Had mine in the Maple/Silver legs finish since I got the system in 2005-ish and see a lot of it on the picture threads so obviously its a popular finish. So does anybody have any idea why Naim no longer offer it?
I need another level and it looks like others do seeing as how much it goes for on 'that’auctoin site.
Annoying doesn’t even start to cover it and yeah, I know - first world problems…
Presumably they stopped making it because people stopped buying it and because they stopped making maple veneer speakers when the Ovators were introduced. I think it’s a lovely finish and matches my speakers perfectly. It does seem a shame it’s discontinued when Trumpian cherry persists. Maple is so much nicer.
Naim will probably tell us maple doesn’t sound as good 
More likely that they could no longer get it from sustainable sources.
I look forward to Mr Dane’s response
I’ve always thought Cherry looked a bit ‘old man’. Sorry to anyone who’s older than me and has a taste for Cherry! 
Odd, I got confused by Fraim options recently when looking at a dealer’s website and couldn’t figure out why finish options seemed limited for some components.
If Naim have ditched certain finished one would hope you could buy extra ‘legs’ in the existing available colours affordably to rfeplace those in your current setup - not ideal but perhaps better than a can of black spray paint.
You can buy both black and silver legs separately. It’s the wood finishes that the OP is referring to.
Yes, I was suggesting a less than satisfactory option of spraying the wood finished black (or silver I guess) to match the currently available ones.
I’m going to moan. This is pretty ridiculous given that everything is “made to order” anyway. These issues irritate me because if you spend 5k on a rack and need one more shelf, you’re stuffed.
I was about to purchase a Fraim this year, but this has really put me off.
They do a “natural ash” now which is very similar to maple; IMHO it’s a nicer tone but it blends well with my maple SL2s
The removal of the Maple option may be down to a change of supplier(s) over time. IIRC, Naim had to change their sourcing and, if memory further serves, it seems the laminating process isn’t straightforward.
My Maple shelves were acquired over several years and it’s noticeable how some have darkened more than others - and it’s all shielded from direct sunlight.
I heard the same … difficulty in matching the Maple colour.
I have a preference for the rosewood finish but that was long gone when I bought Fraim, even the cherry came dyed between buying lite and ff, at least undyed could be specified as a special order and it darkens over time to nearly match the previous version. There could be nothing like there is with speakers.
The Ash looks much paler in the flesh than new Maple ever did. New Ash looks almost White compared and I can’t see it ever going dark enough to match Maple.
I’m now thinking of something radical - mixing Fraim finshes. How rock & roll is that?!!
Thinking along the lines of Black shelves, Black legs for the top shelves where the source units sit might look kinda cool. 
Or maybe not… 
It is a bit odd - the colour options. There are two versions of Cherry available for full Fraim - Tinted and, presumably, Natural with the former being darker (and probably darker than Cherry ever gets from my experience with other furniture I own). I actually like the Tinted - but would have gone for the Natural for a better match to most of my other furniture EXCEPT I wanted a Fraim Lite top shelf for the TT and Fraim Lite is only available in Tinted. Strange!! I have black uprights and it does look great to my eyes - probably better than the Natural would have. It was, though, the first comment the style police made. Fortunately my glass coffee table came to the rescue as it’s Cherry supports vary from light to almost black. Case for the defence settled and accepted. Phew!
I’ll admit I actually think (on screen anyway) the Cherry and Black supports looks good but not Cherry and Silver. I’m not keen on Ash with Black supports either. There’s too much of a contrast for me.
Here’s the light ash alongside the maple SL2s:
It blends well in my opinion, but each to their own of course…
That actually looks really nice. I take back my earlier comments about Ash & Black!
I’m must be starting to chill out after yesterday’s rant after missing out on that Maple & Silver shelf.
@RackKit
A suggestion - couldn’t you buy the ash finish and take the shelf to your local French Polisher along with one of your existing maple shelves and I reckon you’d get a perfect match/finish.
It is amazing what these people can do.
