Naim don't rush. Slow to adopt CD replay back in the nineties, they have taken a measured approach to the new development of networked-based audio.
The HDX, an audiophile music server / player, arrived roughly two years ago. Summer 2009 saw the arrival of the DAC and the Naim Uniti, the first Naim device to include a renderer (the device that unravels the audio files on a data network). At the turn of the year, the HDX had a signifiant software upgrade which allowed it to supply the music for third party 'UPnP' devices (including the Uniti) and also to be controlled by a nifty ipod touch / iPhone application. April this year saw the PCI upgrade and, all along the way, there have been little sonic improvements.
The upshot of all this is that the August 2010 HDX is a far better product than the one that launched in 2008. Using the coaxial digital output into the Naim DAC, it's now a genuinely first rate audio source. And now it has siblings too:
At more down to earth price points, we have the Uniti Serve and Uniti Serve SSD. Unlike the HDX, these servers do not have an analogue audio output of any kind for their rendering function but they do have a digital feed that can be used with a DAC (Naim or otherwise). They also lack any obvious front panel controls but they work with the same iPod application and can show their contents on a VGA monitor or television. In any case, all can be controlled via any computer on the network using a standard web browser (Explorer, Firefox, Safari etc). And all make their music files available to any UPnP-enabled device on the same network.
In addition to the two Uniti Serves, we also have the SSD version of the HDX.
Suffering from tech lag? Stick the kettle on and I'll try to explain.
The Uniti Serves are half-width boxes, similar to the HiCap 2 PSU in appearance. They have a slot-load CD drive and an illuminated logo. And that's it. Hold your finger on the logo and it will boot up or down. The power supply is a small external slab of plastic, not unlike one for a laptop computer and there is an additional small box with the Naim logo, which is presumably a filter.
The standard versions of Uniti Serve and HDX have hard drive storage built in. With 1 tB of internal storage, they can hold a lot of music. Fill 'em up and it's not a problem. They are able to store on external drives connected via, USB or on the ethernet data network. In addition, they can access existing music files from, say, itunes and can play high resolution downloads. The hard drives are extremely quiet and the standard versions of the Uniti Serve and HDX use the hard drives to store the operating system, just as on a PC.
The SSD versions have no internal hard drive. Instead, they carry the operating system on solid state memory. Now, being solid state, you might imagine that there is less to go wrong but there are a finite number of re-writes to this type of storage and inexpensive storage has been known to fail. The re-writes are not a huge issue, since the operating system is fairly static data, but to ensure a long life Naim have specified high quality 'enterprise standard' memory. Despite not having the hard drives, these machines cost a little more than the standard ones.
The gains of SSD are twofold. Having the storage external to them makes them completely silent. There is also a slight sonic gain presumably because the digital electronics are not located next to a spinning hard disk.
As I hint at the beginning, a couple of years ago, the HDX might have been a nice toy and a pleasant sounding product but it was not on the first division of Naim's audio sources. We presented admittedly pre-production HDX locally at our 2008 summer bash next to the Superline phono stage and it was all just a little embarrassing. Even at the 2009 'do' with the DAC, the CDX2-2 showed it a clean pair of heels as a digital source.
But all those running modifications have definitely got us somewhere.
On a Friday afternoon in early August, and armed with the reference 500 system running into Ovator 600s, we hooked the two new Uniti Serves and the HDX-SSD up to the DAC. We connected them to some 'known' stored music on the network, sat down and were. . . well, truth be told, we were underwhelmed. Cold out of the box, the 'basic' 'Serve sounded the sweetest. The HDX, cold sharp and lifeless. None were all that impressive.
A weekend of warm-up brought an interesting and dramatic change, with the HDX emerging cygnet-like as comfortably the best of the three digital sources. In fact, anyone who still thinks that all digital sources are the same and that the DAC makes all the running really should listen to these. Even back in the days of two box CD players, this was never true: the sound was always roughly 70% transport 30% DAC and nothing has changed. In old school parlance, all three of these servers represent superb quality 'transports'. The step between HDX SSD and the 'Serves is probably down to power supply and maybe the more robust casework. In fairness, if you use these as servers with the music to be rendered from the network separately, I doubt you could tell them apart.
As local sources, connected to the DAC and playing music 'ripped' from their internal CD drives to any of the storage drives they are all very good indeed. The default file type is WAV, by the way. Take the same music files ripped to WAV on, say, itunes and stored on the very same hard disk and the quality takes a tumble. As far as we can see, there is no qualitative difference to the ripping standard between any of the servers. The step between Uniti Serve 1Tb and SSD is not massive but I have to confess that we have been so entranced by the HDX that they have been slightly side-lined.
The big question was how these would relate to our 'reference' digital source of the CDX2-2 switched to transport mode and running through the DAC. Earlier this year, the HDX had started to edge ahead of the CDX2-2 (in our judgement). The new cheaper Uniti Serves had some expectations sitting on their narrow shoulders.
We were not disappointed either. Using, as an example, 'Sigh No More' by Mumford and Sons, the improvement over the CDX2-2 was in increased resolution of the multiple voices, of the acoustic and the tonal colour of the guitars. This brought some proper musical gains. On top of that, there was a reduction in glare, shout and hardness. Having said that, the Naim CD players remain extremely valid sources, with or without the DAC upgrade and the differences between them and the servers vary by music choice. Your mileage my vary, as they say.
Switching to the HDX SSD, again running through the DAC was a little surprising, given that we had been led to expect a fairly modest difference, with the extra cost of the HDX being munched up in facilities and build. In reality, the step was like going from a Naim CDX2 to a CDS3. Except we were already ahead of a bare CDX2 to begin with. You can draw your own conclusions as to where this puts the HDX SSD / DAC combo with either XPS or 555 power supplies in tow but it really is very serious indeed. There is an intangible solidity and composure to the server based music. What seems initially to be a reduction in drive reveals itself to be greater fluidity and naturalness.
With the iPod touch / iPhone / iPad 'app', finding and selecting music is an unalloyed joy. In fairness, using a laptop is equally straightforward. High end audio is not supposed to be this user friendly!
If you can find something you like on them, high resolution files sound noticeably better than standard CD resolution ones, even if the standard stuff does sound stunning. This is not exactly news (!) but it is very reassuring. As far as we can see, increases in the bit rate make far more difference than the sample rate. Not that w've compared like for like at all the levels, but 24 bit 48khz sounds a long way ahead of 16 bit 44.1 khz whilst 16 bit 192 Khz does not seem all that special. There is a sense of freedom in using a music source that can access anything from MP3 to high res. And MP3 can sound better than you might expect, making downloads of obscure tracks from iTunes at least acceptable.
As the heading says, this is the future. . .
Signals hi-fi for grown-ups. suppliers and installers of music hi-fi audio stereo system, systems and a/v av products to all areas of Suffolk,North Essex, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire 01473 655171
 |
hardware |
peripherals |
all talk |
resources |
