Naim Chrome Bumper

Ah yes, a very good system. All great Arena Distributors product, except the Grace and Supex. Grace and Supex were naughty invader product from those east coast barbarians Interdyn

My first Linn had a G707 arm and SD900 cartridge. Here in sunny Perth every Alberts shop, (all owned by Arena) pushed the Linn/Accuphase/Gale combination. They ran the promo in 1975 of:-
Linn/SME/Forgotten the cartridge
Accuphase E202
Gale GS401S
All for $1975.

Joe Public had to work hard to be offered Naim ampliflication with Gales, even though it was also an Arena product. But not impossible as a lot of the sales staff ran Gales with Naim. Back then a behemoth Accuphase pre/power was more the normal upgrade path.

I first worked at Leonards, (another Arena owned shop), in 1977 and my boss turned me onto Naim. I had the same system as you briefly. Just a few weeks in fact as I zoomed my way through to active Isobariks.

Arena had the most amazing staff purchase scheme!

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Ah yes I remember the name Arena Distributors now that you mentioned it

My original Naim/Linn dealer had his store around Avalon in the Sydney northern beaches, he had all in gear including Gales.

The old guy by the name of Merve that use to work for Nick set up the LP12ā€™s beautifully, how he managed to do that Iā€™m not too sure as he was rather partial to a few too many schooners

When Merve past away Nick decided to move up to northern NSW where he had a successful HiFi store but only had Rega as no Merve up there to set up LP12ā€™s.

Sadly Nick past away earlier this year he went through 2 massive floods in Lismore that wiped out his store and had only reopened a new one on higher ground.

Very fond memories of the early Linn/Naim days

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I never knew the Sydney retail scene that well in the 80s. I visited Warren Stolmack a couple of times, and went to visit a couple of his dealers but I couldnā€™t tell you now who.
Here in the west Arena were pretty dominant, with their chain of Alberts Hifi stores and their boutique Leonard Hifi, (where I first worked with Vince Ross).

Ivor once told me that in the early days more LP12s were sold on Perth than in London. Julian told me that in the early days the Australian market was his biggest outside of England, and really helped Naimā€™s early survival.

Arena did a great job here with Linn and Naim. I donā€™t know why there was a split, but when Stollie took over the distrubution, both Linn and Naim lost traction in the West.

I donā€™t know how things went in the East. Stollie was a good distributor. I think the combination of Vince Ross Audio, (my ā€œhomeā€ for a decade), becoming the only Linn/Naim dealer in Perth, and Alberts Hifi now not stocking Linn and Naim led to the reduction.

At Vince Ross Audio we were very keen on Linn and Naim, but it was an Interdyn store. East Coast management were reasonably permissive about ā€œoutside productā€ but ultimately selling lots of Luxman and Rotel paid better. And to be honest, we had some great alternatives. Stax, Krell, Appogee, Mitch A Cotter, Koetsu, Stogi, Luxman, Magneplanar, they all had good products and so diverted sales of Linn and Naim.

The divergence between Linn and Naim also lead to a dimunition of both brands here.

But compared to the situation in Australia right now, it was heaven.

PS. The serial number of my first NAXO was 79. My first 32 was in the early hundreds, made by Julianā€™s girlfriend of the time. Or so he said. A very different time

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Steve, if you scroll back to the above may be about 20 previous posts, of the photo showing

NDdac555 feeding my 72/HC/250

Originally they were a 32/Snaps/250, you sold them to me in 1982 at Leonards.

It was the origin of my current 32-5(72cards)/HiCap/250

In 1988 I installed the 32-5 motherboard and new large knobs.
In 1989 I swapped the Snaps for a HiCap
In 1999 Warren Stolmack sold me the 72 daughter boards, hence colloquially Iā€™ve naimed [sic] it a 72-5

The LP12 in the above photo which you also sold in 1985 to me at Vince Ross Audio World on Hay Street, Perthā€¦ you clinched the deal when you said that Ivor Tiefenbrun was in Perth previously, and had tuned my LP12 before being sold to me.

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Hey man,

Thatā€™s really cool!

So youā€™re still down with the sickness? I had a Naim hiatus through the 90s through to 2013, (you know, kids etc). But the fever never died out.

Actually marched down to Sound Advice and bought my Naim revival starter system from Andrew Sproul. My my!

I will PM Richard and let him know you can have my email.

Processing: 17323433462699060117369652089000.jpgā€¦

Hey Richard,

How do I let you give Dugby my email contact? See the posts above.

Regards

Steve

That would likely account for the store room at Vince Rossā€™ shop that was stacked high with old LP12s and Naim BD and CB kit that heā€™d taken back in part exchange. I only got a brief look but it was quite a treasure trove!

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Nice to read some of the Australian hifi history up there ^^ 8)

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Yeah, interesting and heart warming to know there are definitely kindred spirits out there ā€¦

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