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Naim Uniti Atom Review (Streamer & Amp)

Rate this streamer:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 277 68.7%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 92 22.8%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther

    Votes: 21 5.2%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 13 3.2%

  • Total voters
    403

Jimster480

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Surprising that this is so bad. I hadn't heard of the company but considering its looks and price, you would expect atleast CD Quality performance... seems we are nowhere really close to there especially once amp losses are factored in.
 
D

Deleted member 50321

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This is a review and detailed measurements of the Naim Uniti Atom streamer, DAC and integrated amplifier. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $3,799.
View attachment 214470

The overall industry design is attractive and has a high-end look to it. Alas, every part of the unit has an ultra sharp edge from heatsinks to edges of the plexiglass (?) front panel. It is a heavy box which makes you really feel those sharp edges as if they are going to tear into your skin. It was unpleasant every time I had to move or rotate the unit.

The front panel is large and sharp which I like. Alas, and strangely so, it is not a touch screen. In this day and age and at this price, a touchscreen is a requirement in my opinion. A very large rotary control managed the volume. It seem to have some kind of acceleration but wasn't very intuitive.

Here is the back panel:
View attachment 214471

I was surprised to see the compact binding posts that are made only for banana plugs. Likewise there is no USB B to use the unit as a DAC. Maybe you can use the type-A connector for that but even so, it is very unusual choice. Nice to see a floating ground switch. In my testing, it only impacted the networked tests. Otherwise it had no effect.

Inclusion of HDMI is very important to allow sound from TV to be piped into it.

Upon booting and with Ethernet cable plugged in, it nicely told me there is new firmware. It took something like 10 minutes to download the image and then went into a seemingly infinity cycles of booting, dark screen, non-descript progress bar and power button that would fade on or off or solid on. I left there for probably half hour when it finally seem to be ready.

There is the usual app to control it but I opted for the included remote control. It too has very sharp edges but otherwise functional.

Naim Uniti Atom DAC Measurements
I started by testing the unit using Coax due to lack of type-B or type-c USB port. Here is our usual dashboard:
View attachment 214473

Distortion dominates causing our SINAD (noise+distortion) to barely reach into "fair" category:
View attachment 214474

Distortion rises into the noise floor of even 16 bit content so not a good first showing. As noted, changing the grounding mode made no difference in any of these measurements.

The output stage is capable of higher voltage which is nice:

View attachment 214475

Good to see the output does not become all distorted once the internal amplifier is pushed beyond clipping.

Noise performance is not competitive with even budget DACs but almost good enough for 16-bit playback:
View attachment 214477

Multitone distortion was quite high:
View attachment 214478

Jitter display looks clean but noise floor is high and is masking interference patterns:
View attachment 214479

Levels of those spurious tones though is quite low and inaudible (-128 dB).

We have a rather odd filter response:
View attachment 214480

This partially contributes to rather poor noise+distortion relative to frequency:
View attachment 214481

Finally, linearity matches the fair performance of the rest of the system:
View attachment 214482

Naim Uniti Atom Amplifier Measurement
Given the choice of analog or digital input, I tested both which producing 5 watts:
View attachment 214483

View attachment 214484

Performance is very close so I opted to use analog in as that makes the comparison to other amps easier. Notice the high power supply noise at 120 Hz (double mains frequency in US). Overall ranking is well below average:
View attachment 214485

Frequency response test with analog input shows a brick wall filter which indicates input is being digitized:
View attachment 214486

Shame then that no DSP functionality is provided. The roll off filter in the ADC causes some drooping in the high frequencies.

Crosstalk response was kind of shaky but overall good:
View attachment 214487

Multitone test once again shows less than optimal performance:
View attachment 214488

Rated power is low and that is what we see:
View attachment 214489


View attachment 214491

View attachment 214492

Sweeping the frequency for power measurement we get orderly response:

View attachment 214490

Notice the typical sharp drop in power at 20 Hz. This is why you need more powerful amplifier than you think you are getting. Power is needed in bass but the reservoir capacitors in the power supply get depleted and you don't get as much output.

Naim Unit Headphone Amplifier Measurements
I expected the headphone output to be "junk" but it actually is not:

View attachment 214493

That is plenty of output for satisfactory response of high impedance headphones. Noise floor is not competitive with any modern/recommended headphone amp but could have been far worse. At 32 ohm though, available power is much more limited:
View attachment 214494

Sweeping the load we see that the headphone amplifier is not capable of much current delivery:
View attachment 214495

So best to stay with high impedance headphones.

Naim Uniti Atom Streaming Measurements
I ran the streaming tests a day later and here, I noticed noise bleeding into the output:
View attachment 214496

So I tried the ground lift switch and it remedied that:
View attachment 214497

SINAD though is dominated by high distortion so didn't matter one way or the other. And performance is the same as local/coax S/PDIF input.


Conclusions
Performance of Naim Atom ranges from fair/adequate to rather poor. Shame that when you pay so much for a piece of audio, not much design hygiene is included. I suspect more went into software development and enclosure design than making sure the hardware is performant. I hope for a version 2 the company works to substantially improve the performance of these subsystems. I am sure many buy a Naim product thinking they are getting great audio performance.

I can't recommend the Naim Uniti Atom streaming amplifier.

P.S. I was going to give the mailman panther rating to the unit but he is out making deliveries......

-----------
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What a wonderful scientific, measurement based review. Did you listen to the thing. I suspect not.
No way does this review do justice to this kit. Rather than a just accepting this c#%p I suggest you all just have a (free) demo at your dealers. I strongly believe this is a "bash anything less than a trillion watts" exercise. Listen to some music with a good set of matched speakers and then say it's not brilliant. If you still believe that.
 

DavidEdwinAston

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What a wonderful scientific, measurement based review. Did you listen to the thing. I suspect not.
No way does this review do justice to this kit. Rather than a just accepting this c#%p I suggest you all just have a (free) demo at your dealers. I strongly believe this is a "bash anything less than a trillion watts" exercise. Listen to some music with a good set of matched speakers and then say it's not brilliant. If you still believe that.
Subjectively, you believe that it is "brilliant"! Entirely up to you to think that. However, this is an objective site.
 

Trell

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What a wonderful scientific, measurement based review. Did you listen to the thing. I suspect not.
No way does this review do justice to this kit. Rather than a just accepting this c#%p I suggest you all just have a (free) demo at your dealers. I strongly believe this is a "bash anything less than a trillion watts" exercise. Listen to some music with a good set of matched speakers and then say it's not brilliant. If you still believe that.
This is not headfi, just saying.
 

Garrincha

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What a wonderful scientific, measurement based review. Did you listen to the thing. I suspect not.
No way does this review do justice to this kit. Rather than a just accepting this c#%p I suggest you all just have a (free) demo at your dealers. I strongly believe this is a "bash anything less than a trillion watts" exercise. Listen to some music with a good set of matched speakers and then say it's not brilliant. If you still believe that.
Another new member with a memorable message. Yes, it measures mediocre, but it sounds so amazingly good, much better than many devices that measure a lot better. How does it do it? It´s a Naim, it´s british, it´s rather expensive, it must sound good!
 
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tw99

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Aka: I googled for reviews of something expensive I own, and didn't like it when someone pointed out that it has a lot of technical failings.

You might be happier in the Naim forum where the marketing message is consumed hook, line and sinker, and then some!
 
D

Deleted member 50321

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This is not headfi, just saying.
And you normally listen to music with what precisely? A huge range of scientific instruments or your ears? If it's the former is it the carlos fandango go faster version with wide wheels and have you read the reviews on that?
 

Trell

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And you normally listen to music with what precisely? A huge range of scientific instruments or your ears? If it's the former is it the carlos fandango go faster version with wide wheels and have you read the reviews on that?

You're member of the wrong forum.
 
D

Deleted member 50321

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Aka: I googled for reviews of something expensive I own, and didn't like it when someone pointed out that it has a lot of technical failings.

You might be happier in the Naim forum where the marketing message is consumed hook, line and sinker, and then some!
Nope. I looked at the Naim forum and it's peopled by @#£@£%#'s. I just know how much I like the sounds this thing produces. I have B&O and Bowers and Wilkins gear too. As I hinted, the best way to really check something out is to try it yourself. Happy listening.
 

AdamG

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Nope. I looked at the Naim forum and it's peopled by @#£@£%#'s. I just know how much I like the sounds this thing produces. I have B&O and Bowers and Wilkins gear too. As I hinted, the best way to really check something out is to try it yourself. Happy listening.
Welcome Aboard The ASR train. We do both quite well actually (measure and listen). Just listening is fine too. I hope you will do some more reading about what it is we do around here and in the process get to know our community better. We welcome anyone who has a passion for Music. After all that is what it’s all about.
 
D

Deleted member 50321

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Naim is now owned by a private equity firm, which typically prioritized profit.
And you seriously think there is a single company in the world whose primary concern isn't profit. Thete are those that will have fancy mission statements saying they think about you the consumer. Yep. Just so long as you're a paying customer. Naim included.
 
D

Deleted member 50321

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Welcome Aboard The ASR train. We do both quite well actually (measure and listen). Just listening is fine too. I hope you will do some more reading about what it is we do around here and in the process get to know our community better. We welcome anyone who has a passion for Music. After all that is what it’s all about.
That's why I joined. I've tried the Naim forum and it's pretty diabolical. I was kind of hoping this might be better. I'll reserve judgement for now.
 

AdamG

Proving your point makes it “Science”.
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Please dial back the aggression. No need to be instantly hostile. On both sides of the conversation. Thank you for your understanding and assistance.
 

Garrincha

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And you normally listen to music with what precisely? A huge range of scientific instruments or your ears? If it's the former is it the carlos fandango go faster version with wide wheels and have you read the reviews on that?
Everybody listens to music with their ears (and brains), but people here are well aware how easy they can be fooled, biased, and misguided. That´s why measurements and controlled listening, ABX testing and the like play a huge role here.
 

Trell

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That's why I joined. I've tried the Naim forum and it's pretty diabolical. I was kind of hoping this might be better. I'll reserve judgement for now.

Here is an excellent sticky thread in the General forum that you might find useful. Posting here on ASR can give you some serious cognitive dissonance but you'll be better for it and you wallet will thank you.

 
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