Should the amp’s 80 watts be less muscle than you need, you can drive an external amp via a preamp output, and there is also a dedicated subwoofer output. To encapsulate the SuperUniti’s features, here’s what this handsome and cleanly arranged component comprises: An integrated, wireless, UPnP-network stream player able to stream audio files from any hard-disc server-such as Naim’s UnitiServe, HDX, network attached storage (NAS), or laptops/computers via a home network a front-panel USB port that accepts direct digital files from iPods and iPhones using Apple Lossless encoding a multi-format tuner for iPod and USB-stored audio featuring FM/ DAB/Internet radio a ten-input digital and analog preamplifier with six S/PDIF digital inputs for external digital sources, including three back-panel optical inputs and a fourth front-panel optical input internal architecture for high-res audio playback up to 24-bit/192kHz over the network-a Naim first a digital-to-analog converter and, of course, the 80Wpc power amp, which makes this the strongman of the Uniti series. Naim also boasts of the SuperUniti’s newly designed, digitally driven, analog volume control, which uses discrete resistors for the highest sound quality. Proprietary digital filtering provides up to 16x oversampling, and D-to-A conversion is via the same Burr-Brown DACs found in Naim’s NDX and HDX. Like the latter, SuperUniti employs Naim’s “Zero Jitter” buffering technology, which clocks incoming digital signals into the unit’s buffer memory, before then clocking them out to provide a stable conversion stream. But as Naim points out, in addition to the SuperNait the SuperUniti also draws inspiration from the UnitiQute, the NDX network music player, and the Naim DAC. The heart of the SupertUniti, however, is firmly grounded in Naim’s classic componentry, most specifically the 5 Series amplifier found in the 80Wpc SuperNait integrated amplifier, from which the SuperUniti’s guts derive. But I imagine a whole other, and dare I add younger, flock of SuperUniti customers will be drawn to this sleek model’s streaming audio and other digital capabilities because, after all, Naim calls the SuperUniti an “all-in-one,” music player that simply needs speakers-and externally generated sources-to make music. You can, of course, as I did, hook up a CD player via analog inputs, as well as a turntable, and I suspect that many users may do just that. Like the UnitiQute, the SuperUniti contains no disc drive. Nor of another one that’s done it so gracefully. I can’t think of another audio company with such a long track record that has so firmly and expansively embraced the word of computer audio. The latest in Naim’s now three-year-old and frequently augmented Uniti series, the $5995 SuperUniti joins the NaimUniti 2 ($4695, with built-in CD player) and UnitiQute ($2695, no disc drive), along with two versions of Naim’s UnitiServe Hard Disc/Server ($3695 and $3995). And not just upstarts but iconic manufacturers-and at this point in the company’s history England’s Naim Audio certainly qualifies as the latter-are embracing this new world order. CD sales, while not dead, diminish every year more and more streaming devices are hitting the market and this very magazine devotes serious coverage to the evolving world of computer-driven digital-audio playback and HD downloads. On the Windows side, we continue to hear good things about Nero MediaHome.As a certain scruffy young bard once sang, “The times they are-a changin’.” Although many aspects of our hobby remain constant, especially the continuing health of analog and two-channel sound, there’s no doubt that digitalaudio reproduction is on a pathway of serious change. We added Elgato's EyeConnect software for Mac OS X which got us closer than anything else on that platform. The following list, compiled in part by the PS3mods blog, is a rather extensive collection of software spanning multiple platforms including Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. As it turns out, there's no shortage of UPnP clients that satisfy, in some capacity, the DLNA standard the PlayStation 3 requires. That doesn't mean there's a paucity of options, however. After spending entirely too much time trying to find a suitable solution to stream all of our bits and bytes into our newly upgraded PlayStation 3s, we finally came to a grim realization: there is no perfect solution.
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