Naim Uniti Atom vs NAD M10

[Taddpole]

What was the dealer saying during the testing?

20% more expensive seems significantly more expensive to me.

 

[LTig]

That's the simplistic answer to any query like that. Keep in mind that I was biased to like the NAD and not the Naim, ...

This is not how bias works. Bias is an unconscious process and cannot be controlled by the conscious mind. That's why we have to control the conditions such that bias cannot rise its ugly head.

 

[Wombat]

Off topic: Audition a similarly priced Yamaha integrated amp. That will be a neutral reference and likely better value, to boot.

 

[VintageFlanker]

Another interesting thing is that with the NAD I was playing around 70-80% volume to test it, while the NAIM felt about equally loud at 55%. I am talking loud as in I had to shout to make myself heard to the dealer.

But to get the roughly the same volume as what the NAD M10 was producing at 75%, I had to set the NAIM to only 55% vol. 70% on the NAIM was unbearably loud. If the NAD M10 has more power, the opposite should be true?

You definitely can't evaluate power by volume percentage (or plot position) Vs audible loudness. That's a basic rookie mistake. You don't know either the gain and the sensitivity of the volume control. Maybe the Naim is near the clipping point at 55%, maybe the NAD still has power on tap at 80%. We don't know. That's also one of the biggest interest of level-match listening. You remove the bias of power you definitely had.
Sure, you're not the first one to say the M10 sounds bad. I think it doesn't measure good for a NC unit either. About the M33, I'm 90% sure your listening was biased by what you've (believed to or) heard from the M10 just before. Maybe, your unconscious told you that neither NAD nor Class D should sound good anyway.

 

[Thomas savage]

If you liked the naim , buy the naim . The most important thing is your happy with your buying choices after all There not for anyone else.

If you can try a few things out in your room at home that would be ideal . Keeping mind subwoofer integration especially if you like defined impactful bass.

The NAD , setup properly in You're room might surprise, then again it might not .

 

[charleski]

I don't know if that can be determined from these measurements, but here they are regardless:

https://www.stereophile.com/content...ntegrated-amplifier-media-player-measurements

it should be noted that's a review of the Nova, which is the top of the range at $7k.

 

[Soniclife]

You don't know either the gain and the sensitivity of the volume control. Maybe the Naim is near the clipping point at 55%, maybe the NAD still has power on tap at 80%.

I've no idea how their current stuff works but Naim always used high sensitivity and for CD the volume control rarely got very high up for max volume. Always seemed part of the allure, easy to replicate with full digital control thay will be using now.

I was experiencing the same subjective impression last night changing the gain on my headphone amp, on high gain it seems so much more authoritative than low gain, because it gets louder quicker when you turn the knob, in reality if volume matched they sound the same.

 

[Kachda]

The Naim may have higher dynamic power. Without measuring we won't know.

If you are really interested in the Naim, purchase it and let me measure it first. There is a local Naim dealer I can refer you to if you decide to go that way.

Would like to do that if NAIM had a return policy. However, the features in the NAD are way more interesting to me in my situation (bluetooth headphone, Dirac, better app as compared to NAIM). So I am still wondering between the two.

The other part of my brain says just sell my KEF R3, get active speakers and connect it to a Minidsp SHD Studio.

I am trying to see if I could get a demo at home for both units, and I can then use my UMIK-1 to get SPL readings and set the volume control to match them up as closely as possible. If I do decide to go with the NAIM, I will try to send it to you for a measurement (and immediately regret when the measurements come out I think ).

 

[Kachda]

What was the dealer saying during the testing?

20% more expensive seems significantly more expensive to me.

the dealer was clearly pushing towards the NAIM with the usual claims of class D harshness, class A/B being better etc. But I am wary of these claims.

 

[Kachda]

This is not how bias works. Bias is an unconscious process and cannot be controlled by the conscious mind. That's why we have to control the conditions such that bias cannot rise its ugly head.

But it's just not possible to control these conditions most of the time. I was surprised by what I heard and it's quite possible it was because of them not being level-matched, unconcious bias and all the other factors that make this very unscientific. I understand that. Which is why I posted this to see if anyone has done any comparisons of these with better methods than I did and what their observations were.

 

[Kachda]

Off topic: Audition a similarly priced Yamaha integrated amp. That will be a neutral reference and likely better value, to boot.

I did audition the WXA-50 for a month but I felt it just did not have enough headroom as compared to the Outlaw RR2160 I had back then, though sound quality seemed identical and nothing to complain about. And their app is awful. I am not interested in the bigger Yamaha's because I have a small space now and if I wanted to keep a big box I was more than happy with my 40lb Outlaw.

 

[Kachda]

You definitely can't evaluate power by volume percentage (or plot position) Vs audible loudness. That's a basic rookie mistake. You don't know either the gain and the sensitivity of the volume control. Maybe the Naim is near the clipping point at 55%, maybe the NAD still has power on tap at 80%. We don't know. That's also one of the biggest interest of level-match listening. You remove the bias of power you definitely had.
Sure, you're not the first one to say the M10 sounds bad. I think it doesn't measure good for a NC unit either. About the M33, I'm 90% sure your listening was biased by what you've (believed to or) heard from the M10 just before. Maybe, your unconscious told you that neither NAD nor Class D should sound good anyway.

This is entirely possible. In the Nova stereophile review mentioned in the thread, JA mentions that given the gain, the amp would clip at 65 with digital sources.

Personally, I have no problems with class D and prefer them over A/B due to their lower space usage and lack of heat. And I did audition the Yamaha WXA-50 at one point and had no complaints about the sound quality (my only issue was that even for moderate listening volumes in my house, I had the volume control around -15 or -10, which didn't leave much space for it to go louder when required.)

 

[Kachda]

If you liked the naim , buy the naim . The most important thing is your happy with your buying choices after all There not for anyone else.

If you can try a few things out in your room at home that would be ideal . Keeping mind subwoofer integration especially if you like defined impactful bass.

The NAD , setup properly in You're room might surprise, then again it might not .

Yes, I am trying to get a home demo - hopefully with both units to make a decision.

 

[SIY]

But it's just not possible to control these conditions most of the time. I was surprised by what I heard and it's quite possible it was because of them not being level-matched, unconcious bias and all the other factors that make this very unscientific. I understand that. Which is why I posted this to see if anyone has done any comparisons of these with better methods than I did and what their observations were.

I haven't had the NAIM unit here, but the M10 sounds identical (within its power ratings) to other top Class D and Class A/B amps I've had here. It has some issues, but the audible performance of the amps is not one of them.

 

[Kachda]

I haven't had the NAIM unit here, but the M10 sounds identical (within its power ratings) to other top Class D and Class A/B amps I've had here. It has some issues, but the audible performance of the amps is not one of them.

Out of curiosity, what are the other issues you faced?

 

[CDMC]

I would think so from the specs. But to get the roughly the same volume as what the NAD M10 was producing at 75%, I had to set the NAIM to only 55% vol. 70% on the NAIM was unbearably loud. If the NAD M10 has more power, the opposite should be true?

No, it just means one volume control has more gain than the other at a set number. It tells you nothing about if it is getting to clipping. The Naim may be unbearably loud because it was clipping.

As others have said, comparing without exact level matching is useless. I have had multiple times I have heard vast differences between components that I level matched by ear. Those differences dissapeared once I matched exactly using a spl meter.

 

[SIY]

Out of curiosity, what are the other issues you faced?

I detailed those in my AudioXpress review, reprinted here.

 

[CDMC]

I don't know if that can be determined from these measurements, but here they are regardless:

https://www.stereophile.com/content...ntegrated-amplifier-media-player-measurements

Ouch, that is the next model up it looks like at $7,000. According to the review:

• The output impedance at the speaker terminals was 0.3 ohm at all audio frequencies; as a result, the modulation of the Naim's frequency response with our standard simulated loudspeaker was just ±0.2dB (fig.1, gray trace). The response is down by 2dB at 20kHz, and, peculiarly, it drops off very rapidly above 20kHz.
• The volume control operated in steps of approximately 0.4dB, with the unity-gain setting at "43" of a possible 100. However, as set the analog inputs overloaded at 2.65V, which means that source components with a maximum output level higher than this should be avoided.
• The unweighted wideband signal/noise ratio, taken with the input shorted to ground but the volume control set to its maximum, the worst case, was just 63.9dB ref. 1W into 8 ohms. This improved slightly, to 66.6dB, when the measurement bandwidth was restricted to the audioband, and to 69.3dB when A-weighted.
• With the volume control set to "100," a 1kHz tone at –20dBFS gave rise to an output of 558mV at the preamplifier outputs, 158mV from the headphone jack, and 15.23V from the speaker outputs, the latter equivalent to 29W into 8 ohms. As the amplifier clips at 28.7V, this suggests that the volume control not be set above "65" with digital sources.

So it appears that the unit has pretty high gain and the OP listening to it at 55 may well have been pushing the amp into clipping. The SN ratio is nearly 30 db shy of CD. There are significant 2nd and 3rd harmonic distortions showing 80db down in the figures, the classic "warm" sound.

$7,000 for this level of performance is pathetic in my opinion.

 

[Kachda]

Ouch, that is the next model up it looks like at $7,000. According to the review:

• The output impedance at the speaker terminals was 0.3 ohm at all audio frequencies; as a result, the modulation of the Naim's frequency response with our standard simulated loudspeaker was just ±0.2dB (fig.1, gray trace). The response is down by 2dB at 20kHz, and, peculiarly, it drops off very rapidly above 20kHz.
• The volume control operated in steps of approximately 0.4dB, with the unity-gain setting at "43" of a possible 100. However, as set the analog inputs overloaded at 2.65V, which means that source components with a maximum output level higher than this should be avoided.
• The unweighted wideband signal/noise ratio, taken with the input shorted to ground but the volume control set to its maximum, the worst case, was just 63.9dB ref. 1W into 8 ohms. This improved slightly, to 66.6dB, when the measurement bandwidth was restricted to the audioband, and to 69.3dB when A-weighted.
• With the volume control set to "100," a 1kHz tone at –20dBFS gave rise to an output of 558mV at the preamplifier outputs, 158mV from the headphone jack, and 15.23V from the speaker outputs, the latter equivalent to 29W into 8 ohms. As the amplifier clips at 28.7V, this suggests that the volume control not be set above "65" with digital sources.

So it appears that the unit has pretty high gain and the OP listening to it at 55 may well have been pushing the amp into clipping. The SN ratio is nearly 30 db shy of CD. There are significant 2nd and 3rd harmonic distortions showing 80db down in the figures, the classic "warm" sound.

$7,000 for this level of performance is pathetic in my opinion.

Yes, the high gain in the volume control seems like a red-flag. If they are doing this in their more powerful amplifier, it's quite likely they are doing this in their little brother. The warmer sound I perceived is also probably the 2nd and 3rd order harmonics. Now I need to find a plugin for the NAD M10 which can introduce this when I want

 

[CDMC]

Would like to do that if NAIM had a return policy. However, the features in the NAD are way more interesting to me in my situation (bluetooth headphone, Dirac, better app as compared to NAIM). So I am still wondering between the two.

The other part of my brain says just sell my KEF R3, get active speakers and connect it to a Minidsp SHD Studio.

I am trying to see if I could get a demo at home for both units, and I can then use my UMIK-1 to get SPL readings and set the volume control to match them up as closely as possible. If I do decide to go with the NAIM, I will try to send it to you for a measurement (and immediately regret when the measurements come out I think ).

Why not get the Mini DSP SHD and combine it with a small purifi amp? Way more power, cleaner, compact and the same price.