I have been reading occasionally the forum and one thing obvious is how small is the circle of speaker brands that are mentioned here are considered (presumably) to be a good match with Naim gear. Being owner myself of one of those brands - Dali, which is absolutely odd to me why it is rarely being mentioned as a partner with Naim amps, given the fact that another well known Danish brand is one of the highest regarded Naim amp partner and general opinion is that both brands have more or less identical sound signature. I am not getting into detail how good Dali sound with Naim, as this is my personal preference, but to me they sound terrific, and I would not change those just because I read a nice review of how well other brand matches with a certain amp. I know most people don’t do either (or may be do), but the forum is somehow more influential, as real and various opinions are discussed and people tend to trust this community more, so those other brands are being left out of the picture and actually people might be missing something they do not even know it may be the sound they might be looking for.
There are plenty of brands, so it would be interesting to see if someone has actually compared say ProAc vs for example JBL (sounds odd probably) or any other in the same price range certainly and do those really sound bad, and what would be the meaning and the definition of “bad” sounding mid or hi end speaker.
There are so many speakers and speaker brands that we simply don’t know of.
Put simply if your local, regional or even continental dealer won’t go to the trouble of letting you demo them at home, then bets are off.
Most dealers won’t even try to stock some brands because they won’t sell.
Give the punter a choice of one speaker with known credentials and a good margin, with another perhaps better one that the dealer might have to work at getting them in… the punter will mostly buy the former rather than the later. So why should they bother ??
Audiovectors partner well with Naim. I think I was once told that Audiovector used to be the Danish distributor for Naim, which would explain the synergy.
Correct. Audiovector distributed Naim in Denmark for many years. And Peter Stenberg who used to be with Audiovector is now the current Naim distributors for Denmark and also posts on the forum form time to time.
I really enjoyed the Mi3 (Supers or Avantgardes, I can’t recall) combined with a Supernait and a CDX2. And even better with a Hicap in the mix. You do need to get a bit creative with the NACA5 and the soldering iron though thanks to the three sets of sockets.
I still have the tri-wired NACA5 cables I made for my mine. A single length of cable with the banana plugs soldered at 90 degress to the cable. Sounded fantastic.
Exactly my point, relying on a dealers decision and their choice of brands for doing business with might not be necessarily correct and does not mean the speakers they sell are the perfect match for the amps they sell, although they will definitely say so. So this again is influencing general public by narrowing down the list with potential buying options. Subconsciously consumer’s conclusion is those are the perfect match brands since dealers are offering mainly those. Does this make the JBLs Richard mentions bad, not really. That’s why I thought it would be a good idea to find those hidden gems that are rarely mentioned or not at all.
To be fair, the JBLs I mentioned are vintage classics. The pair I heard had lived their lives in the Deutsch Schallplatten studios in the GDR before being restored. To find a pair these days is not easy. And when you do, they will be expensive. There’s a company in Japan called Kenrick Sound who specialise in restoring them.
Kudos, Proac, Dynaudio, Pmc, Monitor audio, BW, Magico, ATC, Wilson, Focal, Verity audio, Sonus Faber, Spendor, … …are all working with naim.
I use Apertura.
Love the JBL Paragon in the backgrount there. I heard a restored one a few years back off a mid 80s Sansui integrated and thought it sounded great. A real piece of vintage high end. Then I saw the $150k price tag and the Paragon suddenly didn’t sound so good
Yes for many years Audiovector was the Danish destributor, also the old sr1 3 and still current sr6 can be driven active with a Snaxo. The new r 1 and 3 series cannot.
Many years ago, my dealer simply told me that he had lots of sales reps trying to sell him speakers.
His approach was that if anything being offered by the rep didn’t sound as good as what he already stocked (at a given price) then why would he even consider stocking it?
The “Naim” sound; - boogie factor / speed / excitement also came into play.
He wouldn’t stock any speakers which “slowed” or diminished the attack and excitement of the Naim system.
Sure, he recognised that some speakers at a similar price level might offer a different presentation (Linn Kaber vs Naim SBL for example) and would stock both but, both would not detract from the fundamental qualities of the system.
However, it’s impossible to realistically sell every great speaker by every manufacturer at every price level.
I do remember some Royd speakers of a very modest cost, outperforming far more costly speakers in my own system.
That was the eye opening moment I moved from some quite pricey Celestion Ditton speakers to a pair of £150 Royds…
