Category Archives: Released in 2016

Naim Uniti in Flow Over From Mu-So

uniti-starWhen Naim released the Mu-So product line, they had the audiophiles pretty much convinced that multi-room audio could be done the autonomous-speaker-way hitherto personified by Sonos, without the transistor-radio-sonority personified by not only Sonos but their competitors as well, was actually feasible. Now they have brought some of the design decisions from Mu-So over to the Uniti line of products and, by the looks of it, become a serious contestant of the Linn throne. Even the Mu-So button has spawned.

The new Uniti comes in four flavors. The Atom, Star and Nova on the front end of things and the Core at the back. The Atom, Star and Nova are streamers with rudimentary external storage options with a capacity of 20,000 tracks and a 40W, 70W and 80W amplifier respectively. The Star and the Core have built-in CD transport and accompanying ripping facilities. The Core has an internal storage of up to 8TB and room for 100,000 tracks. Whether more Uniti Core units can be addressed simultaneously remains unknown at this point. After all, 100,000 tracks is only 5-6000 CDs.

The new Uniti devices are compatible with the the existing Uniti range.

Audio Stream Offers Extensive Computer Audio 101

Digital audio specialists Audio Stream are offering an easy to grasp insight into computer audio with their new article series Computer Audio 101. The articles span most issues one might have without getting overly detailed or nerdy.

Bowers & Wilkins In a Fibrillating Fairy Tale Sale

EVA AutomationLoudspeaker high-ender Bowers & Wilkins have left their 1965 roots in an acquisition from ex-Facebook CFO Gideon Yu and his company EVA Automation. In these circles it’s a bit of a tic inducing piece of news. Now what? What do rich guys know about music? Well, for starters only rich people could afford the high-end products to begin with and there is nothing genetically music hating about being rich, so perhaps it is a need for capital no one knew existed. Welcome, Gideon Yu, to a spot in the world where words do truly buzz and products are given the love so many products surely miss.

Sonos is Shrinking, Hopefully Not Shrivelling

In a blog post today, Sonos CEO john Macfarlane says that Sonos will be laying off an unspecified number of employees in a strategic move towards streaming rather than locally stored music. Staff reduction is serious enough in and of itself but the move they make towards streaming music may well be a serious blow to certain parts of the user base, namely those who listen to classical music and those who have many rare recordings. Try and find Eric Burdon’s Last Drive on a streaming service or even one of Solti’s Ring Cycle recordings. Sonos has always been problematic when playing back classical music, or any compound pieces for that matter, following this strategy things are not exactly looking like it will change. So, will we be seeing Sonos turning into a voice controlled transistor radio? I hope not but it certainly does look awfully lot like it will. The fact that Mr. Macfarlane refers to what we must assume are those who support local media as “laggards” doesn’t exactly help.

A Star Extinguished

blackstarA star burned out today. Perhaps not the one shining the brightest but arguably the firmamentally most prominent of stars. A man of artistic integrity to the point where it almost broke him followed by a restored artist balancing arts with the personal integrity he then lacked. Eventually the mark he left on the world is unequivocal and his latest album a worthy swansong,  as it so tragically turns out. It would have been just like him to do that deliberately, wouldn’t it?

Honey, I Shrunk Our Mu-So

Naim Mu-SoNaim managed to shrink the Naim Mu-So into a cube of 20cm3 and called it… wait for it… Qb. No ill feat on the shrinking side. Slightly off their rocker on the naming ditto. Specs are roughly the same as usual albeit given the smaller form factor having smaller speakers and with less to drive, a smaller set of amps. The high and mid drivers are positioned in an X-Y configuration for compactness and the subs appear to be push-pull. The mother Mu-So is stunning to behold already. With these little babies dispersed around the house, you are likely to win an award in your local interior decoration magazine and sound good winning it. Multi room sound took another leap today.
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Meridian’s MQA is Gaining Traction

Among the first news tidbits from CES in Las Vegas, a few drops of MQA support color the hi-res waters. Among mainstream audio product vendors Bluesound announces an upcoming update to support MQA, Tidal have already shown it and now HTC announces MQA support on their One A9 Android phone. Norwegian audiophile record company 2L as well, will be supporting MQA.

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