Looking forward to Axpona this weekend in the Chicago area.
I’ll be busting the doors down Friday to get a peek at what Naim will have on display.
Any others planning on joining the festivities?
Looking forward to Axpona this weekend in the Chicago area.
I’ll be busting the doors down Friday to get a peek at what Naim will have on display.
Any others planning on joining the festivities?
I will be there…looking forward to the show.
Focal Naim America will be there in Utopia B according the the Axpona exhibitor list online.
Ah yes, i searched under « N » but it’s under « F ».
Something is wrong, or maybe it’s not completely installed. An Ndx2 bare into Statements?
I went today. It was so much fun! Many good systems and i bought a Melody Gardot lp as well.
Naim had a tiny presence. One room with Focal. That’s it. What a shame. Room after room after room with Auralic and Aurender streamers…those 2 now own the high end streamer market. It could have and should have been Naim.
Yes it was a bare Ndx. The Focals were not their top…they were 3rd from top. It sounded good but in my opinion only showing Naim with Focal is a poor business approach. The combination is solid but Naim with Quad or Proac is to my ears better. I also heard a Auralic streamer/dac with active Atc 100 that sounded very good…Naim preamp/streamer in front of those speakers would sound great also…probably better than Focal.
Blimey, I suspect Naim were not invited to set this system up. and if it was Focal who set this up, they should know better.
Such a schoolboy error.
The gents who introduced that setup were one guy from Naim and the other from Focal. You could also listen to an Atom with another pair of Focal speakers in that room. That setup was in an area the size of a small walk in closet. I have no axe to grind here…i love Naim…but that room did not bathe itself in glory at this show. Also the focus on Naim and Focal together has cost Naim the streamer market. Every single person who attended that show looking for a streamer is going to buy an Auralic or Aurender.
Statement amps with big Focals and a bare NDX…poor planning imo. One could say it epitomizes the opposite of source first mantra Naim has endorsed for decades. Seems to me this system was meant to be seen and not heard…at the largest hifi show in North America
and where is the Solstice? Imo, the biggest “news” that Naim has had in years and then not show it? Just weird.
They had two Thorens (high end ones - the DD one that looks like the old 124 idler, and the 1600 that looks like a Linn). Both are beautiful. The fact that they are in the room but not the Solstice tells me the Solstice is a 500 unit novelty item and not going to be a part of the product line. I hope i’m wrong.
As an Auralic and Naim owner (very happy with both) one would have to wonder about an NDX with a statement amp.
Sorry I’m being way too polite, one would have to wonder at the idea of someone being paid to set up such a system and what their boss / supervisor thinks of their choice.
Personally I’d be sacking someone.
Did Auralic bribe the Naim guys to make their rooms sound better (this is tongue in cheek obviously)
.sjb
I don’t have a problem with Focal speakers but a bare ndx with statement. Why come to a show with that terrible of a combination. Just shows total lack of planning and preparation.
Maybe the NDX2 is that good.
If I were the boss of Naim I would be thoroughly p!ssed off.
I can only assume that Naim (centrally) did not want, or were not asked, to pay to exhibit at Axpona. But even if it were the Naim North America distributor, or Focal Powered By Naim, they should know better. Did they really think they could plonk a bare NDX2 on a tea trolley and plug it into a full Statement and job done? This smacks of arrogance or incompetence or both.
This stand seems more designed to promote Focal than Naim. Rather than promote the brand(s), such a poor showing can actually have the opposite effect and damage the brand(s).
If the room in the pic above is the size of an American walk-in closet (which I assume is your equivalent if the British walk-in wardrobe), the rest of your rooms must be the size of our village halls!
The room was crowded, noisy, and very large, not the setting to appreciate the nuances of a better streamer/dac. In that context I seriously doubt it would have made any difference if the NDX was paired with a 555PSDR or if it was an ND555 with two power supplies, the system was clearly intended to impress with sheer impact and dynamic slam, and it did better than anything I heard over there. It was hard to believe how those two Maestro Utopia EVO loudspeakers could pressurize that HUGE room with clean, tight bass and overall beautiful sound when they worked that NACS1 dial. Focal/Naim America turned heads and stole the show IMO, people were left in awe. The only thing I heard that got close was the Wilson Audio/Audio Research room which was considerably smaller.