![]() I’d ripped those tracks from CD, encoded them in FLAC, and stored them on a WD M圜loud Mirror NAS box running Plex Media Server. Drummer Tony Braunagel opens this track by slapping his brushes on the snare drum and then striking a cymbal with them, and you can practically hear each bristle make contact. Shifting gears a bit, I next played Bonnie Raitt’s “I Can’t Make You Love Me,” from her Luck of the Draw release. The Atom sounds every bit as wonderful as you’d hope a $3,000 audio streamer would, rendering the screaming horns on Joe Jackson’s “Rant and Rave,” from his high-energy Blaze of Glory album, with impeccable authority and clarity. There’s an onboard headphone amp and a 3.5mm connection for private listening sessions. I didn’t find that at all necessary to fill my 247-square-foot home theater with sound, though the presence of an onboard RIAA pre-amp for connecting a turntable would have been a welcome addition. And if you find the onboard amplifier wanting, you can use the pre-amp output to harness the Atom to something more powerful. I tested the Atom with a set of the previously reviewed Q Acoustics’ Concept 20 bookshelf speakers via QED XT40 speaker cables, but it’s also equipped with a pre-amp output if you crave more bass response than your stereo speakers provide on their own. Naim AudioĪ large toroidal transformer ensures a smooth and steady supply of electrical current for the Uniti Atom. The presence of two optical Toslink inputs (supporting digital streams up to 24-bit/96kHz) and one coaxial digital intput (supporting up to 24-bit/192kHz streams) enables the Atom to function as an outboard DAC, too. There’s just one file format left to be desired: MQA. It can also decode the WAV (up to 32-bit/384kHz), Apple Lossless (up to 24-bit/384kHz), OGG and WMA (up to 16-bit/48kHz), and MP3 and AAC (up to 16-bit/48kHz, 320kb/sec) codecs. The Atom can decode high-resolution FLAC files (up to 24-bit resolution and 384kHz sampling rate), of course, but it goes further to also support DSD64 and DSD128 files. The Atom is Roon Ready, so if you’re running a Roon server on your network, it will automatically discover the player so you can feast on that software’s rich metadata. When music is not playing, the home screen shows the Atom’s sources, which you can select using the included remote control (alas, the display is not a touchscreen). Approach the device and a proximity sensor will momentarily change the display to show a smaller image along with the name of the current track, the artist’s name, the album name, and the track’s elapsed time. The Atom is equipped with a gorgeous 5-inch display on its front panel that shows album art while music is streaming. When you approach the Atom, a proximity sensor changes its display to present more information, and the volume level is indicated on the huge dial atop the enclosure. The Atom can also be paired with Naim’s Uniti Core, a hard disk enclosure and server with an integrated CD ripper. The Atom can also operate as a node in a multi-room audio system, streaming music to other Naim components, such as the delectable Muso wireless speaker. Naim doesn’t play platform favorites, either: There’s a built-in Chromecast and support for Apple AirPlay, too. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |