Yes really. Came back from holiday, and it had been unplugged by someone else. Plugged in, and it wouldn’t boot up. Just got about a cm of the progress bar at the bottom of the screen then powered down with no lights on. Did a soft reset and got the same result.
Did a hard reset and it started booting up again, with a bit more progress. Then heard a loud crackling noise from inside and acrid smoke started coming from the left rear area. Pulled the plug and took it outside quickly.
So just thought I would share this as a slightly interesting tale of woe. I have an amazing dealer who just fixes things with no questions asked so no worries there.
Sorry to hear that. It sounds like some component somewhere inside has failed or got frazzled. I wonder whether something happened while you were away. Luckily there’s a protection fuse inside so there should be no fire risk from any catastrophic failure. Hopefully your dealer will get it sorted out for you as quickly as possible.
Had an identical sounding issue with my Nova last year after a few days away. That fizzing, crackling and smell of burnt components is not nice when it’s happening. It was fixed under warranty within 2 or 3 weeks and I’m happy to say I’ve had no problems since.
Simon.
Oooh, I so hope this will not happen to me. It’s why I don’t have a cleaning person hired either. Every one I know that has one, complains about them pulling random plugs to do the vacuuming…
Hope the Nova is fixed pronto!
I had the same thing happen to me after a couple of hours use it went up in smoke with a nasty burning smell.
My dealer swapped it for a brand new one which has been perfect.
Never got any feedback as to what happened.
I remember that Linn had a similar problem with the mono amplifier LK 240. Linn recalled these for action. I don’t know if it applied to all of them. But mine went to Glasgow for a check and shift of a component. Should’nt Naim do the same with Nova? Since they are apparently more units affected by similar problems. In Linn’s case, there was a fire risk if I remember correctly. But that hopefully does not apply to the Nova…
Just a followup on this sad event - my dealer does not want to know about this and suggested contacting my insurance company (I don’t think it’s an insurance issue).
I have contacted Naim support but no reply for the last 3 weeks.
Even though it’s out of warranty, the consumer law in NZ says that the retailer, or failing that the manufacturer need to make good. Any suggestions?
Surely it needs repairing and your local service agent in NZ will have to agree with Naim and your retailer (dealer) whether this is a warranty issue or not.
It doesn’t matter whether someone unplugged it or not, it shouldn’t fail catastrophically. I would stop describing it as a fire as basically it’s just gone wrong.
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This could get messy as the NZ distributer changed in July 2021 and if the Nova is out of warranty it was sold by an ex-Naim dealer and ex-Naim distributer, so there is a risk of @ameads being “piggy in the middle”. Ultimately, I think that Naim via the new distributer would have to honour the NZ consumer law, so I’d suggest contacting one of the new NZ dealers and have them put you in place with the distributer for a resolution.
I think it’s messy already! Under the NZ Consumer Guarantee Act the retailer is responsible - current or ex dealer is irrelevant. Acceptable remedies are replacement, refund, repair or supply of a similar quality item.
It’s not exactly clear where the manufacturer stands but I’m hoping for a sign of good faith - having been customer for about 3 decades…
So why isn’t said dealer who sold it to you not dealing with it? - excuse the pun.
This sounds ominous… several members pointing to identical catastrophic failure issues of a given device, and this forum is used by only a tiny subset of Naim customers (so I understand). I wonder if there was a batch fault… ie the devices have a similar range of serial numbers…
If so I’d expect some sort of recall… certainly if the issue has been since fixed. How the fault is being described it sounds like the internal safety fuse isn’t preventing the acrid smoke/smell. Although with modern electronic components actual combustion is very rare.
Must be a headache for our friends in Naim.
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The fuse should prevent combustion from a catastrophic failure - i.e. something like the transformer breaking down, but if, say a tant goes and you get that cracking and horrible smell it should not precipitate anything worse - and if it did I would guess the fuse would go.
As for warranty, the contract is made between you and the retailer. Provision should be there for just such an event, whether through the old or new distributor.
Sure, my point was about if there was a batch fault … ie this is an unusual catastrophic failure where there would appear to have been identical failures… this would normally suggest a design, production, or component flaw that would be addressed. In my experience of consumer and commercial electronics this is sometimes handled as a recall, not least when there is safety / combustion involved…
Sure the dealer would handle the recall arrangement with the consumer… but product recalls are the responsibility of the manufacturer/producer/importer I believe… at least in UK law.
Or if not the case of a batch or design fault, and it is just statistical chance of random failure… then confirmation of that might be helpful for those consumers with these products.
I’m not aware of anything like that, but I guess Naim would know for sure.
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This is strange. In the last sentence of your first post you said that your dealer was wonderful and just fixed things, no questions asked. What has happened to change things?
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I’d imagine that’s just coincidence - surely consumer electronics need to be robust enough to withstand occasional power outages such as power cuts or someone pulling the plug rather than switching off gracefully.
Admittedly you could get data/OS corruption with a computer writing to storage media if something went wrong, or indeed a streamer if it happened during a software update, but in you case a Hard Reset ought to fix that unless firmware corrupted and I assume that would just cause an error rather than a component to fail. Presumably speaker cables had not been unplugged inadvertently in a manner which could have cause them to short?
No just to be clear, the speaker cables were unplugged for the reset.
Most people know, the NZ distributorship has changed so the dealer I bought it from is unable to get parts or a replacement. Yes they were always great at fixing things but now it’s difficult.
So I’m posting this now for two reasons-to raise awareness of a potentially more widespread problem (of which sort should never happen in modern electronics) and to highlight the fact that I as a customer has essentially fallen between the cracks in terms of support.
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Well if your dealer is an officially appointed Naim dealer then someone needs to get the finger out, whether you have to pay for the repair is another matter.
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