I’ve seen it being build in Salisbury together with a few other Apostles.
Those were certainly 350’s, the monoblocks.
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I saw 300 series kit being built at the factory in Salisbury last time I was down. I’m sure the Slovakia site will also be used if need be, as there’s no space to expand for extra capacity. As HH explains above, it all come back to Salisbury anyway and from what I saw when I was there, the quality is spot-on. Just think of it as an extra production room for the factory, just with a thousand mile corridor…
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What you are buying is output from Naim made to their exacting standards. Whether it’s been physically made in Salisbury should be irrelevant. You also can’t choose who made it; you do know there are different levels of experience amongst the wirers, yes? Some with years, some with months. Right now there are components being made in Salisbury and in Slovakia by a collective group of people who know what they are doing with a soldering iron, following extremely comprehensive and rigorous build instructions. The units all get tested, so that every 250/hicap/ndx2/350/332 etc etc are the same. Down to the location of the cable ties. You are buying the attention to detail that is maintained at every level; from r&d right through to final boxing and shipping.
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Thank’s for all good and kindly answers! I’m a very satisfied and happy Naim owner today and will be that in the future.
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Certainly it was a decent question Radikal considerably more decent than some of the answers you got… Good luck with your future choices!
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Thank’s Bjorn!
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As long as it’s checked out 100% property, and i can’t see why it wouldn’t be, then can’t see a problem with where it was made.
The problems only come in when said box is made and then sold without being checked properly in Salisbury that problems can start to happen. As product quality can slip, but as said as long as it’s checked 100% correctly then there should be no difference at all.
For me, it matters. I try and buy as much as I can that’s manufactured in the UK - I do this primarily for two reasons; I want to support manufacturing in the UK and the skilled jobs it creates and fosters, and I’d rather things were not flying or shipping all over the world with the resultant pollution. It’s obviously not always possible but for me, clothes, food, sometimes wine, furniture and yes hi-fi.
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We all consider Naim to be a great manufacturer of product. It can be taken for granted that new employees at Salisbury will be taught how to manufacture to the Naim specification.
As happens in many other industries, manufacture in a different country requires considerable set up with transfer of specs, methods and the such like. There would have been heavy involvement by Naim to ensure that everything was fully to standard before ‘accepting’ the whole plant/process as being good enough to manufacture to the high Naim standard.
Just an extension of the Salisbury plant in effect.
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AMy dealers experience was at one time, that wehn he demoed Naim gear people were interested, when they were told the time before they could actually get the gear, they changed to a brand that could be delivered within weeks not months.
Claus
Excellent points but if Naim do not have the capacity to meet demand then surely basic economic laws of supply and demand mean the prices would be much higher (certainly not cheap at the moment!) and/or potential sales lost to competitors.
Globalisation causes many heartaches and damage to the planet.
I don’t actually have any issue with Naim setting up shop elsewhere and I also agree with your points above. But if Naim are confident that the manufacturing processes and systems they have deployed to Slovakia are indeed robust and just an extension of Salisbury then why haven’t they trained staff there to do the QC checks? If I were a Naim customer in Slovakia my unit has possibly been assembled down the road, shipped to Salisbury and then back again - madness. These are heavy items to ship.
It seems to me the logical thing to do was to have all units in the UK supplied from Salisbury to minimise shipping costs and the Slovakia facility be the additional capacity for the eu/RoW. But that’s me.
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It’s worth remembering that Slovakia has been one of the partners doing some of Naim’s SMT boards for a number of years now (Naim can’t do SMT in-house) and the quality has been superb - that was what gave them the confidence to go a step further to help ease their capacity issues.
Yes, I get that it does sound a bit daft having the kits of Naim tested and matched parts sent out to Slovakia, assembled and wired there, and then sent back to Salisbury, but Naim feel it’s important to do things this way - I guess, how else will the special Salisbury fairy dust be liberally sprinkled on the kit before it heads out the door? 
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I have no doubt whatsoever that the Slovakia quality is top notch Richard, and I’m sure Naim have their reason, but it occurs to me that this is perhaps due to insecurity on Naim’s part and their sense perhaps that each part has to be blessed by Salisbury to assuage the sensibilities of the Naimerati. It would appear better to me to demonstrate confidence in the Slovakia output by not double checking it and stand by the fact that if it is Naim branded then it is Naim quality. Cheaper to ship people to Slovakia to make sure that is the case rather than finished components to Salisbury. I’d still want a UK built one though for the reasons mentioned above.
…as I walked through production today I saw NSS 333, NAC 332 and NAP 350s flowing down the production line (Naim factory Salisbury).
We use our PCB assembly partner in Slovakia to help as and when our production capacity is exceeded. Our partners use our build process instructions as per the Salisbury factory.
Thanks all
Steve
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There’s another issue of needing a separate erp system to track everything. As every component (apart from musos) is built (or arrives built from Slovakia) and tested and logged in the one Salisbury-based erp system, then sales know where everything is, and shipping is simplified.
Not that this can’t be overcome, but it makes a lot of practical sense.
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Problem is, though, that a great deal of what is manufactured in the UK is destined for export, Naim included. And if everybody in the receiving countries takes the same view and only buys what’s made locally to them, the export market collapses.
Perhaps off-shoring and global manufacturing has gone overboard in recent years, but I think a good deal of international trade is inevitable. After all, it’s been going on for millennia.
Roger
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Say it as it is Nigel but of course you’re 100% right. I sometimes think people lose sight that the objective is to just to engage with music.
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Completely agree and of course I have plenty here that is not made in the UK. I spent 35+ years working for the big car company in Essex and part of that was in sourcing to low cost countries. I guess I like to believe we can still manufacture here and want to actively support and promote that when I can.
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