NUPRIME OMNIA A300 SE REVIEW

NuPrime Omnia A300 SE is an all in one streaming amplifier with an onboard DAC. In short, it’s an all in one music machine for the twenty-first century, but what’s it like in use? Stuart Smith finds out for HiFi Pig.

The Omnia has a small footprint but is packed with features.

I like this kind of product and I genuinely believe that they are the kind of products that manage to breakdown that barrier between a degree of perceived (rightly or wrongly) audiophile snobbery and your everyday music lover that just wants to listen to music without needing a Masters degree in electronic engineering or a house the size of a Russian oligarch’s superyacht (bad luck on that one fellas!).

What products like the Omnia A300 do is offer a great package that people can identify with and understand as being part of their everyday home entertainment system. They are a considerable step up from connected speakers and offer the kudos of having a separate box that deals with your musical amusement needs. Of course, there are no speakers included in this package, but I reckon that the savvy retailer will have the good sense to bundle the A300 with a suitable set of speakers to make it a one-stop solution.

For whatever reason, the whole concept of opening up quality audio reproduction to the masses really appeals to me and I do genuinely think that these are the (relatively) mass-market products that will allow folk to enter the audio world – some may never go further than this level, but some may well explore the upper echelons of audio at a later date having had their appetites whetted. I find it funny when review bods (and I count myself guilty as charged) look at these streaming/DAC/amps and say things like “Would be great for a second system”, “Ideal for the bedroom” or “ Will make an ideal kitchen system”. These kinds of statements kind of miss the point and assume that we are only talking to a closed audience that has already bought into the whole audiophile mentality. If we talk only to this closed audience how can we ever hope to attract new folk to the merry throng? With that said, there are always going to be a good number of audio-nutters (again, guilty as charged, m’Lud) who want a system in every room in the house and they will form a part of the marketplace too.

When I was getting into HiFi in the 80s the starter system to have was a Dual turntable, a NAD 3020 amp and a pair of Wharfedale Diamonds or similar, and at £1,395 or thereabouts the Omnia sort of hits the budget for this comparison too. Two grand including speakers and you’ll have a very decent sounding system that will look nice on your IKEA shelving unit, won’t have a rats’ nest of wires trailing behind it and will be simple to operate. Bazinga!

I’m kind of meandering from the review format but that’s hopefully OK, dear reader, as I think I make a valid point and it sort of introduces where I think the Omnia A300 sits both as a product in the marketplace and in my own psyche.

FEATURES AND BUILD

The Omnia comes in a box the size, shape and style you’d expect a laptop to arrive in and I think this is pretty clever in itself. The box has a handle to that you can see it in the shop, make your purchasing decision, pay for it and then walk home with it. I like this  – it adds an immediate aspect of accessibility and inclusivity. Inside that box there’s another box that contains the unit itself and again that has a great deal of appeal. It’s got pictures and main features of the Omnia on it opens to reveal a very well padded high-density foam inner cut specifically to house the unit and its accoutrements. The very (very) nice metal remote has its own cutout and there’s another that houses the mains cable, the UBS lead, a pair of antennae and a couple of batteries for the remote. There’s a nicely printed and clear manual and then a final cutout for the unit itself.

Round the back, the Omnia is well connected.

I’m well aware that lots of folk reading this won’t give a monkey’s toss whether their HiFi comes in nicely sorted packaging or wrapped in an old rag so long as it sounds nice, but for the intended market this kind of thing is important – and I do think it is an aspect often overlooked by some, but certainly not all higher-end brands. At the end of the day, the Omnia has that Christmas morning feel to it and you do feel like something rather nice has arrived for you to enjoy. This is a good start for any product!

The unit itself has a nice weight to it at 3Kg (6.6lbs) and is a good size so as to know you have a separate HiFi but discrete enough to not become overbearing  – 28 x 5.5 x 25 cm (WHD). It looks sleek and rather nice in its slightly matt-black finish.

The front sports headphone sockets for quarter-inch and 3.5mm jacks and I don’t really see why they have gone to the trouble of doing this and not just including a couple of adapters. There’s a screen and then a control knob and that’s it.

The omnia has headphone jack, a control knob and a screen for a sleek and sophisticated look.

Around the back from left to right there’s the power inlet and main power switch, the factory reset/WiFi reset button and a 12V trigger. Then you have a speaker impedance switch for 4 or 8-ohm speakers and out of the box this has a sticker over it warning you that you must set it correctly before turning the Omnia on. I find this latter point a bit of a weird one as I don’t think I’ve come across a Class-D amp that has this. Then you have speaker binding posts which are solid and very well made for a product like this. There’s a Coaxial SPDIF ouput and Optical output so you can connect to an external DAC should you wish but I don’t see much point in this given the nature of this product. You have a pre-out to enable you to connect to an amp or active speakers and I also don’t see why this is here given the Omnia has an onboard amp and is designed to be an all in one unit. These last two features may make sense to others, I’m sure. There is an AUX input so you can add a CD player or turntable, so long as the latter has a phonostage and I really think this is useful. There are WiFI and Bluetooth antennae inputs and there’s an IIS input that you can use to add other NuPrime sources that are suitably equipped and this will allow for PCM up to 768KHz and DSD up to 256. The optical input I think is a useful addition to allow you to connect to a CD player, set-top box or portable music player with suitable output and allows for PCM up to 192KHz and supports DoP format DSD 64. The USB input is also a somewhat useful addition for playing from a computer directly or using an external player, though given this is a fully-featured streamer I’m not sure how many people will use them, but it does allow you to play decode DSD up to DSD256. Finally, there’s the LAN socket for connecting to your home network, though most will use the wireless connection, I’m sure. Most folk I think are going to use the Omnia for streaming directly from their home network using files they have ripped and stored on a NAS or they are going to stream from one of the many streaming services the unit supports natively – I’ll be using Qobuz, though I really would have like to have seen the Omnia have provision for Roon, though again Roon is perhaps something your average music lover looking at this as a main source isn’t going to invest in.

There’s Bluetooth (5.0 aptXHD) and on the Omnia SE (like we have here) there’s provision for Airplay2. An Omnia without Airplay is available for €1,495 and given I don’t really buy into the whole iOS thing, that is the one I’d have bought. Apart from the Airplay thing, they are identical! I do have an iPAd and will test out the Airplay functionality for the sake of completeness, but personally given my preferred smartphone choice I’d have saved the €250 and not bothered.

There are a lot of outputs and inputs on the Omnia and I think some are useful whilst others will rarely be used given the market for this product I banged on about at the start of this review.

Power-wise you get 150W a channel into 8 ohms and 200w into 4, but don’t forget to choose the right switch before you switch on the unit or it will unleash demons from the depths of hell whose sole intent is the destruction of the human race – that’s a bit of an exaggeration, I’m sure but I really don’t know why you would need to choose this and not just let the amp do its thing, though I’m not going to see what happens if I don’t comply given the grief the last set of demons we unleashed caused in these parts.

Now you do get a free app called the Omnia Receiver App that is available for iOS and for Android. This app will help you set up the Omnia by automatically finding it and telling you what too do thereafter. All works as expected.

SET UP

I’m going to use the Omnia in wireless mode as I think that is how most will use it.

An absolute breeze! The Omnia Receiver App is simple and straightforward. Open it up, press add device, press the WPS button on the back of the Omnia, enter your password and that’s it. The app automatically searches for the latest firmware and updates it from the app without you having to fanny about doing anything. There’s then an option to name your Omnia and that’s it, you are ready to go. I added my Qobuz password which was accepted immediately and we have music. You can either use that as your main player for streaming from your files on a NAS or use BubbleUpNP or similar. I thought the Omnia player was actually very good and you can also choose the source from here meaning you don’t have to touch the remote.

One major issue for me here is the Omnia is not gapless in playback and for me, that would put a bit of a hurdle up for me to buy It given I listen to a lot of stuff that is mixed. Classical music fans may also find this off-putting. Your mileage may well vary on this point but I think it is worth noting as I’ve given other kit grief for not being gapless in the past.

The remote needs a mention here and I think a lot of companies that charge a lot more for kit could learn a thing or two from NuPrime. The supplied remote is metal, looks nice and is in perfect keeping with the rest of the unit itself. It feels nice, has a good weight to it and does everything you need it to. A big thumbs up from me on this point, NuPrime!

The screen on the front of the Omnia doesn’t show artwork and it’s a bit small to really be of use across the room. However, I could see the volume and which source was selected, though not the track playing etc.

I had the Omnia playing in the main room which is where the main WiFi router is homed and I got precisely zero dropouts.

Bluetooth was easy to set up. Hit BT on the remote, open your phone on Bluetooth and the Omnia comes up, hit pair and Robert’s your Mother’s Brother. I don’t use Bluetooth very often but it worked ok for playing tunes from YouTube, though I did get a few dropouts. Dropouts on Bluetooth for me is pretty much par for the course on anything that comes in for review and I’m assuming the issue is with my phone!

The remote is excellent and a good few higher-end brands could take a note from NuPrime’s book.

NUPRIME OMNIA 300 SE SOUND QUALITY

I wanted to use the NuPrime as I reckon it will be used and so I had it set up wireless and then into a pair of Xavian Perla speakers using Atlas cables. I used a standard mains cable. One point with regards to the binding posts on the back of the Omnia is that whilst they are of excellent quality they are quite close together and I didn’t feel comfortable using the quite large spade connecters on the Atlas cables as I thought there was a chance they could touch – I used the banana end into the back of the Omnia and spades at the speaker end and so there were no issues.

On the remote, there’s a button top right marked LOUDNESS. Give thus a long press and you can scroll through a series of different equalization settings that allow you to tune the sound to your taste or according to the kind of music you are listening to. These are FLAT, LOUDNESS, LOUDNESS +, LOUDNESS ++, ROCK, JAZZ, and CLASSICAL. I preferred the setting on JAZZ with it adding a little bit more top end sparkle to the sound of the Omnia. FLAT, which I presume is with no EQ, is a bit lacklustre, to be honest. This is a useful feature, I think. I spent a bit of time messing with the different settings, found the one I liked and then stuck with it. I would have liked to have a little more control over the EQ and tailor it to my specific preferences.

For low-level listening, the sound of the Omnia is pretty good for the price and the features you get out of the box. It’s a dry sounding amp which some may like but I think it really does need that bit of EQ the JAZZ setting gives it at these kind of volumes. Imaging is very good and stable though there isn’t the level of separation of instrument I’m used to from admittedly more expensive kit. It’s also a little light in the bass department (choosing a different loudness setting will help here) but through the mid-band I found the Omnia to be really good with vocals projected well out into the room and with good detail. I think that the sonic signature of the Omnia will have a wide appeal to the market it’s aimed at – it does sound good at low volumes and I would be well happy with the sound of it, though I don’t think it would replace any of the (much more expensive) kit we have in place on a permanent basis. With that said, I spent a fair bit of time just sat enjoying my own music and music streamed from Qobuz, and that has to be a good sign.

Another look at the connectivity of the Omnia.

What the Omnia does respond well to is turning the volume up a bit and then it comes more alive and with a more rounded and more pleasing sound. I played Richie Hawtin’s Consumed In Key which is a 24-bit recording and was very impressed with this added volume. The bass is fast and tight, the hats are crispy and there is rhythm and pace to the music that really does draw you in. With that added little bit of volume the whole of the music just has a little bit more vim and verve than when played at low volume, though even here I’m not talking about floor rattling volumes. There’s little to no distortion and I actually think this is a half-decent amplifier match for these speakers.

Overall I think the Omnia is quite “audiophile” in its sonic characteristics, majoring, as I believe it does, on a mid to upper-mid reproduction.

Headphone amp is fine and drove my cans well enough to be very enjoyable.

QUIBBLES

The speaker binding posts are too close together for use with bigger spades.

Does need to be turned up a little to come alive.

May be a bit tame for some tastes but you can play with the EQ settings.

Some onboard features may be more than some need.

CONCLUSION

NuPrime has done a good job with this streamer/DAC/Amp. It is very well put together, unobtrusive and takes up very little space.

Sonically NuPrime has taken advantage of the latest amp technology to pack a great deal into a very small package. It’s a clean sounding product with drive and pace, though it does come into its own when the volume is increased a little and the onboard EQ does help in shaping the sound to what you prefer – and I think this is very useful.

If you are buying the Omnia as a first toe in the water of home audio then I think it is a very good buy as it has a degree of flexibility to grow if you wish to get more from it  – you can stream from a computer directly into the Omnia via USB and get 24/384 and DSD384, but I have to emphasise that I think the Omnia will find most of its buyers will run it as I have run it and that is as a standalone unit to stream to. The Omnia A300 SE also responds well to higher resolution files and so for those looking to get the very best out of it the computer option via USB is very viable.

Overall the Omnia 300 SE had a pretty big impact on me and has me reconsidering what one actually needs with regards to the number of boxes you have, though there are compromises on overall sound quality, of course. For its target market, it is a well designed and well-implemented product that will find fans.

AT A GLANCE

Build and Features:

Very nicely built and with great packaging

The remote is fantastic

Lots of scope to add external sources such as a CD player, media player, or computer and with the latter you are able to get very high-resolution files decoded

Supports a lot of streaming service

Easy to set up and with a very good app

Not gapless and doesn’t

No Roon

Sound Quality:

Dry at low volumes and in the FLAT EQ more. However, this can be remedied by choosing the EQ setting you most prefer and turning the volume up just a little. Then the Omnia really comes alive and has a very engaging sound

There is drive and pace to the sound of the Omnia and it is a good listen that is easy to get drawn into

The mid-band is very good vocals projected well into the listening space

The apparent speed of the amp is excellent with dance and pop music

Bass is good and controlled

Value For Money:

Overall this is a decent price for what is on offer with regards to features and sound quality

We Loved:

Ease of set-up and looks

Some ability to tailor the sound to your room

The remote is great as is the whole unboxing experience

We Didn’t Love So Much:

Can sound a little uninvolving at lower volume

Speaker binding posts are excellent quality but a little close for use with larger spades

No Roon

Not gapless playback

Price: £1,395 €1495

Elevator Pitch Review: The NuPrime Omnia 300 SE is billed as a streaming amp and DAC and you need only add a pair of speakers to complete the system. It has a degree of flexibility in sound with a selection of onboard EQ settings and really comes into its own when it is turned up a little. Overall it is a clean and good sounding product that can be engaging to listen to. It’s not got gapless playback and there is no provision for Roon but it does come with an excellent iOS and Android app. For those wanting a simple, good sounding system that is trouble-free then the Omnia SE offers a very good solution.

SUPPLIED BY NUPRIME

Stuart Smith

Review Equipment: Xavian Perla speakers with Atlas speaker cables.

Specifications:

Amplifier

• Power: 150W @ 8 ohms; 200W @ 4 ohms (both channels driven)
• THD:
  • <0.02% (AUX IN, 1W, @ 8 & 4 ohms)
  • <0.01% (OPT IN, 1W, @ 8 & 4 ohms)
• Signal-to-Noise Ratio: >95 dB (Digital input, 10W out @ 8 ohms)
• Clipping Power: >230W (1kHz @ 4 ohms, both channels driven)
• Frequency Response: +0.6 dB/-1dB (12 Hz – 22 kHz)
• Channel Separation: >85dB (1 kHz AUX); >105 dB (10 kHz Digital)
• Input Sensitivity:
  • 0.85V (AUX & OPT) for 100W @ 8 ohms
  • 0.75V (AUX & OPT) for 100W @ 4 ohms
• Standby Power: <0.5W

DAC & Wireless

• Bit Depths: 16-32 bit
• Streaming Audio Processing Engine: up to 192KHz / 24-bit
• IIS/DSD HDMI Input: PCM up to 768KHz/32Bit and DSD up to DSD256
• USB PCM/DSD Input: PCM up to 384kHz/32Bit and DSD up to DSD256
• Optical S/PDIF Input: PCM up to 192KHz and supporting DoP format DSD64
• Optical, Coaxial and analog Pre-Out
• MQA*
• Bluetooth: Receiving only**
• Network Connectivity: Gigabit Ethernet RJ45, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi
• Streaming Services: Amazon Music, Deezer, iHeartRadio, Qobuz, QQ Music, Spotify, TIDAL, TuneIn, Napster, Ximalaya

** Mobile devices can stream Bluetooth music to Omnia A300SE, but it can not stream to Bluetooth earphones.

Dimension and Weight

• Product Dimensions (W x H x D): 280 x 55 x 250 mm (includes feet and extended rear panel terminals)
• Product Weight: 3 kg (6.6 lbs.)
• Package Dimensions (W x H x D): 440 x 100 x 340 mm
• Shipping Weight: 5 kg (11 lbs.)

MQA might be available at a later date through over-the-air firmware update.