Sound bars primarily for Music?

[divuk83]

I have currently got a Naim Uniti, Naim N-Sats on N-Stands (shown in the picture below) and a REL Stampede sub. I say I have, as although I own them, they have been living at my friends house for about the last 5 years as I was concerned my daughter would pull them over onto herself and get injured. She is now old enough to know better (she might knock them over while playing but not get crushed which I could live with) however we now have a large greyhound that has no concept of his size and would easily knock them over. I would really like to re-claim my hifi, but the speakers just wouldn't work in my current living room (not pictured as that's my old house). I really know nothing about soundbars at all so need some info.

1. Could I run my hifi into them like a set of active speakers?
2. Could I keep my sub? I have an RCA line out and a DIN pre-amp out on my hifi as well as RCA sub outputs.
3. Would music actually sound any good on them? Obviously I'm bypassing the amp part of my Uniti so I'm reliant on the quality of the sound bar amp. I'm very much a hifi geek with little interest in the AV side of things. The Uniti was my compromise system, I used to have a NAC82/PSC/HiCAP/NAP200/CDX2/NAT02 so want something that sounds reasonable!

Other suggestions are welcome on speaker alternatives. I would love to wall mount them, but I don't think that would really work either in my current living room. Getting rid of the dog is a great idea, but my wife is quite attached to him so no really an option!

Thanks

Dave

 

[divuk83]

Thanks for that. Currently all my music in FLAC (CD-rips) stored on a Synology using Minim UPnP. I rarely play CD's or the radio so keeping the Uniti seems daft if I'm only going to use the streaming part of it and nothing else!

I do really like my N-sats, wall mounting might be possible and I have had them this way in the past, though there isn't masses of wall space to do it on so I'm not quite sure where I would put them. I did think about floorstanders or heavy stands. I think they would come out too far into the room so anything on the floor wouldn't be ideal.

I really need to have a good think about this before buying/selling anything. There is definitely going to have to be some compromises!

Thanks again.

Dave

 

[divuk83]

Naim Mu-So looks interesting. Yeah, anything other the what I have now is a compromise and even mounting the speakers on the wall is a compromise! When it first came out I remember being impressed by the B&W Zepplin, so these small speakers can produce decent sound. That said I'm not a fan of Bose stuff so it's something I'm going to have to demo first anyway.

Thanks for all the ideas.

Dave

 

[divuk83]

I was trying to be polite about Bose! Hifi is a very subjective thing so I don't want to starting any debates on things like that! The Zeppelin I head was the mk1 from 2008, again not much of a comparison with more modern stuff.

I don't have a Uniti Atom. I have a mark 1 Naim Uniti from 2010. While the room is big, it's quite narrow where I want to put the speakers (in front of the sofa either side of the TV) so big speakers or even small speakers on stands (what I already have) are something I'm wondering if I can get away without. I think a decent soundbase is never going to touch what I own at the moment, though it will be better than my current setup which is nothing. I was just wondering how much of a compromise it would be to have a soundbar and if I could live with it.

 

[divuk83]

Update: After a demo in my local dealer I was sold on the Mu-so QB 2. For something so tiny it sounds really good, it's not as good as my old Uniti, but then there was just no easy way to have speakers in this room. I'm really pleased with it and I'm loving having a way to play music in the house that's better than my TV speakers or a cheapo Bluetooth speaker.

Next job is to get/make a speaker stand or small table to get it a little higher off the ground.

Thanks to everyone for your advice and suggestions.