Perhaps google translated “terrible” instead of “ average “.
There is certainly this possibility and we don’t know, I think, the native language of the OP and how well the Google translation works for it.
However, I have read French hifi forums through the Google translation into English and it was completely readable.
And in my work, I use Google translations routinely to read and write emails in conversations with Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, etc., speakers, and I know these languages little, but well enough to see if Google creates gibberish, and it does very rarely. It actually works so well that I even dare to use the translations to write emails in the foreign language.
For languages I don’t know at all, like Japanese or Chinese, it works well enough for me to make always sense of what the other person is saying. (Though I don’t trust it enough to send emails translated to Chinese 
)
I agree, I was more into humour side 
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Burn the heathen!
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What is your native language tanxin?
You may have seen on of many previous discussions, however:
…see Simon’s explanation here.
Thanks, yea I did read most of past discussions. What Simon says here makes sense (as it always does) and AFAIK that’s also what Naim communicated, but to me it does not explain significant changes of sound signature. Anyways, I am happy either way. And in the context of this thread, it totally does not fit the “terrible” description. Maybe better to stop this subtopic here (though it is fascinating), the OP is confused enough as it is and focus should be on helping with their problem.
I’d hope not, and the dealer route would be best here, though depending on where the user is I guess that may or may not be easy/practicable especially during the pandemic.
I was only offering firmware as a potential cause as I think the OP mentions two different Novas which may or may not have been up to date, though of course hardware issues would need to be considered first against another Nova running the same firmware.
Firmware updates should generally only be able to introduce (very) small changes to the sound signature. If the difference is large enough to be audible, then it would certainly translate into measurable spectographic artifacts.
It would be really great if people who do seem to experience these kinds of large differences could obtain a measurement microphone like the UMIK-1 (only about $75-100), and do measurements before and after an update. Audible changes could then easily be made visible to substantiate their findings, and could also be used by the Naim developers for further investigation and/or tweaking.
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Based on a quick google of his username, OP is Chinese.
In fairness, I think the majority of us (even if I mentioned firmware) are suggesting:
1 - it should not take 9 months to come on song
2 - the dealer, if possible would be best to try to get to the root of any problem
There are many many other variables that could be at play too.
If the question is genuine we simply have a forum poster who is very unhappy with his purchase, but was happy with the Star.
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Not so easy to do, though, e.g. a quick frequency sweep does not give you information about impulse behavior or transients.
And all the suggestions were good, considering the little information there is. Even firmware might be an explanation for certain changes, it just does not fit the description as I read it, but my reading is not the only possible one, obviously.
Faced with a complex problem like this, if the path to a solution is not obvious, if I was the OP I would start ruling out the most likely causes before investigating anything more esoteric like firmware or putting SLs on a Nova
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Yes you’re right, although there often times are reports about for instance increased/decreased bass response, those kinds of changes would have to be visible. My general thought would be that if the difference is large enough for someone to describe one firmware as great and another as terrible, then that difference would have to be large enough to translate into measurements.
My guess is that OP is from China, where dealerships model works differently compared to UK. And judging by his posts, he bought the Nova online, and doesn’t want the hassle of posting the Nova back without first bottoming out potential causes of the sound quality problems he is experiencing.
Yes! As others have mentioned in the thread the Nova should sound great out of the box, there is no compromise to be looked for there.
I doubt that very much. If you read the frequency response diagram of every single amp you can buy today, it is essentially flat from 20 Hz (or in any case way below the speakers people have) to 20 kHz (or way beyond if it’s not a Naim). This is a solved problem - and it is the only thing you see in a frequency sweep (of course distorted by speaker and room modes, but they tend to stay constant in a given room)
Nevertheless, people report bass differences between different amps, a 300 triggering a room mode that a 200 didn’t, etc. At first I doubted this somewhat, also because I thought of the frequency response diagrams of amps. Then I also experienced similar things with my 300, and even more when I completed the system.
My hypothesis is that better amps do put more energy into the room, just not the kind that you see in a sweep. And it seems logical to me that this would be in quick impulses and transients.
The above just being one example of measurements complexities
Edit: I realize I am poor at following my own suggestion of focusing on the OP’s problem
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I don’t disagree at all.
Subjectively I would say that some of the much older updates did produce quite marked changes. Others noticed nothing.
That would be interesting to try actually but possibly would’t help without an ability to revert to a ‘preferred’ version if there was a demonstrable change. Equally I suppose there might be a measurable change that the listener couldn’t even appreciate.
There are so many things in hi-fi that the vast majority of the public would dismiss as snake oil and even now seem bizarre to me, examples:
Interconnect/speaker cables making a difference.
Power cables making a difference.
Mains quality making a difference.
Ethernet cables.
Cable Dressing.
Proper supports/stands.
Cable/equipment burn in.
…and so forth. A lot of these things are pretty illogical on the face of it, if they work great, if not you’ll be disappointed or hopefully will have been able to demo/return first.
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I can only say that if my Nova sounded different with every other firmware update, i would get rid of it asap and get a different brand/model that would be more stable. I have no patience to deal with that kind of stuff. 
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