I was advised to buy this product to start my streaming journey. I was too naive about streaming to recognize its limitations and since it was expensive, I am loathe to part with it. Yet it is way behind products performing similar functions. Why does Naim not update its software to be competitive?
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Now that is the million$ question….
A good few of us have wondered….the frustrating thing is it wouldn’t take too much OS tweak to make it a superb product all round (re meta data capabilities etc) on top of its SQ abilities….
But we go round in circles…and nothing seems to really materialise or develop with the Core…We only got v 2.5.7 a some months back to rectify an issue with the meta lookup and Rovi API – I was hoping it would bring more after all these years, but unfortunately not….
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Yes, it’s a bit of a mystery really. My best guess is that can’t resource it as a priority over other things they have going on.
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I was hoping they would surprise us with a new server product. I did have a conversation with Jason Gould on its limitations and he kind of agreed it could do with updating……but that was a long time ago. A lot of the Uniti products over promised and never delivered some features.
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Perhaps….but then, over such a long period of time? It was released in 2016 and, really, hasn’t greatly developed in any real way in all that time….
As has been said often, it was a difficult start even when released and was arguably under-cooked….But a lot of the common requested features and UI improvements really can’t be that hard to implement in the OS….
As stated in one of the other threads (@IainO writes well on this subject, ie Naim Core vs Innuos Zen(ith)? - #4 by IainO ), it can’t even label a 2-disc album, or identify SD Vs HiDef….Hell, it can’t even tag and list albums by date….! In 2024……
Superb hardware and mechanical design….Absolutely s*+# OS and UI….
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Yes, it’s a shame. But I live in hope.
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If i recall correctly we were asked quite some time ago on the beta thread what we would like to see in the future and the Core was mentioned by quite a few…….needs more work. Nothing seemed to come out of that discussion.
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Probably busy choosing the felt for the Divas ….
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Maybe they see the future in on-line streaming?
Maybe they do, good for them…
Can see the scene at a HiFi show in a hotel with crappy internet, demoing stop/start streaming into a S1 and ND555…
I like to own my files (plus numerous backups) and I like to organise my library of artists in the way I desire….Besides, although I use Qobuz daily for some listening via streaming, plus iRadio, for anything I really care about or like I will always prefer to play locally stored files for SQ reasons – I thought Naim did too……
Oh, and it also all still works if I haven’t paid my ISP bill that month…! 
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I do agree with you, it just seems odd that they have neglected their digital source, but it does sound great.
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Given how restrictive streaming rights are in much of the world, I’d not put my eggs in that basket. It’s still nigh on impossible in more countries than you imagine due to licensing, censorship, IP laws etc.
I wonder how many they actually sold and whether it was ever enough to justify continued development.
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Yes indeed to all you’ve said. It’s a puzzlement (do I remember that phrase coming from Yul Brynner’s King of Siam In The King and I?) to me as to why the Naim Uniti Core cannot be modernized and become competitive. What sort of engineering in it is so limiting that the audio experts can’t upgrade it. We should at least be able to connect to Internet Radio and Qobuz and Tidal. And I so want them to allow me to switch my WAV files to FLAC to get away from the proprietary version of WAV they decided upon. Or even better to adopt a standard version of WAV and provide conversion to it.
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There’s nothing ‘engineering’ hardware wise that’s limiting…it would all be on the OS side of things….It’s all about a desire for them to spend some time on it……That’s where the puzzlement is, for me anyway…
Re WAV and Naim’s historic method re metadata – if you can stand some more computer time, have a look into SongKong (the ‘Melco’ version of the software)…it includes a module that will read the Naim proprietary meta file and then embed the very same metadata (including any user edits) into the WAV files in universal ID3 format (which is possible and works well)…from there, you could convert the amended files into whatever other format you like and the embedded metadata will follow…personally, I just keep as WAV but have them all ID3 tagged….
(BTW, You have to do all this away from the main (rips) store on the Core so that you are able to have edit access, or simply, create duplicates and work on those…then bring back into the Core….)
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Naim tends to prioritise SQ over functionality which I think is the best approach. So maybe it is because they haven’t managed to get rips to sound better with an updated software.
A bit like a 100mph car with no brakes.
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Maybe a better analogy would be a high powered rear wheel drive sports car with no traction control, no power steering, etc, giving you maximum ‘feel’ and requiring nerves of steel and considerable skill in handling breakaway rear end etc, vs a version with 4wd, traction control etc allowing you to drive as fast as you want but with maximum safety.
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Sure, of course…No problem with that. I don’t think a lot of us would be here otherwise….
But, really…Most of what is often requested of the Core is extra metadata handling and functionality…that’s not really rocket science or complicated software…and zero to do with SQ issues or impact (in the context of any firmware update will effect SQ, as we’ve all recently learnt with the Streamer/iRadio update) ……
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I have SongKong. In fact I persuaded Paul to update his software to include the Naim Uniti Core’s version of WAV as he had previously programmed SongKong to translate a different version of WAV used by another Naim product. Can you imagine that Naim uses two different proprietary versions of WAV!?!? Unfathomable….
I am a former computer programmer decades past retired but very unfortunately, I cannot seem to wrap my old brain around the way his program works. My software brain must be wired very differently from his.
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If Naim were going to develop the Core I think they would have done it by now. They essentially took the old, relatively basic Unitiserve firmware, ported it from Windows to Linux, and bizarrely chose to make it even more basic by stripping out some key features. I can just about live with the Unitiserve’s limitations, but the Core is a step too far in my books, and I would never buy one.
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