This is the problem I’ve worked hard the last 25 years to get the setup I have now and tbh I’m unsure. I know it sound fantastic but so does the Atom. I have friends that struggle to hear the difference, I’ve always dismissed them as ill informed, maybe we listen too much to the electronics and not enough to the music.
While I’m not at the stage you guys are at with my main system I am looking at my study kit. After two years of using the study as a bit of a test lab for trying out kit for the main system I now have a whole number of boxes to play with. I’m not sure that the current 4 box system (plus turntable, phono and streamer is necessary. I’m now looking at the GoldNote IS-1000 as a possible one box replacement. I’d like Naim to have something similar.
CD play back has become a real problem for us loyal Naim fans. Think not having a decent new generation play is disappointing. This brings us back on topic and new player would be welcome.
Pete, you have plenty of time to make a decision. I see many people on this forum with the same dilemma. I do not think there is a wrong or right here, it is just a personal preference. It was like when I decided to give up having a CD player and rip all my discs to a Naim Core. I now could never go back to playing a cd again, what with all that rummaging to find the disc, then take it out of case and put it in player. In fact, if I only owned a few discs, I would have got rid of them, not bought a Core and relied entirely on a music streaming service. I wonder how many people, who have spent vast sums of money on HiFi boxes, would make the same choice again, after living with it for a few months and doing a revaluation against so called lesser boxes. I believe the perceived difference would have diminished from the original demonstration and that convenience, functionality and lower maintenance, would play a part in this revaluation.
What I will say is for most people is, no matter what HiFi you choose to purchase, you will never have the best HiFi system in the world.
I have resisted going down the streaming route for a few reasons but mostly that unless you are a mega-successful musician you get shortchanged by the payment model. Because I am shielding I haven’t been to a music shop for a couple of years, everything has been bought online. So s a result of these two factors, I have recently begun to buy downloads from Bandcamp. Which I find works well for me. It is a bit of a hassle downloading to my PC and copying the file onto the SD card for my Star, which doesn’t recognise the download until I edit the folder name. I can live with this as it is easy to download an mp3 copy for my phone and the car.
@NoNaim as a fellow ATC40a owner do you miss the 272/555 combo versus the Uniti Atom HE? I seem to recall asking you a similar question last year but you were reluctant to say too much for some reason?
Hard question to answer, as I never ran the ATC’s with the 272/555. I also was using the 300 with PMC Twenty5 26 and Townshend Seismic Podiums.
Sat here listening at present, I could live with this setup. However, I have one more change - can you guess what it is? - Schhh
What you have going for the Atom, is the updated streaming board and also the balanced XLR output.