I would have quite a different take on this video – the first thing that stood out for me was the pushing of the CI unit – it seems Jason is proud of this as an entry level into Naim. It contains DSP for speaker tweaking and room correction IIIC. No note of it being roon ready which is a pity from my perspective.
With respect to sitting on their hands and seeing how things are going - rather than being the Naim that introduced the nVi is perhaps no bad thing. There is an interesting thread over on the Auralic forum where the owner (perhaps not unlike Julian) shoots from the hip with his vision and reading of the way audio is going.
Paraphrasing rather than directly quoting a competitor’s forum.
- FPGA is dead, NPU is the way forward in audio. They have already seen amazing results in their lab.
- regenerative AI will totally change the way you interact with your music, your machine and the sound processing algorithm.
- DSD is dead in the water.
- and interestingly he sees a resurgence in CDs as streaming services remove content or alter it with an AI algorithm and users wan’t to hear the “original”.
Presumably there are people in Naim who either see the same scenario or possibilities or are at least aware of the fact that the industry may be on the cusp of a big change.
Naim are good at making amplifiers and have comprehensive streaming offerings available so I see merit in “letting the hare sit” as my late Dad used to say.
.sjb