Naim Audio Reviews 128

"What at amazing sound system the muso 2 is.
The sound is crisp and clear, like having the musicians/ band in the room with you.
If you close your eyes and listen, you can hear the individual instruments, and even tell their position on the stage, or in the studio.
I'd defy anyone to find a better system like for like.

I’ve had the Uniti Star since 2018 and never been able to rip CDs without it failing to copy without audio drop outs. Despite raising it as a fault when first bought and many calls to “support”, Naim claimed that the problem was with my storage drive. Having fallen for this I have now tried 3 different Hardrives and no fix! Still not sorted January 2023. I recently heard that Naim have accepted that there is an issue with all Uniti Stars and will soon have a firmware fix! If you are thinking of buying one, don’t!

Like many others I have stayed loyal to the high financial outlay for the product (uniti atom coupled to muso qb2) . However, multiroom is a joke and really should not be offered as woeful reliability/ dropping rooms continuously despite excellent wi-fi and speeds. I decided to add to the system for multiroom capability but am basically left with two independent systems not talking to each other. When I look on forums i see the same issues being raised for months and Naim burying their heads in the sand and offering no suitable work around. Sound quality fab but not as a multiroom and total disinterest from naim to rectify. Go elsewhere if you want a unified and fully integrated system for your home/ office/ work

Bought Naim Uniti Star a few weeks ago. I’m somewhat disappointed. Good things - very happy with the sound. I’m enjoying my music more than ever. But given the price difference from past systems I would expect a competitor to be similarly good.
Bad things:
1) there is clearly a significant problem with ripping. You can see it on the internet (you only need to Google); the system rips “without errors” but plays back with breaks; this ruins listening to music. Happened with first cd I tried, and I see people get up to 50% failure so I’m not going to bother trying more. I’m used to Apple where rips just work. Naim just doesn’t.
2) the point of the Uniti Star is it can also play cds. If you don’t want to play cds why buy it. Yet they have constructed the thing so you can’t eject a cd from either the hardware, or from the remote control. You have to use the app. Yet there’s loads of buttons on the remote I will never use. It’s as though somebody didn’t think about what the point of their machine was. And if Wi-Fi is down you can’t play cds.
3) they have bunged loads of connections on the back of the thing - for I’m not sure what reason. But you can’t use a drive connected to the usb and a sd card as separate sources. They have to be combined, or you can just use one. It may be ok if there weren’t so many redundant inputs but I cannot see why they aren’t treated separately.
I guess the disappointment is that they are a HiFi firm who don’t really understand the computer side and have failed to implement it very well. I had expected better.

Outstanding audio if you ask me. I've had NAIM since I can remember, from my trusted Sterio system(which I still have and use) to my 1st generation MU-SO. I would recommend NAIM to anyone who wants top quality.

When you buy a Naim product, you’re buying quality that will last generations. I have a classic Naim ecosystem for almost 8 years and even today it surprises with its performance. I control my Music streamer via Roon which has flawlessly worked. Investing into Naim hardware is expensive but gives you musical satisfaction that many of the audiophiles look for, although it isn’t for everyone.. if you are a serious listener who emotionally connects with music, then Naim should be on your list for auditioning.

The Naim App has lost half of my Tidal Playlist. Yet they are all on the Tidal app on the same laptop.

Why don’t Naim outsource their app development to someone that knows how to do it. They are trashing their brand.

Great product, but terrible, well, nonexistent support. I have emailed their support numerous times and have not received a single reply.

It’s very sad to see so many one star Naim reviews. My experience of Naim goes back 12 years or so and I’ve owned a lot of their equipment (up to mid-range pre-power). On one occasion, I had a fault with a Naim pre-amp and it was dealt with quickly and effectively via my dealer under warranty (right after lockdown, too). By and large, Naim equipment lasts for decades and will be serviced and supported long after the warranty runs out; one example was a broken Hi-Line cable, which Naim fixed out of warranty for a very small charge, saving me the expense of forking out for a new one. I guess Muso, being mass-manufactured outside of the UK, is a different case, but Naim are an excellent company if you buy the equipment they hand-make in the UK.

This company is run by thieves.

I wanted to support a British company and purchase a quality audio product. I have no idea how Naim managed to get so many positive reviews on the 2nd Generation Mu-so 3594 from c|net, T3, hifix, techhive, tech radar, richer sounds, and many other ratings sites. Naim seems to be very good at cultivating positive reviews, selling their kit and taking the money….but seems to be totally disinterested in further customer contact.

Naim is absolute rubbish on customer support. Today, I attempted to login to their support site (again) and my password did not work. When I requested a password reset, I was told my email is not associated with any of their customers!

My Naim Muso 2nd generation repeatedly has an inability to get the app to recognise the device. At the advice of previous Naim telephone support, I purchased a Netgear Nighthawk because the MuSo was supposedly “incompatible” with the Orbi mesh system sitting NEXT TO THE MUSO! Later - I read in the Naim blogs that other users are using the MuSo with Orbi mesh with no issues. After spending £100s to purchase the Netgear Nighthawk wireless router, the device continues to fail.

Naim is selling a subpar product masquerading as an elite high-end system. The company provides misleading advice, disregards the financial customer impact of their cavalier advice, and lacks any accountability regarding product quality.

I’ve come to the conclusion that NAIM has zero integrity and follows a sleazy used car sales business model. SO DISAPPOINTING AND PATHETIC.

I’ll be contacting EVERY publisher of the glowing reviews and directing them to the trust pilot record and the Apple App Store reviews (2 stars!).

I’ll also be contacting the UK National Trading Standards Board regarding Naim rogue business practices and requesting enforcement action.

I’ll also be writing a letter to which? (UK) and Consumer Reports (USA) as I own an equally disfunctional MuSo 2nd generation in New York.

What a waste of £1500 & $1600.

I have given just one star as this seems to be the lowest rating I can provide. I have now been without my Naim CD player since 12 January - tomorrow it is April - it stopped working and I returned it to Naim via a hi-fi dealer who is one of Naim's agents. It came back to me allegedly repaired but it remained faulty. It was agin returned to Naim over two weeks ago and I have yet to hear of any progress in its being fixed. I have phoned Naim direct. The person I spoke to did not really want to speak to me: apparently he is programmed to only speak to dealers - not to mere 'customers'. I am appalled by their service and would not recommend their products to anyone who is interested in decent customer service. I recommend that Naim provide each of their customer 'service' people with a copy of 'Moments of Truth' by Jan Carlzon - a guy who knows what customer service is all about

Further to my feedback about my Uniti Star in early Feb, I thought I'd give a progress report, or lack of.....
Despite my raising a ticket with Naim (actually two now if you include the original faulty machine) I have yet to hear from anyone in their service dept. which is quite frankly shocking and disrespectful.
My dealer had a lengthy chat with them and apparently "we know about these issues and there will be a software/firmware update in 6-8 weeks" a mantra they seem to have been spouting for as long as this machine has been on sale, at least according to many frustrated users on their own forum and other Hi-Fi forums as well.
What bugs me is I bought this as it was made by a company that I HAD huge respect for from previous experience. It wasn't cheap, I didn't mind that, you pays yer money etc. but shelling out nearly £4K for something that has had an ongoing software issue for 4 years is just taking the p**s.
As I stated in my previous post, if you want to go down the Naim server route, buy an Atom or a Nova and rip to a USB drive from your Mac/PC.
Plus points of the Star is it sounds great (as all Naim amps do) the App is almost perfect, and aesthetically it keeps the wife happy!
Come on Naim sort this out!

Quite the worst app I have encountered. I have a Muso and 2 x Qbs. The multi room party mode works sporadically, as in c.20% of the time. Frustrating and embarrassing when guests arrive. WiFi coverage and speed in my house is excellent. I have spent hours trying to get this system to work and the next time I use it I’m met with blank screens and some units needing set up for a countless number of times. I appreciate it’s not completely high end, but my goodness, for the price I expected better than this. Very disappointed.

Reluctantly I have to join the list of critics of Naim which is a shame as I so want to support British hifi. Firstly I had a Uniti Star which as another reviewer pointed to had random drop outs whilst ripping from CD. Incredibly frustrating as the drop out might occur in the 68th minute of a 70 minute recording so you have to check the whole rip & if it's faulty go through the whole process again until you're sick of the album. This would occur on about 1 in 10 rips completely randomly. I have a very large collection & spent months tearing my hair out. Naim were unable to establish the problem. Then on to the Muso 2..only used about 10 times, now frozen up & useless. I emailed about 4 weeks ago no reply yet. I have to say it's not only Naim with issues, a unit in my main hifi has now gone down twice in 8 months & the move to digital storage & streaming is rubbish, I have 35k of hifi in 2 rooms & currently can't listen to any of it. Do yourself a favour, save heartache & stick with a good cd player or better still vinyl because the technology is not there yet.. certainly not at Naim. I regret ever having taken this step & these unreliability issues have been going on for me for over 2 years sucking any listening enjoyment away.

Wow. Active naim system into SBL. All recently serviced. Old but sounds sublime. I can't see me ever upgrading.

I bought a Uniti Star to replace my ageing (Naim in part) HiFi. My wife loves the one box aesthetic, and an all in one solution appealed to me too. However this is one of those purchases I wish I'd never made.
Naim make superb amplifiers, pre-amps and power supplies, what they don't do very well is ripping software....
I'm on my 2nd Uniti Star now. The first one had a faulty CD Rom drive, the 2nd is just an absolute pain to use when ripping. Here's some of it's foibles....
1. It puts random holes in ripped files
2. It says it's ripping a CD but just leaves a blank file
3. It just stops with "System error reported"
4. It turns itself off for no reason
5. The app can't find the music library at times, after 400 CD rips this was quite frustrating. The only solution is to do a factory reset which means inputting all your data again (I've done this 5 times now)
6. If you raise the issue with Naim's service department they'll issue a ticket and just not get back to you, 'They are incredibly busy' apparently, I suspect with Uniti Star customers.
If you check on forums including Naims own, there are dozens of reports like mine. To be fair, there are lots of very happy people who don't have issues.
If you want an all in one box solution go for the Atom or Nova and rip your CD's via your Mac/PC onto a USB Drive.
If your dealer tells you it's a special CD platform in the Uniti Star it's not true it's a cheap CD-ROM drive, nothing wrong with that at all with the right software, but Naim don't seem to be able to get this right in my experience and indeed of many other owners.
At nearly £4K with the DAB/FM option this is not a cheap bit of kit and should be up to the job.
Oh, and beware of joining the Naim Community Forum. Some people treat any dissent as a blasphemy you have been warned!😀

My Muso has died twice in 4 years and absolutely no response from them after 3weeks. What a completely ineffective brand which needs to be called out for their terrible products and service. My advice, stick with Sonos or Zeppelin and avoid these charlatans!!

I use the Naim app on my Naim n272 and it is absolutely Fecking S**t ( because its inappropriate.....to tell the truth)
How a company who makes so called hi end hi fi rolls this crap out is embarrassing
I am getting rid of all my over priced Naim units which are Naim nap 250dr Naim XPS dr & Naim nac n272.
Thank you and goodbye you overpriced crap

If your thinking of venturing into the Naim multiroom experience then think again. While Naim have and do produce great style and sound when it comes to their multiroom system then experience yes but multiroom no .
Having spent 12 months nursing my two muso and they have probably linked for about 25% of that time and now I have admitted defeat . The Naim app doesn’t recognise them , the google app doesn’t recognise them but the tv does ?
So it’s with sadness and relief they are now on eBay , relics of what could have been.

naim is aiming at a higher standard. mu so 2nd generation wireless speaker sound is faultless. naim didn’t cut costs. another more costly speaker weighed 9 lbs; this speaker weighs 31 lbs. you can hear the additional audio equipment.
The people who pick up the phone when you call customer service are the most knowledgeable of all the speaker companies I have ever contacted.