News

Building on the success of its Recommended badge-winning Mu-so wireless music system (HFC 391), Naim has unveiled the Mu-so Qb. Described by the manufacturer as combining Naim’s priorities of high-quality, engaging sound and understated design, Mu-so Qb appears in a more compact chassis and boasts a speaker arrangement of five offset and angled drivers (two tweeters, two mids and a woofer), although the bass port of its sibling has been ditched to keep size down. Instead, two tuned pistonic bass radiators work alongside a custom-made woofer driven by the 100W amplifier.

The Mu-so Qb can connect to your home wi-fi and can wirelessly stream hi-res music stored on your network or browse and play tracks using Spotify Connect, Tidal, internet radio or Airplay. Physical connections incorporate a 3.5mm analogue input for additional sources, an optical S/PDIF (compatible with sources up to 96kHz), Ethernet and a USB A port for plugging in a memory stick. There’s also aptX Bluetooth.

Mu-so Qb is compatible with multiple formats, but the headline news is that WAV, FLAC and AIFF (up to 24/192) and ALAC (up to 24/96) are supported. There’s a 32-bit digital signal processor at the unit’s heart and gapless playback is also on offer. A touchscreen digital interface is located on the top 

Music can be streamed to up to five different locations around the home, with the choice of synchronised or individual tune selection in each room. Control comes via a dedicated Naim app for both Android and iOS and Mu-so Qb is also fully compatible with Naim’s Uniti series. Mu-so Qb is on sale from 2 March for £595 and is reviewed in the April issue of HFC, on sale 24 March 2016.