I mean not a jot of disrespect to the good people on this forum who sell Naim and I also know there's a shed full of peeps out there who see it as a religion. But WHY ?
I have been on the naim forum and the amount those people have spent is absolutely astounding !
Now I know my old Naim amps were bangers but I also know that I never heard even more expensive naim ones sound much better with vinyl than my nac 70 and nap 140 . Maybe they were right for the times ? ( excuse any wrong model numbers )
I recently heard a CD555 through some B&W diamond speakers. ( now I don't ever tell fibs so I'm gonna say now I don't know what the amps were ) but they were NAIM . I only know that the speakers were about 11K and the cd555 is supposed to be good . I can't see huddersfield hi fi audiovation demoing a player and speakers of that calibre with entry level naim amps though and I know it wasn't a one box affair . After lusting after the beautiful looking system before hearing a note , especially those ' die for ' speakers , I was to say the least..surprised. Not disappointed, just underwhelmed.
The sound was great I mean, splendid . But NOT THAT GREAT ! It was everything I got from my old amps . But to be honest , not a lot more. Now I'll be even more honest........It didn't sound as good as my old LP12 did with those old building brick naim pre power amps !
I know about 'pace rhythm and timing' and I'm in that camp but I'm at a bit of a loss as to why people kneel at the alter ?
Some of those guys on the naim forum buy the ' next big thing ' as soon as it's available . At a cost of thousands. And I never read a thread of disappointment Everything those people spend thousands onseemingly makes a massive improvement . You know where I'm going doncha ?
And please don't think I'm having a go cos I'm not. NAIM are definitely one of the best hi fi companies in the world. I just want people like Malty , who knows his onions ,and any other naim dudes to enlighten me ????

For anyone not in the know , let me tell ya .....naim has a following like that of a modern day Jesu...I kid you not. If they are famous in the long run for nothing else, they are the only hi fi components company in the whole history of audio to achieve such loyalty ! In fact forget that jesus bloke.......NAIM afficianado's would have got old pontius pilate to do him in long before the Hebrew money lenders did !!

Naim (and, to a lesser extent, Linn) have a following because of their dominance in the 1980s. Those with the greatest zeal toward the brand have been into Naim for 25+ years, and have gradually changed and upgraded over time.

The upgrade path does help reinforce the zeal. With most product lines, you buy a thing, then you sell it a few years later to buy either the better model or the latest replacement. With Naim, you buy a thing, then you add to it. Over time, eventually you change every component in the chain, but you do this in baby steps, so the changes don't seem so dramatic. Thing is, if you spent the last quarter of a century or more buying a new Naim box every year or two, you have invested more than tens of thousands into the brand - and the loyalty effect kicks in.

In fairness, Naim rewards its followers loyalty with very reliable products, good residuals and quick resale turnarounds. Naim has changed its sound to make it appeal to a wider audience than the traditional Linn/Naim flat earth society, but some still prefer the older sound. It's also worth remembering that a forum specifically geared toward Naim Audio is going to attract Naim Audio's biggest fans. And there are enough of them that the renegades and exiles could form their own forum over at Pink Fish... splitters!

They are good farmers, they know how to milk you

Well, they have a hell of a loyal following, and if you read the Naim forum the last purchase was just one more step up the never ending ladder. If you happen to be less than pleased, it is fixed by adding a power supply.

I suppose I'm sort of flat earth, but have never realy got the Naim sound, but then depending who you talk to Rega is either a cheap Naim, (the last dealer that told me that is still using andrex to clean his teeth) or more flat earth than Linn or Naim.

As to what is it, don't know, I do know that if I had the £4.5k spare for a decent Naim pre and power, its not what I would be buying.

Some think (wrongly so) they can do no wrong, they are very sheep like and have to follow the shepard, today many can do what Naim can do for half the price, what you have to remember is that today there are far more manufactures today than what there was in the 1980, that can match anything Naim can do, there is nothing magical about Naim, but they have huge marketing power which the smaller manufacture can't compete with and get over looked.

Hmmm, not entirely sure how to answer this to be honest! Very difficult question to answer.

As an owner all I can say is that prior to owning Naim I'd never heard anything that 'grabbed me'. Once I heard a Naim amp, I was hooked. After some years I upgraded big time (now being in the trade) with an 82/hicap/250 (classic amp). Got fed up of the humming transformers after a couple of years and chopped it in for Chord pre/power which was lovely. Upgraded bigtime in there to a stonking Chord pre/power and still hark back to that as a zenith. Went crazy and all surround sound with Arcam, and realized I'd stopped playing music for a couple of years! Listened to some options and came back to Naim, humming transformers and all!

Sure, the 2nd hand residuals make life easier (but nowhere near as good as once was), the exemplary reliability is always nice but for me it's purely about the performance. I guess I've come back to Naim very heavily, since I even own Naim speakers which anyone will tell you is a sure sign of madness.

As for the upgrading process, we see a lot less upgraders than we used to. That's really quite unusual nowadays. No, most people who buy Naim are new customers, and most of the time, it plays music for them in such a way that they haven't enjoyed in the past. Modern Naim is a lot more rounded than older Naim so it appeals to more people, having tonality and soundstaging more akin to traditional HiFi, but at the same time still offering much of the Pace Rhythm and Timing as older products - arguably better PR&T actually, but traditional Naim owners often get lost in the extra resolution and what they see as artifice of soundstaging so they can prefer the older style Naim, but almost never in a direct comparison.

Naim also offers clear direction, well established upgrade paths rather than the myriad of choices which may or may not work outside of the brand. It also offers huge upgrades for sensible money when the residuals are considered, so if you have a 202/200 pre/power at £3400 and want to upgrade, you can go to a 282/200 and chop in your 202. Where the 282 would cost you £3400 on its own its true value to a Naim owner is more like £2500. Compare that to a complete chop in for another amplifier and the cost to you is much higher for less improvement. The upgrade path works.

Many people also complain about the external power supplies and sily things like 'why doesn't the thing have the power supply built in?' Well, when you consider that a 202/200 is an excellent amplifier at £3400 but then add a HiCap power supply to drive the preamp for £1100, the question is this: is the £3400 pre/power a good amplifier in terms of value for money against the opposition? If it is then it is a valid proposition. If adding the £1100 Hicap makes it much better, all well and good, bt then you should compare that as a combination to the other options. So is the 202/hi/200 at £4500 good competition to the rest? Most would argue that it is at least an excellent competitor - and the great thing is that Naim still offer you excellent value for money while you build your system.

Now you may have been underwhelmed with what must have been a top of the range (or near that) system. Well, that's just the way it goes, but at least you gave it a chance. I get a lot of people who have an in-built anti-Naim filter often simply on the back of show demoes where the circumstances simply don't allow it to shine or they're eared out. Usually the Naim will acquit itself very well in our demo room.

I completely disagree with Tucker that others can do what Naim do for half the price. Every time I put up a Naim system against anything else for the same money, thinking that it could do the Naim thing, the Naim pulls a trick that leaves the other floored. People make this kind of assertion all the time, but I've done it myself often and always find myself coming back to the Naim system in preference, although i will accept that the other systems may show a trick or two to the Naim, but overall the balance of factors usually works in the Naim system's favour.

Rega's presentation comes from a similar place and I had a rocking rega system last week (Saturn/Elicit/RS5s) which just sang. I sused to say that Rega was a sort of Naim-lite but nowadays I think it's its own thing. It majors heavily on timing where the Naim tends to focus more on rhythm (interplay) and so I prefer the Naim approach but I can accept that there will be those who prefer the Rega on the basis that it has a more organized approach without the Linn authority thank God. I don't get the Linn authority approach which is just too metronomic for me, even though it too comes from a similar place.

That said, the Isis/Osiris combination is remarkable and does much more than one would expect from a Rega combination.

In the end it comes down to whether you connect with a system or not. If you do, then that's the system for you andif not then it's not. For what it's worth I don't think a Naim system can ever sound really good with B&Ws on the end, Diamonds or not, yet Grahams will tell you it's an excellent combination and of course I'm mad because I have Naim speakers...

Does that help, even maybe a little?

I don't really know anything about them, they're not a popular brand in Spain, they seem very UK centric, I heard a Naim System in the Tom Tom room at Heathrow a year or two ago with the then new Kudos C30 and to be honest I think the Huygens Class D made a better match with Kudos than what Naim did.

I know one thing for sure I'd die for there custom base and loyalty, I think that deserves some respect.

Hmmm, UK Centric, interesting. Certainly the UK is probably their most important market, but they have received awards for exports so they're well recognised abroad and yet they're not that big a company - some 100 staff most of whom are in the manufacturing process since most of the equipment is hand soldered. The only things they don't make in-house are the components themselves (resistors, capacitors, boards etc) and speaker cabinets. R&D is something like 15 - 20 persons, admin is 3 or 4, Marketing one or two and sales is a handful, which is why when you meet Naim people at shows they can very well be R&D guys like Steve Sells (designer of the Superline phono stage and much of the DAC) or Roy George (head designer).

The customer base is very (rabidly?) loyal. I'm not entirely sure where it comes from, nor quite why it's so vociferous, but then again the brand seems to draw just as strong detractors so I guess it all balances out.

I see vitriol to all, isn't there a saying that goes along the lines of you can't please all the people all the time?

Anyway, it is also a British disease to critisize success, I wonder why?

I love the name fraim, but you need to be a lawyer or Dr to own Naim gear these days, they've alienated their core customers.

I think the best value is the lower end products such as the integrated Naim produce, these are remarkable, a problem Naim face or could possibly face is the amount of second hands amplifiers on the market, even though they hold their prices well, better than most other brands, they are still so much more affordable than the new range, there has definitely been a shift in the sound to suit more buyers.

We can all dream and have aspirations. Do Naim and B&W work well together, what's wrong with naims own speakers?

@audio trainspotter: The Naim Fraim is SO expensive! Yes, it gives great performance and is genuinely remarkable, BUT I just find it ridiculously expensive. I know it's hard to turn stainless steel, particularly the high quality (i.e. extra hardness) stainless steel they use in the Fraim, but still. Most people buy an isoblue rack instead where the whole (typically 4-shelf) rack is cheaper than a Fraim base.

@flatearther: I'm in a lucky position to be able to compare quite a few bits and although I think the italic entry level is very strong value, I do think the CD5i is up against it when you consider the Rega Saturn. The rest is all strong value for money against the rest, except at the very topmost rung. The 500 series is difficult to countenance just because of the values. At that level the highest value for money has to be the 552 preamp which literally makes a mockery of the next one down and improves any system in the better range.

@ears: I have real problems with the way B&W voice their speakers nowadays, big in the bass - a bit like Arcam of the 80s. Naim are in the process of changing their complete range of speakers. I have a pair of Naim SL-2s which are more like traditional Naim speakers than the new Ovator range. Traditional Naim speakers are dry in the bass (some would say they don't do bass), fast, punchy and full of presence with mediocre soundstaging and not very much fidelity. In other words, they're the equivalent of a Caterham Seven to the B&W's Mercedes. You'll spit out the bugs and cobwebs while talking about how much fun it was! They use unusual separate box techniques to separate the various frequency responses for the drive units, and they're usually designed to sit against or near a rear wall and use it for bass reinforcement. The new Ovator range is newly designed from the ground up to be more usual with free-standing location, but still with some unusual elements in it such as separate suspended chambers for the main drive unit. I still reserve judgement on them sonically though - not entirely convinced.