These are not the same size of amplifier: Naim CI-Uniti 102 has roughly 2.1x the power of Naim Uniti Star Lite. That is about 3.3dB, so it is a question of room size and how hard your speakers are to drive, not of one being the better amplifier.
| Area | Better | Why |
|---|
| Power | A | Naim CI-Uniti 102 has more power - 150W against 70W into 8 ohms. That is about 3.3dB, so it plays usefully louder before it runs out and has more in hand on peaks. |
| Room size | depends | We rate Naim CI-Uniti 102 the better fit for a large room and a very large room, and Naim Uniti Star Lite for desk or near-field listening, a small room and a mid-size room. Match the amplifier to the room you actually have, not the one you want. |
| Built-in DAC | B | Both decode on board, but only Naim Uniti Star Lite handles DSD. |
| Streaming | evenly matched | The same streaming platforms and services on both. |
| Analogue inputs | B | Naim Uniti Star Lite takes more analogue sources - 2 against 1. |
| Room to grow | evenly matched | The same expansion options on both. |
| Headphones | depends | Only Naim Uniti Star Lite has a headphone output. Worth something if you listen late, nothing if you never do. |
| Amplifier class | depends | Naim CI-Uniti 102 is Class D and Naim Uniti Star Lite is Class A/B. Class D runs cool and draws almost nothing at idle; Class A/B runs warm and is the long-established mainstream choice. Modern examples of both measure well - judge by the rest of the page. |
| Shelf space | depends | Naim CI-Uniti 102 takes up about 21% less shelf area (900cm² against 1145cm²), and it is 35mm shallower, which is the measurement that decides whether a rack door shuts. |
A Naim CI-Uniti 102 B Naim Uniti Star Lite
depends neither is better in the abstract - it turns on your room, your system or how you will use them. Only specs published for both amplifiers are judged; anything missing on either side is left out rather than guessed.
Which should you choose?
Naim Uniti Star Lite has the edge on paper, though not by much. The rows marked "depends" are more likely to decide this than the score is. Start with the room. In a large or open-plan room, or with speakers that are hard to drive - low sensitivity, or an impedance that dips - Naim CI-Uniti 102 has the headroom, and headroom is what stops an amplifier hardening up on peaks. At desk distance or in a small room, 70 watts is already more than most people ever use, and the extra 80 watts would be headroom you pay for and never hear - we rate Naim CI-Uniti 102 poorly for near-field use for exactly that reason.
What a spec sheet cannot show: how either sounds with your speakers, how the controls feel day to day, and what the app is like to live with - which is where most all-in-one amplifiers are actually won or lost. Power figures are the manufacturers' own and are not measured to a common standard, so treat small differences as noise. If you can hear both, that will tell you more than any row above.