Yes - displays to MIL-STD-810E/F as I recall it. Good kit !
Seems like Barco could bring their software strength to the party, allowing Naim to go for higher end streamer?
Gosh, I was off the forum for the past 24 hours due to celebrating my birthday and the entire world has changed!! 
Overall I think this is likely to be good news for Naim in terms of securing its future. Barco clearly has deeper pockets than any previous owner, which could be channelled into significant R&D and product development.
There’s a lot of doom and gloom around in the hi-fi market at present and I know some firms are finding market conditions extremely tough going. What’s interesting though is that there are other firms (ATC, PMC and Michell Audio to name but three) that are struggling to cope with demand for their products.
I think that if you look at those companies that are really buoyant there are some common themes:
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Involvement in pro audio (ATC, PMC) seems to have significant benefits as there are less players, it’s still a buoyant market and aside from the large numbers of people setting up home studios wanting small monitors, even the big studios still seem to be spending big on audio tech. I heard at Bristol that Olympic Studios is reopening in London, Abbey Road recently equipped Studio 3 with ATC Atmos to mix the Beatles stuff etc. There’s plenty of investment going in. But crucially those brands are also making speakers that I think offer huge performance for the money right across their entire range. My ATC SCM40’s are so ridiculously good for £4700 they frankly shame speakers at double the price - hence they and the rest of the range are an easy sell.
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Firms that are seen as offering high value for money with heritage, performance and quality are doing well. I know for a fact that the recent turntable launches from Michell have been a raging success, the new Gyro alone has backlog orders numbering into many hundreds which when you think about it for a £6k deck which with an arm and cartridge is not going to leave much change from £10k is pretty extraordinary. But crucially if you look at that new Gyro and the quality of engineering on offer (and sheer beauty) for that price it’s a knockput proposition. A comparably equipped and performing rival will cost you double or triple that… I think Pro-ject have a similar strategy of great engineering for the money and they can’t keep up with demand either… So the secret there is “build a world class product at a price that isn’t out of reach to the mass market and mass sales will come”.
Naim’s problem in recent years has I think been its lack of affordable products to hook people into hi-fi. And hooking people into hi-fi (along with firms like Rega) is what Naim has traditionally been really, really good at. Naim are really lucky because they have a distinct sonic signature and once you fall in love with it, you don’t really want amps from anyone else. The Nait 50 is a prime example, it’s a great product, but the original price of £2500 was just not competitive in a market where Rega will sell you a UK made Elex for £899. Also the retro thing was only really ever going to appeal to the faithful which limited its market appeal. If they put a modern shoebox Nait into production with remote control and a couple more inputs and some sexy modern styling like the 200/300 series and priced it at under say £1500 and offered a £1500 matching streamer I reckon they would do really well and crucially grow the future customer base. Many of those customers would later do what we have all done and buy an add on shoebox power amp and use the Nait as a pre etc and start ascending the range.
One other area which I think conventional hi-fi brands have been slow to catch on to is Atmos and surround sound. For a couple of years now Tidal have been offering Dolby Atmos mixes of a lot of music free with your subscription. It strikes me as foolish that conventional hi-fi brands have resisted fitting an HDMI connection on the back of streamers which would permit playback of surround mixes through a domestic AV system easily. People who think there is no demand for Atmos music need to look at the prices SACD Atmos music discs sell for… I’m trying to get a copy of the Roxy Avalon SDE surround blu-ray - they’re £130 a pop secondhand!!! If my Naim streamer had HDMI out I could stream it for free on Tidal…
There’s a lot of potential (I think) tied up in both Naim and Focal. Both brands are highly respected in the market, both have the heritage and the engineering resources to be a huge success. The big question is can they get their product mix right and build it in Europe at a price people can afford to pay? Can they develop more synergy sonically without diluting what people love about each brand. I think Focal make some great budget speakers and some superb headphones but I’ve been less convinced that their higher end speakers communicate the musical essence of Naim as well as others like ATC, Dynaudio and PMC. In many ways I think Naim leans more towards a very accurate, dynamic, open and ballsy sound, which is exactly what studio monitor brands are aiming for too. It’s not the same signature that brands like Focal, Pro-Ac and B&W have aimed for traditionally.
Overall though I think this is probably very good news for Naim and Focal but we will have to wait and see. It’s going to be interesting for sure!
JonathanG
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Lets hope the Forum remains
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Happy birthday Jonathan!
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I have noticed this trend too. In fact my recent upgrading has been with companies who deal with Pro Audio. PMC speakers, SPL Phonitor headphone amp, and Hedd for cans.
These products seemed to offer very good value for money with honest pricing. They also sound good. A lot of HiFi brands seem to have exaggerated with their pricing in the last few years. Hedd are having problems with demand being more than they can supply.
Hedd sell headphones that are good value compared to a big Chinese brand which is dominating the headphone market at the moment.
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That’s a good analysis, I would agree.
PS happy birthday @JonathanG !
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I have zero knowledge to Barco and their business.
Hopefully this will finally make room for a Naim 100 range, amplifiers, streamer. Hope not its made in China as Muso & CI range.
Will a new Supernait be released ?
Will there be a new 500 range ?
I’ve always thought Focal/Naim was an odd marriage. Maybe its time to split up.
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Had a brief glimpse at Barco’s page.
“Direct consumer marketing” might be new to them? The “Barco Residential” offerings seem to be in the Yacht-owner, Focal-CI-installation area; possibly on 300/500/Statement levels. (Looking at their projectors.)
The “digital, connected, integrated, active” thingy they mention (also support VerVent strategy) looks like a continuation of Diva, Muso/Hekla products and the like?
Curious where this will end. (They do mention leveraging some synergies.)
But I agree - better to have a product/solutions-company-looking-for-expansion owner (who pays the price in cash, as it seems; though they will look at streamlining and “healthy margins”), than an PE-leverage-buy-with-debt owner looking for maximum return in 3-5 years or so before selling again.
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If Barco have any sense they will let Naim (and Focal) ‘do their thing’, help them with development funding and draw on specialist expertise for ‘special projects’ (and vice-versa). Being in Belgium keeps things relatively local too.
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Happy birthday @JonathanG!
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The new look of Naim ? 
Looks like something my son cobbled together in Metalwork classes at school.
Yes, he failed his O level.
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Be positive, there is GREEN in it!
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I wish I could share your optimism. I suspect this is the beginning of the end of Naim as we currently know it. The lure of extraction is too powerful. Vervent was stage 1. This is stage 2.
At least it’s already a black monolith with a green illuminated panel.
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One naim dealer we talk to was having no issues selling the smaller Auralic offerings which were £2k + £1K for upgrade PSU. So there’s definitely a demand for good quality kit around that price. They were rather upset when Auralic failed I would imagine.
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All I remember of Barco is that the projector never worked when you needed it to, they hung from the ceiling and so you had to climb on the desk to press the buttons on the device, eventually giving up and resorting to the big TV screen.
I look forward to having my amplifier and streamer hanging from the ceiling. That should stop my better half complaining about the technology clutter on the furniture….
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In my professional career, I’ve experienced/endured multiple corporate take overs (from both perspectives).
I will never dismiss the possibility that the acquiring party has no real clue about what they’re buying, nor any tangible plan to successfully integrate the new business with their own.
I take comfort that this applies irrespective of whether the acquired business is a “good fit” or not. Too much synergy can be as chaotic as not enough.
This deal might seem odd looking at Barco today, but it might work well. Fingers crossed!
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I really hope this works out……..some great people down there need unleashing.
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Some good points.
From my experience you’re either buying a similar business in your own sector to increase market share.
Or you’re buying key people or a process or diversity in a related industry.
For what it’s worth, I think this is really good news for Naim.
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