What's In A Naim? A CD Player, Streaming And 70 Watts Of Power Amplification... That's What

Last year I was fortunate enough to get my hands on the Naim Uniti Atom, the first product to come from Naim’s revamped all-in-one Uniti range. Like the rest of the Uniti stable, the Uniti Atom is an all-in-one solution for anyone looking to update their audio to the digital age. Essentially it’s a high-quality integrated amplifier with comprehensive streaming options for almost any type of music. However, as much as I loved the Atom, it was missing one important function for me: a CD player.

I know I probably sound hopelessly outdated but I do have a large collection of CDs and each one has special memories for me. I remember where I bought it and I also remember my first listen. I have the same attachment to CDs that hipsters have to vinyl. It’s just a physical medium that I love and have grown used to. Now Naim, one of the most venerable vintage marques of the British audio scene, has released its next product in the range, and it's called the Uniti Star.

Basically, the Naim Uniti Star is a beefed-up Uniti Atom with a slot-loading CD player attached and the facility to both listen and rip CDs to an attached storage device. This sounds like the answer to my prayers.

Like the Uniti Atom, the Star is beautifully built and finished in a black brushed aluminum finish that echoes the whole Naim design ethos that we first saw in the Naim Mu-so and then the Naim Mu-so Qb. There’s also Naim’s large and illuminated volume knob and a gorgeous 5-inch color LCD display on the front to show album art and track info. This is one piece of audio that looks every bit as good as it sounds.

The amplification provided is 70W per channel into 8 Ohms and the power section is driven by a chunky toroidal transformer that takes up much of the space in the right-hand side of the unit. That beefy transformer really comes into its own when you crank up the volume; the solidity of the sound and the control of the musical rhythm is total. Just make sure you have a great pair of speakers as the Uniti Star can really drive a big pair of floorstanders. I auditioned the Uniti Star with my vintage Morduant-Short M50 floostanders connected with QED Revelation speaker cable. The sound was sublime.

The Uniti Star is capable of streaming almost any digital file or cope with any source you care to throw at it. As well as offering two TOSlink optical inputs there’s a brace of coaxial phono inputs, a BNC digital input for signals up to 2GHz, and there’s an HDMI port with ARC so you can attach your TV and route its stereo sound through the Uniti Star while controlling the sound level using your TV remote. In addition, there are two USB ports (front and back) and an SD card slot should you choose to keep your music on those handy little storage devices. When it comes to outputs there’s a preamp stage so you can plug the Uniti Star into a more powerful amplifier, such as one of Naim's range of monster power amplifiers. If bass is your thing then you can use the preamp out to drive a subwoofer. Headphone users will be pleased to see a 3.5mm output for driving even the most demanding pair of headphones.

Connecting the Uniti Star up to your home network is really easy and there’s a wizard that can walk you through the process when you first set the unit up. Both 2.4GHz and 5GHhz wireless signals are usable. If you’re some distance from your home router you probably should opt for the 2.4GHz option but if your router is nearby you could use the 5GHz band as that is normally less congested although the signals don’t travel quite as far through thick walls. If your home is wired for Ethernet you can use the built-in Ethernet port or connect to your router using a Powerline network adapter over your home electrical wiring. As you can see, there are plenty of networking options.

When it comes to streaming, the Uniti Star offers Apple AirPlay, Chromecast and Bluetooth aptX HD options so you can stream from your smartphone or tablet in high resolution. The inclusion of aptX HD is particularly welcome and means that streaming over Bluetooth is no longer a compromise. The Star is UPnP compliant so you can access a Network Attached Storage device all in Hi-Res. Additionally, the Uniti Star offers both Spotify and Tidal streaming, albeit without MQA format at the present time. Obviously, there’s a full range of Internet radio stations on offer so you can listen to the thousands of radio programmes that are streamed over the Internet. I particularly liked the fact that the radio service the Naim Uniti range uses enables you to access catch-up services and they even offer a choice of streaming quality where a broadcaster provides the choice. You can easily save your favorite radio stations as presets simply by pressing the favorite star symbol on the player, the remote or the Naim app. I’d like to see the app tidied up a bit to make sorting multiple stations a bit easier. Naim also promises to make a traditional FM and DAB digital radio tuner as an upgrade option in the near future.

For those of us who love our CDs, there’s a slot-loading CD player housed in the left side of the Uniti Star. You can either play your CDs or else rip them to an attached storage device. The CD reader makes perfect copies of CDs and stores them as either WAV or FLAC files. Naim recommends using WAV files for best sound quality, although choosing FLAC will enable you to store more CDs in a given space. If you’re feeling particularly well off you can buy Naim’s Uniti Core hard-drive storage unit to go with the Uniti Star which can store up to 16,000 full-resolution CDs. Alternatively, you can simply attach your own USB hard drive, memory stick or SD card. My one small criticism of the CD drive is that it’s all software driven and you need to use the remote to eject a disc; simple mechanical play and eject buttons would have been a good idea.

The Uniti Star can either be controlled via the superb backlit remote control with its clever proximity sensor that illuminates as you’re about to pick it up, or you can control things via the Naim app which is available for iOS and Android devices. The remote control is a gorgeous piece of industrial design and a pleasure to hold in the hands. The app is really rather good too and gives you access to all the controls and settings you could need. It’s ideal for setting up the multi-room features of the Naim ecosystem so you can broadcast music throughout your home – very handy for parties – on any other Naim devices connected to your network. You can control all your music devices in unison or else play different music in different rooms.

The entire Uniti range is now Roon-ready. Roon is a multi-room-enabled audio platform that aggregates and links personal audio files and tracks available on the Tidal streaming service. It enables simple browsing and organizing of your music collections in one place. The Uniti range can automatically discover and connect with the Roon platform and then you can control all your music from a Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android device.

Verdict: On paper, the Naim Uniti Star offers just about every music streaming option you could possibly want. It handles a massive range of digital files, enables you to listen to your legacy CDs and will even rip your silver discs for you to an external storage device. It will download the track info and artwork for your CDs and display the details on the color screen. Additionally, you can listen to thousands of Internet radio stations and plug in a whole range of digital and analog sources such as tuners, music players or even vinyl turntables. This is a future-proof music device that should provide just about every musical option you could ever want. However, the Uniti Star’s versatility would count for nothing if the sound quality weren’t top notch. I’m happy to say that the Naim Uniti Star sounds even better than the Uniti Atom, which I loved. The extra 30W of amplification really does make a difference in a larger room and when driving larger speakers. The addition of the CD player is very welcome. The sound is luscious, detailed and always in control of the music. I hesitate to use the word perfect about any product but the Naim Uniti Star sounds pretty perfect to me. I think you’d have to spend a great deal more to improve the sound of this unit. When you consider that this piece of kit is about the price of a small second hand car, it’s incredible value for money and cements Naim’s reputation as the Aston Martin of the audio world.

Prices: £3,449 / $5,595 / €3,499

More info: Naim Audio

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