Naim Uniti Nova Review

The new Naim Audio Uniti line with the top model Naim Uniti Nova (5,000 euros) tested here and its smaller siblings Star (4,000 euros) and Atom (2,200 euros) marks a turning point in Naim’s history. It marks the point where lifestyle and high-end finally merge and something new and natural emerges from it.

The new Uniti models from Naim – these are complete systems in one housing, which are only missing the right loudspeakers. Audiophile amplifiers with or without an integrated CD drive, but always with full streaming capabilities, in a new, self-confident look that differs more clearly than before from the manufacturer’s components.

What hasn’t changed is Naim’s signature build quality, with almost obsessive control over every detail – from the bend radius of each branch of a wiring harness to the tightening torque of each case screw.

In order to do justice to the increasing complexity of the new, internally highly compressed models, the English company set up a completely new department at the Salisbury plant. Their workstations are equipped with a touchscreen-based guidance system that supports the employees step by step during assembly.

A Naim Uniti Nova does not wander from place to place but is completely set up and tested by one person at a time. At first glance, this doesn’t seem particularly rational, but given the relatively small quantities, it doesn’t have to be. On the other hand, the quality improves demonstrably, which is why other high-end manufacturers such as Linn also rely on this type of production, as do some car manufacturers in their luxury series.

With the Naim Uniti Nova, you can immediately feel that the battle for streaming amps to be accepted as fully-fledged hi-fi devices in large parts of the hi-fi world can be regarded as won. Now they can also look good without immediately attracting the suspicion of sound purists. The distinction between beautiful and good has always been artificial and nonsensical anyway: there is no technical reason why great-sounding players and amplifiers have to look ugly or be awkward to use.

Rather justified were and are concerns about the high concentration of functions, sensitive players and brute power amplifiers, digital intelligence, and analog muscles in a common housing.

Naim itself once exercised the meticulous separation of individual functional areas with unique thoroughness and, for example, equipped the preamplifier with two external power supplies, one of which was only used to supply the switching relay, the motor potentiometers, and the remote control logic. But at the same time, the developers learned a lot about the mutual influence of the assemblies, which can now also be applied to the highly integrated models.

All this and much more: the features of the Naim Uniti Nova

On the other hand, for those who are completely uncompromising, there are still highly differentiated high-end individual components – so you can still fill a six-story full-size rack for the two functions “digital player” and “amplifier” if you want and can afford it.

The small, more affordable pre-amp combos, on the other hand, have disappeared from the portfolio without a trace. This is a pity from the point of view of hi-fi species protection, but it would certainly not have happened without a significant drop in demand for these components. It also allows conclusions to be drawn as to the level at which the classic chain of many black blocks is still really useful or necessary. Namely very far up.

That is the real progress: that fantastic sound quality is not only somehow possible, but it is much easier to achieve than it used to be with a minimum of administration, cabling, and space.

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The new hi-fi world is much nicer anyway. With its roughcast unit cases and olive drab fronts, Naim was once the hi-fi equivalent of Land Rover. Today, not even the company logo on the lower left corner of the case is lit up in the familiar green.

For this purpose, the logo is illuminated from above by a cleverly hidden light source, as if it were standing on a small stage. A semicircle of light also falls on the footprint and underlines the company name – a chic, yet subtle staging, like so many other details of the Naim Uniti Nova, where not a millimeter was left to chance in terms of design.

Cleverly arranged longitudinal and transverse joints divide the massive, 13-kilo case block into smaller, lighter-looking units. The right half of the front is adorned with a brilliant, high-resolution display that presents menus and cover motifs almost without a frame over the full height – behind thick real glass.

The Uniti devices inherited their huge volume control from the flagship preamp NAC S1. This control is recessed into the housing cover and is bathed in a subtle light as soon as you approach the device with your hand. The knurled aluminum rotating ring, the size of a beer mat, is mounted with absolute precision and is bathed in a subtle light as soon as you approach the device with your hand. In the middle there is a ring of light segments for the display of the volume – also here under glass.

On the Naim Uniti Nova remote control, there is a smaller version of the indicator light ring, which is always in sync with that on the device thanks to bi-directional radio contact. The wireless technology also brings tangible practical advantages, because the remote control no longer needs visual contact with the device.

It works from any position, around corners, and even through walls. I was able to listen to music wonderfully from my desk without having to get up to aim for the Nova, which is not directly visible from my desk, every time I wanted to change it.

Of course, you can also use the Naim app for this, the range of which is only limited by that of the WLAN. However, apps are not ideal for such simple, spontaneous things as turning the volume down, muting or skipping – you just want to be able to press a button quickly and not first unlock the tablet and/or switch to the app and wait for it to reconnect.

In this respect, full marks for Naim, which does not check off the topic of “physical remote control” with the Naim Uniti Nova with a cheap OEM rubber knob, but recognizes it as an important part of the overall package and implements it accordingly with dignity and thought through.

With the purchase of the Naim Uniti Nova, all source equipment and amplifier worries are gone, unless you also need a turntable. Because that is of course not built into the Nova – just as little as the necessary phono preamplifier.

On the digital side, however, with the new, extremely powerful Naim streaming board you have much more than just a modern CD player replacement. Its capabilities, both in quality and variety, go far beyond what was thought to be the state of digital technology in the past decade.

For the sound quality, it is secondary whether the music library resides on a PC accessible in the home network, a NAS, a USB hard drive, or an SSD memory – the user of the Naim Uniti Nova, supported by the first-class programmed, absolutely stable Naim app, can always access the music comfortably and reliably.

If the library contains less than 20,000 titles, you don’t even have to use an external DLNA server, you can simply plug your collection directly into the Nova on an SD card or USB memory, which then takes over the sorting and can serve as a server not only for itself but also for other network players in the same household.

NAS, Tidal & Co: the Naim Uniti Nova in practice

From today’s perspective, ripping CDs and maintaining your own NAS libraries is almost retro: If you want, you can use the Nova without having to have your music stocks at all by subscribing to one of the integrated music services – i.e. Spotify or TIDAL, both of which have over tens of millions of tracks that can be called up immediately. There are also hundreds of other current and future music delivery apps that work seamlessly with the Nova via the Chromecast protocol.

The advantage over the – also possible – streaming from mobile devices via Airplay or Bluetooth lies in the better division of labor, both in terms of quality and convenience: the Chromecast-enabled app on the tablet or smartphone only serves as a selection and control tool, while the actual playback process is completely handed over to the Nova.

This avoids unnecessary shoveling of data back and forth over the WLAN, saves the battery of the mobile device and the album continues to run even when the smartphone and its owner get a beer and are therefore outside the WLAN range. In addition, there are hardly any restrictions on the quality – or let’s say neutral: data rate – of the streamed material.

For example, the Qobuz music service can even be used in HiRes quality via Chromecast (at least if you have the corresponding, not exactly cheap “Sublime” subscription), without the conversion to the respective uniform transport format, which is necessary with Airplay and especially with Bluetooth and is not very helpful in terms of sound (Apple Lossless in CD resolution with Airplay, something with reduced data with Bluetooth).

However, the highest resolutions are possible with classic DLNA streaming, where up to 384kHz sampling rate with 32-bit word width or DSD with the double rate (i.e. 5.6MHz) are pushed into the FPGA-based digital filter programmed with Naim’s algorithms. That means dizzying data rates (384/32, for example, even pushes classic cable LAN to the limit), but not automatically proportionally higher quality.

More importantly, it’s hard to find a file on the internet that Naim doesn’t play in native resolution. As it should be, it takes a back seat to the music and simply does what it is supposed to, regardless of which formats, playback methods, and operating scenarios the user prefers or is used to.

Here are some general pros and cons of the Naim Audio Uniti Nova:

FAQs Naim Uniti Nova