’t buy Focal to go with my Uniti Atom. I got KEF LS50 Meta and love the pairing.

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