Quick review of Naim mu-so wood edition (2nd gen)

[radix]

I received a Naim mu-so 2nd gen (wood edition) today. Below are REW measurements at the main LP (7.5', ~2.3m) and 20* left of the LP. The measurements are with a UMIK-2.

I find the sound pretty good for an all-in-one speaker. It has plenty of volume for my dining room (about 160 sq ft, 14.8 m2). Based on REW, I entered a Roon EQ of 180 Hz -4.3 dB Q 4 and 486 Hz, -2.4 dB, Q 5. I also tried simply bumping up the mids 1.3 Khz, +3 dB, Q 1. I think I like the first EQ a little better, but even the flat EQ is OK.

The app allows one to select Loudness and two room compensation settings (near wall and near corner). You can also set the maximum volume, which I decreased to 70/100 so full volume on the control dial is a tolerable level for my room size. It definitely has more power than I need in my space.

Overall, the usage has been pretty easy. I had a couple glitches during setup, but nothing serious. Once it is setup, playback has been hassle-free. The instructions are too sparse, as I think they expect one to simply walk though the app. The app, when it starts, is not obvious what you need to swipe or click at first. Once I got past that, the initial setup and putting on the wifi was a breeze (I used the iphone version). It also detected a software update, which I did. This is where I ran into problems. Maybe I navigated off the screen too soon, but the app never came back finding the speaker. the speaker did reboot and was playable, but the apps was stuck. I did a hardware reset on the speaker (there's a little pin hole and a tool they give you for it), then did the initial setup again. This time, the app did not try to do a software update and it went on with the setup (setting country, timezone, etc). The app was then happy with the setup and worked great.

I like that the speaker has 5 easy presets on the control. I was able to set these to a few Internet Radio stations I wanted (NPR news, a local AM station, and 3 music stations). I was also able to turn off all the inputs I do not use (hdmi, digital, analog) and they no longer appear as options on the speaker's control dial.

The control dial is pretty nice and responsive. You glide your finger around the circumference for volume. You can also select pause/play, next, previous, your 5 presets, and a few other things. It's not overly cluttered.

 

[bilzebubba]

Thanks for this review! I do wonder about the shorter (2 years) warranty vs the 5 years offered by its beefy but similarly priced competitor, the JBL L75ms, since some folks with the Mu-so 1 experienced a lack of repairability out of warranty (read over on AVS).

 

[radix]

I have found the naim sounds just fine for the dining room, where it's mostly background music. It plays very loud, if you want it to.

I have found the firmware to be so-so. I use the analog in for an am/fm tuner, and the button on the dial sometimes stops working and I have to select it via the app. This appears to be a known problem that others have had. I think they did a complete hardware reset to fix it, which I've not tried yet. It's not that big of an issue, as we almost always use it with the analog in and don't switch. It is also pretty easy to setup Internet radio stations to the 5 presets, but my partner does not like using an app and she just wants to turn knows and not use smart devices.

If you want audio quality, something like the KEF LSXII would be a better route, but for an all-in-one console speaker, the Naim is ok.

I am thinking of re-doing this system to more center around the mcintosh MR73 tuner, so going with a mcintosh mc275 tube amp and some Lintons. Maybe add a preamp so I can put a volumio streamer on there too.

 

[bilzebubba]

Yes I want to get away from the amp/passives to a more all in one solution for the look-factor, for sure, but also for a less demanding setup in terms of sweet spot. I shall try to get to Toronto to see which is more forgiving of the two in that respect, this or the similarly priced, but twice as large/heavy JBL