Which speakers?

Hi to all & hope all are safe & well. My Naim Uniti is about to go in for a service at Naim & am now looking at changing my speakers also. My current set up is Naim Uniti, Rega Planar 3, Chord Epic & B&W 602 S2s. I am undecided on Neat or Focal speakers. Any advice or experience you may have had would be appreciated. Stay safe & love the music 24/7. Regards.

Allow me to jump in first with “these are the speakers I’ve got so you should obviously have them as well…”

ATC.

They made the speakers for the NAIM boxes before Salisbury decided to discontinue and let the French in at the backdoor…

They really are splendid and you should audition a pair of whatever is the best size for your rig.

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Welcome Ridds!

What is that you are looking for that the B&W 602 S2s don’t give you?

Why are you changing brand? Is there anything you don’t like?
Speakers are very personal, so you’d really have to listen, but for any sort of advice other than “get what I also ended up getting”, it would help if you elaborated a bit on what music you listen to and what you do / don’t like in your current speakers and what you’re hoping a change will bring.

In case you’d consider sticking with B&W, I’m personally very happy with the 702s2 with my Star. Which Uniti do you have?

Hi Christopher, yes that question has been asked before even by my own local hifi dealerships. I think it’s the old story Boys & their toys. Am I looking for new speakers because I think I am missing out on something when really I am not with these great B&Ws. Undecided. Cheers

Hi, I bought my Naim Uniti in 2010 new. I am happy to stay with B&W because my 602s are now 20 years old which may then throw up the question if I have been happy with them for 20 years then why change…?. I have listened to a lot of speakers over the last 2 years but I never went WOW they are the ones. PMC, Neat, Tannoys monitor audio etc etc. I think that is what I was hanging out for the same wow factor I got when I first listened to the 602s. I never got the chance to listen to any Foclas which I will try & do. Regards.

Cheers Mike, I will investigate these when my local dealership opens hopefully in April. Regards.

If you’re not wowed, keep your money in your pocket. But since you seem to be really happy with the B&W sound, try and listen to some current models, see if they do it for you.

As mentioned I have B&W, but also really liked the Revel F206 and previously had Focals. So they might suit you as well, try and listen.

I’d be very surprised if your Uniti could drive ATCs properly. The current ones are not desperately hard to drive but they do need a good bit of power. A lot depends on how large your room is and how loudly you like to play your music. After years with quite large speakers I’ve gone back to small ones and they work well in my 18m2 room. But in a great big room it wouldn’t work so well.

I have used my Uniti with quite a few speakers, but mainly second hand.

These worked well:
Rogers L6t
Spendor s6e

Good with a bit of volume:
Neat motive 2
Totem Mite

I now use my Uniti as source into 160/62/HC and it does better the internal amp of the Uniti but not by a huge amount.

Okay. Neat Motive 2s are superbly successful with Naim. The Focals I don’t know but they came out when Naim and Focal merged and there was talk of Naim gear having been voiced to match them.

I don’t think you would go wrong with either brand.

Not sure about it, that Naim gear was voiced to Focal speakers. Some like Naim/ Focal, some hate. So the OP can go right but also wrong with them.
BW and Focal don’t sound the same too…

If I were you I would try the Totem Sky, Sky Tower, Skylight or the Forest (they don’t seem that hard to drive, even if they enjoy power). Before having Totem, I had the B&W 602 S1. The Totem really caught my attention with their holographic sound and soundstage (that was a wow for me), they are also punchy and clean too. It depends if you like this kind of sound of course. A listening session won’t hurt.

Hi,

i’ve been running Motive SX2s with all of Naim’s integrated amplifiers and they match very well indeed, so i would imagine they will also sound supreme with your Uniti too. I’ve not heard the very latest Focal range so can’t comment on those, but if they’re as half as good as the Neat’s then they would be most definitely worth a try as well. Maybe the Chora range?

Mike your post might be misunderstood, so just to be clear, ATC made and supplied Naim with the bass drive unit for the DBL loudspeaker.

Ah ha! What companies were involved in making the other speakers, or were they done in-house?

Thanks for your help. Waiting for shops to open :+1::musical_score:

Can I just say a big thank you for all your comments on my speaker issue. I now have a long list for when the shops open again.:musical_score::+1:

Naim built the 200mm mid/bass and bass units in-house. These replaced units originally built by Mordaunt-Short.

The 125mm mid/bass and midrange units were also built entirely by Naim in-house. These replaced units (IBL) originally built by Mordaunt-Short and ELAC.

The tweeters were mostly from Scanspeak, albeit selected and modified in-house. The N-Sats, N-Cent and Arivas used Vifa tweeters.

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