A tale of hope. Above and beyond

Great news - long may it keep running.

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From a fellow CD lover this is great to hear, so many things just thrown away when a little bit of effort has salvaged your player. I would consider your investment well worth it if as others have said you were to get a years play time, I have read on this forum a number of times owners being told to give up on the player and no mechs being available. If Naim are retaining damaged mechs this would suggest they are prepared to do as they have done with your player. Happy listening.

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I had many non-NAIM cd players in the past which I had to scrap it due non availabikty of spare after 5 years. Deliberate strategy to boost the sales of new players.

Just a shout out for Audiolab, my CD8200 died suddenly, around 10 years old. In some ways not a big thing because it only gets used for a small number of CDs that will not rip and a few home recordings transferred from cassette to CDR.
I was told a six week wait to assess and repair, fixed price labour of £55 plus parts and carriage, back in five weeks. Eleven caps and a new drive, total £214.
It was a bit “shouty” out of the box, but has calmed down nicely.

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Good to read this. I absolutely adore the sound of my olive units, they were built to last, built to high sonic spec at the time and in these days of environmental awareness and the WEEE Directive (or whatever that now is in the UK) surely we must go back to repairing whenever we can.

I remember my dad fixing almost everything when I was little, even Dinky toys with broken castings got fixed somehow and that remains my inspiration as well as my expectation.

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In the light of my very recent experience, I have to disagree!

Then hats off to Audiolab as well as Naim. We need more of the fix it rather than replace it mentality.

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As a fledgling mechanic in my youth, the foreman would cuff us round the back of the head (try doing that now and see where it gets you) if he caught us replacing parts which he thought could be repaired. I carry that philosophy even now, Mrs. G and I have a lot of old stuff because I keep fixing it. Thankfully, Naim hold to this philosophy too.

And yes, the sound signature of the old Olive kit is still the best to my ears. Not the most perfect I would agree, but the best nonetheless.

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Well done NAIM.

It’s getting harder and harder to fix these optical drives. I repaired my Meridian 808 Signature Reference CD player myself (replaced the switch mode power supply). But the optical drive is very specific (down to drive firmware version 1.8 in my case) and there aren’t many spares left. Despite millions of these being produced. Meridian bought a bunch themselves, but those have run out now. So it’s probably down to locating and cannibalising other broken units yourself. Or maybe locating a similar drive and attempting to clone the firmware :expressionless:

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For those of us that like to continue playing cd’s, it’s important that companies like Naim continue offering this superb service as long as they can.
It’s a very impressive thing for Naim to repair and service a 23 year old cdp like mine, when in all honesty they could just close the book on it and say “no more”.
Glad you got your Meridian going again, well done!

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Well done. Unfortunately when my Arcam FMJ expired, there was no such help available.
Another point to NAIM

A month has passed since my CDS2 returned from getting some tlc at Naim. It has settled down now and is sounding better than I have ever heard it. Clearly it was in desperate need of the service it got while being repaired. Well done and thank you Naim.

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