naim Uniti Atom

Naim Uniti Atom

Features

The front of the Uniti Atom is relatively bare by comparison, with just a USB port and headphone output to the left of the LCD screen.

As well as being able to play USB-stored music and pick up media elsewhere on your network, the Uniti Atom benefits from having Google Chromecast, Tidal, Spotify Connect and Internet radio built in, with further wireless connection available via AirPlay and Bluetooth aptX HD.

With so much choice on offer, it makes sense Naim also gives options when it comes to controlling the thing as well.

Firstly, in the box comes its redesigned remote control. It's marginally larger than the last generation of Naim products came with, and it's also unarguably flashier.

From the glossy plastic used for all but the back and very tip – which, be warned, carries smears and finger prints like lipstick on a dress shirt – to the backlit buttons and volume indicator on the navigation wheel, it's a suitable complement to the Uniti Atom’s aesthetic.

Mostly, though, we expect people to use Naim’s control app, through which you can connect to your streaming accounts and root around your music collection held on other devices.

You can configure the Uniti Atom as part of a multi-room system using the app, too. Plug a turntable into the analogue input (using a suitable phono stage, of course) and have the same record playing in up to five rooms through the house.

We’re constantly using this app to control our reference Naim NDS/555 PS streamer, and its operation is just as intuitive now support has been added for this newest line of models. It simply shows more options in line with the Uniti Atom’s extra services and functions.

If you’ve thoroughly read this review to this point, it probably took you as much time as it takes to set up the Uniti Atom at least a few times.

The new colour screen, around twice the size of that of its predecessors, only serves to make the menus easier to navigate. So you get to the point of playing your music faster.

Performance

In only a couple of minutes we begin playing The Streets’ A Grand Don’t Come For Free, and a couple of minutes after that we’ve opened up a spread-sheet to work out how we’ll get our hands on almost double that amount in order to take a Uniti Atom home for ourselves.

The most immediately noticeable upgrade from the UnitiQute 2 is the level of clarity and insight.

The former is still an exceptional product that's found a home on our personal hi-fi racks since we reviewed it two years ago - but the Atom is like opening a door and now listening to the music from inside the room.

From the opening brass parps of It Was Supposed To Be So Easy to the hazy tremolo synthesizer hook of Blinded By The Light, via percussive snaps and Mike Skinner’s iconic conversational vocal, you can almost feel the textures through your fingers.

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