REPRODUCED FROM HI-FINEW S
Naim Audio UnitiAtom HeadphoneEdition The evergreen UnitiAtom al-in-one platform ,com plete with custom stream ing solution,is adaptive to service the needsofm ostdem ainding headphone users Review: Andrew Everard Lab: PaulM iler
Never let it be said the product nam e isn’tlong enough – in the 12 yearssince Naim launched its network audio al-in-one,to which the buyerneed only add speakers,it’sgrown from the sim ple Naim Unitiofthe initialm odel,althe way to this,the£2399Naim Audio UnitiAtom Headphone Edition.And yethere,les is more. This new arival, despite being the sam e price as the existing Atom ,which continues in the range, has shed the power amplification of what is the company’s most compact streaming system ,sloting in below the ful-width Nova and Starm odels.Here the unitis re-purposed as a dedicated device for folowersofthe ‘head-fi’trend,com plete with a choice of conventional and balanced headphone outputs. Wel, that’salm ostthe whole story… STREAM CITY This is the latest evolution of Naim ’s in-house streaming platform first unveiled with the arivalof the curent Unitim odels [HFN Nov ’17],and which has gone on to underpin not only the Uniti range, but also both the M u-so lineup and its latest-gen ND-series of network players [HFN Sep ’18]. The intention of futureproofing has been borne out,notleastwith the inclusion of Chrom ecast built-in, along with both Bluetooth and Apple AirPlay2. Just about anything you want to stream from your com puter, phone or
tablet is ac om m odated here, along with a high-res UPnP/DLNA interface able to a high-res UPnP/DLNA interface able to handle files up to 384kHz/32-bit and DSD128.There’s also Roon-ready capabilty forthose who swear by it, such as m yself.But back to the UnitiAtom Headphone Edition, and having had good experiences using both Unitiand M u-so system s as partofm ultiroom set-ups – anotherfacetofthe Naim eco-system ,although the com pany is no longer unique in this respect – Iwas interested to see how this unit would adapt to the headphone world.The Atom HE m aynotbe the com pany’s firstforayinto headphone listening – thatwasthe Headline headphone am p.Also,the DAC-V1 wasdesigned in partas abridgebetweenPCsand ’phones.Sim ilarly,m uchplaywas m ade ofthe qualityofthe Supernait3’sintegralheadphone am p acouple ofyearsback–butthe Atom HE isotherwise Naim ’sm ostcom plete ofering to date forfansofpersonal listening. Not only can it stream m usic from the user’s own colection,be itlocated on networkstorage orUSB devices, itcan also deliveronline servicesincluding SpotifyConnect, Q obuzand Tidal,notto m ention the ‘hi-res’320kbpsAAC BBC radio stream saspartofitsInternetradio capabilty.
LEFT:Large toroidal transform er[low er left]feeds separately-regulated suppliesforinternal W i-Fisolution [centre,right],Atm el m icro-based USB and Netw ork inputs [right],m ain SHARC DSP [centre],TI PCM1791 DAC-based analogue stage [top]and headphone pream p [far right]
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