Master Thread: Are measurements Everything or Nothing?

[MattHooper]

I seem to remember an LP thread on whatsthebest forums (Amir's old forum). One in which they purchased new records and recording the result. Seems they found a surprisingly large drop in the above 10 khz range with just a few plays. This was all using top notch LP gear too.

Not saying those experiments were wrong.

But there’s also tests like this one that I have posted before. a record played 100 times on a cheap turntable versus played 100 times on a good turntable. The sound of the recordings is compared as are the recorded waveforms, suggesting negligible differences between the first and hundredth play on the better turntable:

 

[MaxwellsEq]

My practical experience using test records to set up turntables was that the highest frequency tracks were vulnerable to wear and could only be completely trusted when new. I've also seen occasional evidence presented that disagrees with my experience, but I know what I measured across hundreds of turntables and test disks.

 

[Frank Dernie]

Interesting: We are currently experiencing a wave of colds in Germany. Today, a daily newspaper reported on a scientific study on the topic: “How well do essential oils help?” One result was that a meta-analysis from 2022 found that almost all study participants felt a relieving effect - and were able to sleep much better after using a cold bath or balm. However, one study result was also that objective measurement parameters such as nasal breathing resistance did not improve measurably. The newspaper says: Nevertheless, the study authors from the UK are mild: sometimes the evidence is not so important. “The application (. . .) leads to an improvement in a number of subjective feelings associated with a cold.”

In the end, that's what counts, isn't it?

That is really just the placebo effect which is known to work in the medical field and I, personally, believe is the only explanation that some people prefer something added to their HiFi which makes no difference in reality, just the same and fine if you have enough money...

 

[HaveMeterWillTravel]

That is really just the placebo effect which is known to work in the medical field and I, personally, believe is the only explanation that some people prefer something added to their HiFi which makes no difference in reality, just the same and fine if you have enough money...

Assuming the tests were properly administered blind tests, it need not be due to the placebo effect. It simply means the mechanism of effect is different than "nasal breathing resistance".

 

[vjzapp]

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......

-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

It’s always interesting to read your reviews! The funny thing is, whenever high-end products are reviewed, they always seem to fall short—while the best measurements go to Topping? Really? LoL! So you truly believe that just because something measures well, it sounds good?

I’ve found the opposite to be true. I owned the Topping A90 a few years ago and, like many, bought it based on reviews. However, I quickly realized it was just an okay amp—nothing special. The sound was uninspiring, and it didn’t live up to the hype at all.

On the other hand, I own the Naim Uniti Atom HE, which, to my ears, sounds miles ahead of the Topping. The comparison isn’t even close—it would be laughable to put Naim alongside a brand like Topping, which is essentially a budget audio manufacturer from China. They focus on the latest specs and measurements to claim superiority, but in reality, they can’t be considered a true high-end audio brand.

Come on, listen to music—not just measure it, for god’s sake! Numbers won’t give you the feeling of a song.

I’m not sure how you conduct your measurements, but based on both reading your reviews and listening to many of the products you’ve tested, I find your conclusions misleading and, honestly, quite meaningless.

 

[BeeKay]

Some may prefer having noise and distortion added to their music. Nothing wrong with that. Happy listening.

 

[Doodski]

Numbers won’t give you the feeling of a song.

But they will indicate the better engineered product that is more like a wire with gain.

 

[Jimbob54]

It’s always interesting to read your reviews! The funny thing is, whenever high-end products are reviewed, they always seem to fall short—while the best measurements go to Topping? Really? LoL! So you truly believe that just because something measures well, it sounds good?

I’ve found the opposite to be true. I owned the Topping A90 a few years ago and, like many, bought it based on reviews. However, I quickly realized it was just an okay amp—nothing special. The sound was uninspiring, and it didn’t live up to the hype at all.

On the other hand, I own the Naim Uniti Atom HE, which, to my ears, sounds miles ahead of the Topping. The comparison isn’t even close—it would be laughable to put Naim alongside a brand like Topping, which is essentially a budget audio manufacturer from China. They focus on the latest specs and measurements to claim superiority, but in reality, they can’t be considered a true high-end audio brand.

Come on, listen to music—not just measure it, for god’s sake! Numbers won’t give you the feeling of a song.

I’m not sure how you conduct your measurements, but based on both reading your reviews and listening to many of the products you’ve tested, I find your conclusions misleading and, honestly, quite meaningless.

Relocated this post here because you would be amazed how many times someone has said almost exactly what you did .

 

[VintageFlanker]

It’s always interesting to read your reviews! The funny thing is, whenever high-end products are reviewed, they always seem to fall short—while the best measurements go to Topping? Really? LoL! So you truly believe that just because something measures well, it sounds good?

I’ve found the opposite to be true. I owned the Topping A90 a few years ago and, like many, bought it based on reviews. However, I quickly realized it was just an okay amp—nothing special. The sound was uninspiring, and it didn’t live up to the hype at all.

On the other hand, I own the Naim Uniti Atom HE, which, to my ears, sounds miles ahead of the Topping. The comparison isn’t even close—it would be laughable to put Naim alongside a brand like Topping, which is essentially a budget audio manufacturer from China. They focus on the latest specs and measurements to claim superiority, but in reality, they can’t be considered a true high-end audio brand.

Come on, listen to music—not just measure it, for god’s sake! Numbers won’t give you the feeling of a song.

I’m not sure how you conduct your measurements, but based on both reading your reviews and listening to many of the products you’ve tested, I find your conclusions misleading and, honestly, quite meaningless.

Welcome,

Ever heard about Dunning Kruger effect ?

 

[voodooless]

Relocated this post here because you would be amazed how many times someone has said almost exactly what you did .

We’re just not listening…

 

[VintageFlanker]

Relocated this post here because you would be amazed how many times someone has said almost exactly what you did .

And not being aware of it is either raw ignorance or intentional trolling. Thx !

 

[voodooless]

So you truly believe that just because something measures well, it sounds good?

So you believe just because something is expensive it sounds good?

I’ve found the opposite to be true. I owned the Topping A90 a few years ago and, like many, bought it based on reviews. However, I quickly realized it was just an okay amp—nothing special. The sound was uninspiring, and it didn’t live up to the hype at all

A preamp should not sound. It should be a wire with gain. The Topping is close to perfect at this. There is nothing to inspire, because there is nothing to hear.

Come on, listen to music

Yes, please do listen… and ONLY listen: level matched, double blind!

I’m not sure how you conduct your measurements,

Are you suggesting they are wrong?

Electronics like DACs and amps are not EQ devices. If you want to alter the sound, use actual EQ!

it would be laughable to put Naim alongside a brand like Topping, which is essentially a budget audio manufacturer from China. They focus on the latest specs and measurements to claim superiority, but in reality, they can’t be considered a true high-end audio brand.

So, what makes something high-end audio?

 

[solderdude]

don't bother replying to @vjzapp he just came on here to tell us Amir is wrong.
It's a 'hit and run' post and will not engage in an endless discussion.
Audio is magic ...

 

[vjzapp]

don't bother replying to @vjzapp he just came on here to tell us Amir is wrong.
It's a 'hit and run' post and will not engage in an endless discussion.
Audio is magic ...

It’s not exactly a hit-and-run. I find it interesting that the results don’t quite compare to my actual experience with the gear I tested. Maybe I don’t know what good sound quality is—but I don’t believe that. I’ve tried so-called “perfect-measuring” gear, and more often than not, it sounded lifeless, without soul. That’s my real experience, not just something on paper—especially when the measurement tools themselves haven’t even been proven to provide accurate, real-world reflections of sound quality.

Feel so sick of this and this is false information...

 

[Doodski]

the measurement tools themselves haven’t even been proven to provide accurate, real-world reflections of sound quality.

Where did you get this assertion from?

 

[DavidEdwinAston]

It’s not exactly a hit-and-run. I find it interesting that the results don’t quite compare to my actual experience with the gear I tested. Maybe I don’t know what good sound quality is—but I don’t believe that. I’ve tried so-called “perfect-measuring” gear, and more often than not, it sounded lifeless, without soul. That’s my real experience, not just something on paper—especially when the measurement tools themselves haven’t even been proven to provide accurate, real-world reflections of sound quality.

Feel so sick of this and this is false information...

Really, you mustn't worry about it. You enjoy your own kit. I, and presumably most people here, will enjoy ours.
If in general we end up spending less money than you do, that is our good fortune.

 

[Mart68]

It’s not exactly a hit-and-run. I find it interesting that the results don’t quite compare to my actual experience with the gear I tested. Maybe I don’t know what good sound quality is—but I don’t believe that. I’ve tried so-called “perfect-measuring” gear, and more often than not, it sounded lifeless, without soul. That’s my real experience, not just something on paper—especially when the measurement tools themselves haven’t even been proven to provide accurate, real-world reflections of sound quality.

Feel so sick of this and this is false information...

Your Naim unit you mentioned measures well within the bounds of 'transparent' - it's not doing anything the Topping amp doesn't - and vice versa.

You have to bear in mind that the measurements shown here for DACs and amps are really only for the assessment of engineering quality. Once you're beyond the threshold of hearing - which is the vast majority of electronics - there's no further gain - and no real difference in sound.

If you do a blind test you'll discover this for yourself.

 

[BeeKay]

On the other hand, I own the Naim Uniti Atom HE, which, to my ears, sounds miles ahead of the Topping. The comparison isn’t even close—it would be laughable to put Naim alongside a brand like Topping, which is essentially a budget audio manufacturer from China.

I would not be too forgiving after such a statement.

 

[voodooless]

That’s my real experience, not just something on paper

Yes, it is; nobody doubts that! But not all of our experiences are grounded in real, tangible things. Much is made up of our biases.

especially when the measurement tools themselves haven’t even been proven to provide accurate, real-world reflections of sound quality.

They have if you account for said biases. And even with biases, things can be fairly predictable, as shown by your responses: the audio industry's marketing departments once again do an excellent job brainwashing consumers into buying anything they throw at them under the guise of; "just listen".

 

[Sernyl]

It’s not exactly a hit-and-run. I find it interesting that the results don’t quite compare to my actual experience with the gear I tested. Maybe I don’t know what good sound quality is—but I don’t believe that. I’ve tried so-called “perfect-measuring” gear, and more often than not, it sounded lifeless, without soul. That’s my real experience, not just something on paper—especially when the measurement tools themselves haven’t even been proven to provide accurate, real-world reflections of sound quality.

Feel so sick of this and this is false information...

"Soul" could be the keyword.
In this mind, what you expect to hear is very personal, and depends on many factors.
Among them : hifi history (analog era ? ), musical education, age (ears), setup, and of course personal taste.
I would add some degree of idealization, i.e. more simply one's dreams.
On the other side, a performing system may reveal annoying "defects" of a recording, and (IMHO) may have too much dynamics for domestic listening.
YMMV, as usual.
Regards,