I think the review numbers take in consideration availability and cost.
If only 25 are being made at a cost of £100k that’s at least 7% nocked off.
Yes, but a review is one person’s opinion , within their own multiple contexts.
If I were an experienced Naim owner, I would trust Naim above any reviewer.
It’s not necessarily a question of trust. Many of us read articles/reviews out of interest but I for one, certainly don’t trust the reviewers. Theirs is just another opinion regardless of how informed it may be. Reviews may help to shortlist products for personal audition but that is all.
We all only have our own ears, wit and sensibility when it comes to our beloved music reproduction systems!
I think the word trust is misplaced in this context. I certainly wouldn’t rely on a manufacturer’s sales blurb, whoever they are. And I would not rely on a review unless (which is not the case) I knew the reviewer work and had personal experience of a good number of things that have been reviewed and know how the reviews relate to my own impression. But take several different reviews, reading between the lines to make sense of a generally positive stance, plus manufacturers’ claims (often analysed in reviews), plus anecdotal info from somewhere like this forum whether views of people whose tastes seem aligned with mine, or even not aligned but consistently so, then I feel I could build a picture that in the absence of being able to audition might yet make something worth the risk of buying.
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They seem to be very conservative in their ratings. The scores for top quality products are compressed between 85 to 91. For example the Nap 250 dr rated 87% and the Statement System at 91%.
There is one valuable nugget buried in the HiFi News review. Apparently low rate jitter on the NSS 333’s S/PDIF input is high, with a firmware update to be issued to correct this. I believe this only impacts the S/PDIF inputs.
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Hi Graham
Yes and I looked when I got home. If I’m not mistaken bits of it ended up in the Nait 50
best wishes
Ian
Just to repeat for all, if you download Zinio app, click on the last cover of the HFN mag, then you access for free on the review of the 300 series.
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I tried that and installed the app, but it’s asking for a subscription or you can buy the current issue to view it.
It’s fascinating to read people’s views on magazines and reviews in general as somebody who writes the things! I think you are all absolutely correct that the ultimate arbiter of taste and choice should always be the customer’s own ears. I don’t think that negates the value of reviews however.
The fact is that reviewers encounter and experience far more products than the average consumer and also get the benefit of a lot of technical background information that simply isn’t available to the public. This might take the form of white papers, press briefings, factory visits or meetings with senior design engineers and it’s all very useful in understanding how and why a product has been designed a particular way. As a result I would argue that (good) reviewers opinions are usually better informed than the average consumer and their ability to compare and contrast what they’re hearing with other competing products is based on wider experience.
That’s all very worthy and hopefully helps people to decide which products they might shortlist, but I think the primary purpose of reviews and audio journalism is actually entertainment. People don’t always read reviews because they plan to purchase the product, they often read them to gain an insight into what it would be like to experience music played on a particular product. That is akin to me buying EVO magazine to read about the latest McLaren - I’m not in the income bracket to afford one, but I love the cars and I love learning more about the latest models and how they drive. I would bet that a lot of people bought that recent edition of HFN because they wanted to read about the latest Naim developments/sound/approach/range even if they’re currently listening on a NAC62/NAP90 with no budget to actually buy the 300 series.
So I think the mission of journalists is to entertain and inform in equal measure, no matter who we write for. All journalists have their own style: I try to make my articles amusing/engaging sometimes as well as describing the underlying technology and features. Perhaps most importantly I try to describe how particular systems play music. My goal is to give people the experience of sitting on the couch in my listening room while we fire up the latest from Naim, SME, ATC etc. I want people to experience the same thrill I will get when the 300 series lands here this week and to share in it with me!
Hi-fi can so often be a rather solitary pursuit - that’s one of the reasons I think this forum is so popular. People like to feel part of a ‘tribe’ and I suspect the magazines and websites dedicated to audio probably provide a degree of belonging and camaraderie as well as infomation sharing. The £6 or whatever it costs for a magazine barely buys a pint of beer nowadays and you’re getting hours of entertainment (hopefully) for that. Audio journalism on the web is of course usually free and paid for by advertising revenues, so that seems a pretty good deal to me!
Just my thoughts as a genuine enthusiast and journo.
JonathanG
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Bravo @JonathanG ! I look forward to reading your thoughts on the 300 series. I really can’t afford the 300 series currently but I aspire to it in bite size chunks…
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Have you tried to click on the cover? When I do that, some pages appear and the entire review of the 300 series.
It is so hard to describe what one hears though isn’t it?
I played the tracks that were mentioned in the article and either am hearing everything they mention or else cannot appreciate where my system is not doing what they mention.
I suppose either way I’m lucky, but I find these musical descriptions next to useless unless it’s in comparison to something else. Like “compared to the 300DR there is more space and ambience to the live tracks”. Or “On a lot of systems this track sounds shouty and the sax can tend towards ear bleeding, but not with this combo”.
It seems however like Naim have a success on their hands a new more compatible amplification, that won’t frighten the horses, which is a good thing.
.sjb
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Hi Sloop,
I totally agree it can be very hard to describe what you are hearing. I haven’t plugged in the 300 series yet and so it’s sitting in a six box stack in the hall just now!
JonathanG
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Well, hurry up!
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Could you use some musical choices that are more likely to be known by your readers?
Enjoy though I presume it will be great to experience this level of modern Naim.
.sjb
Perhaps we should suggest a playlist. I bet Jonathan would love that…
Last guy who did that picked Octopus’s Garden to represent the output of the Fabs over their careers.
And…?
Haha - sorry hadn’t logged in for a few days but your various comments made me chuckle - especially “Well hurry up”!! It did take me a couple of days to get it all unpacked and ‘plumbed in’. I ran with the streamer on its own first of all plugged into the Leema Acoustics Tucana AE that I have just reviewed (purely so I could have music while I started putting it all together). The difference between my resident NDX and the new NSS333 was actually quite startling - the sound was far more ‘airy’, open and detailed. The streamer is (very sadly because I’m not sure I can afford one!!) miles better… And this was just streaming Jethro Tull’s Quest of a Knave album from Tidal 16/44.1. I don’t mind admitting I’m in love with the darned streamer and having the album art pop up in full colour is very cool. Then you’ve got Tidal 24/192 and Qobuz etc none of which my NDX does…
The rest of the amps have been bedding in for about 2-3 days but for various reasons have mostly been used for movies rather than two channel audio. I run my home cinema using the pre-out function on the Emotiva MR1 (stunning AV amp btw) using the Naim stack to drive the front L/R channels.
One thing that has been a bit of a surprise is that the volume needs seriously cranking compared to my NAC82/NAP250. On the olive kit 10-11 o’clock is a pretty optimal listening level on CD/streaming and anything from 12 noon onwards is getting pretty darned loud… On the 300 kit I’m regularly around noon and it isn’t even loud - I have to crank it to 1pm ish to really get the ATC’s moving some air…
So more impressions to follow… I will take on board Sloop John’s suggestion to use some musical choices that everyone knows so will throw in some Dire Straits/Fleetwood Mac/Floyd etc. It’s always a dilemma actually as a reviewer - do you use stuff everyone will have heard a million times (Private Investigations anyone??? lol) 0r do you hopefully incorporate some slightly more left-field choices? I have just got my hands on some Chasing the Dragon recordings on vinyl and am really looking forward to sitting back and spinning some of those as every last one of them sounds stunning! I do try not to focus too heavily on ‘audiophile recordings’ in my reviews though, it always seems to be a bit of a cheat to use records that sound great on anything! I want to know how a system copes with real world music, and that means averagely recorded material.
Aesthetically I thought I might miss the green lighting but actually it’s OK and the whole lot looks very nice in the rack. Would I prefer it green? Yes for heritage reasons, but aesthetically I think this is Naim’s best design yet. The packaging is also light years nicer than the older gear and it’s clear they’ve worked very hard on that ‘Apple’ style experience that makes opening boxes feel more like unveiling something magnificent.
I haven’t plumbed in the two extra 300 power supplies yet, I want to hear what the base system can do. One thing I hadn’t thought about was that there’s no separate balance control on the pre-amp as I sometimes like to make fine adjustments to that on an individual album basis. Sure you can do it via the remote. Also the two remote controls that are designed for the streamer and the pre-amp look incredibly similar but are actually different which seems like a step backwards. Why not just have a single universal remote as Naim usually do? I’ve picked the wrong one up several times which can be slightly irritating. Do bear in mind though I haven’t really had chance to explore the functional differences between them so this is just an initial gut impression. I’m being picky here, but that’s my job to find the flaws/irritations as well as the good stuff…
I’m going to reserve judgement on the sonics until I have listened a bit more but I think there’s still a lot of Naim DNA in the sound which is great. I’ve waited a long time to have a NC system at home and I’m genuinely very excited to review it - it’s certainly going to be a real highlight of the year! The review will (in accordance with Soundstage policy) actually fall into three individual reviews. First the streamer on its own, then the pre-amplifier and then the power amplifiers. That means I will need to sort out some cabling to adapt old to new but for the next few days I’m just enjoying the system on its own without any legacy bits. An overall impression is important as in reality I suspect a lot of people will be aiming to end up with the full system.
JonathanG
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