This makes no sense to me, what if the shop you bought from has gone bust? Also surely since you are paying for the repair this could be the start of a customer/dealer relationship?
My next move would be to contact the distributor for the region and let them know full details of the difficulties experienced and ask for their advice and assistance.
This is the way much of the hi fi world works . . . Company —> Regional Distributors ----> individual authorized dealers —> retail customers.
BUT a great thing about Naim is that they do care about the retail customers. BUT they have to work the process/chain of command.
Why Focal-Naim America would allow a dealer to totally abandon a role in customer service is beyond me. Focal-Naim America SHOULD step in!
In the “good old days” of Naim USA an email would have been immediately followed up with a phone call and most issues would be resolved asap.
It’s the opposite now. And don’t get me started on the disastrous demos. New product introductions used to be an event, systems carefully crafted to sound the best. Now its a dude with an iPhone making the worst sound.
It may seem a minor point, but I think worth making. The Moon Audio that WCotter is having the problems with should not be confused with Moon by SimAudio (no one so far has mixed them up, at least in the comments, but I make the point anyway).
The latter is a high end audio manufacturer very similar in mission to Naim, and is based in Montreal. They make some great products btw.
The former, and the people WCotter has been dealing with have been in business since 2010 and have a small facility in North Carolina where they make hi-fi cables marketed under the name Dragon Cables. They only “distribute” electronics in the sense that they buy from the actual distributors like Focal Naim North America and then send on to the customer. The whole outfit and what it does should send your bs detectors into overdrive. IMHO. Of course you won’t get any customers support from an outfit like this. They simply don’t have the overhead to do more than bring boxes in and ship boxes out.
As has been said several times your options are to find a really good Naim dealer who can advise, repair on site ideally, or ship home if necessary. (If there is no such dealer within driving distance then I would buy something else that is supported in that way). The other option is to contact Focal Naim NA but in a week say, so that everyone is settled in and back to work.
One final thought: You should probably hit your own re-set button, or disconnect yourself from the power and wait for 30 minutes, before making contact.
I came to Naim “late” – 2011 . . . and so never really experienced the “good ole days” of what Chris K. and others brought to the joy of Naim ownership. It’s all about the sound . . . until something goes teats-up, right!!!
It is certainly true that the good old days of NANA are long gone, but a few years ago I had excellent response and service from Michel Rousseau, mentioned earlier in this thread. I had to contact the folks in Canada directly, since my dealer Gene Rubin had stopped carrying Naim.
I am following this thread with interest as I am in the US and have a CB 250 that needs service and a CD5X that lost a channel.
I’ve had two positive experiences with Focal Naim NA - a previous repair to the cd player and service on a 110.
I’ve also purchased a Bluesound Node in person from Moon and a Rega P2 from Serious HiFi mentioned above. Very different “dealers”.
I will wait until the holiday dust settles and then reach out to FNNA.
For long-out-of-warranty service work here in the States you do have another option . . . AV Options to be precise.
The good ole days for me were when NANA were still on the north side in Chicago and I could drop my boxes off for service with Dave and Chris and have a nice chat while doing so. Fortunately we still have Chris and his operations at AVO but I wonder how long that will last.
Agreed (though I don’t think they do CD players). The issue is cost (and the last I checked, wait time) though more is done than in a standard service.
While it is good to have that option, hopefully I (and others) will continue to have good service from FNNA.
If you are unfortunate enough to have one of the 90% of US Naim dealers who are worthless, just contact Focal-Naim or AV options directly. They’ll get you sorted out quickly. It’s a sad reflection on the state of retail high end audio but most of them are just out to make a quick buck.
This past November I called Focal Naim America’s service department and left a message, whereupon Michel Rousseau later left his own message for me.
He mentioned they are swamped and understaffed, so the best way to contact their service was via email.
This had proved to work out well for me as each of my emails was answered, I believe, within 24 hours. The nature of the correspondences had to do with shipping my item to and from Focal/Naim America.
Glad to hear Michel Rousseau is still there (as I believe they cleared out a bunch of the old staff from Plurison during the takeover), I’ve delt with him 3 times in the past (once Naim & twice Rega) & his customer service was excellent. Unfortunately understaffed & swapped seems all too common these days.
I can only second was has been said about the service department at Naim-Focal in Montreal. Service has been exemplary - I have had several Naim Olive pieces restore and service over the pandemic and they went above and beyond to deliver them as new in perfect condition.
I went also in person to deliver/pickup some of the serviced items and Michel in particular has been a pleasure to work with.
Staff shortage + holidays - I would say a delay should be expected. As for the answering machine in French - you are dealing with a French Company after all (Naim → Focal → Vervent group in France)
My two cents:
I used FNNA twice in 2023, once earlier in the year with an overall excellent experience and once in November. The Nov experience was marred by a couple week delay that seemed to be entirely connected with my inability to reach someone (anyone!) to pay after the repair had finished. Like the OP, I spent considerable time calling and leaving messages but with limited success. Once I took the “lazy way” of emailing, I had an immediate and successful outcome. The quality of their tech’s work and shipping out to the customer was excellent in both cases. So be patient, I’m sure you’ll eventually achieve a successful outcome.
As others have said, if you’re out of warranty AVOptions is your best option. But cost and lead time are factors you’ll have to consider - although as is often said, you get what you pay for.
I don’t know if there’s any significant difference in the quality or timeliness of AVoptions vs FNNA. And I believe the prices are the same. Pick whichever you prefer, they are both great.
And if you wait, the second message on FNNA’s answering machine is in English.
I’m curious if anyone has been able to connect with NAIM/Focal USA service recently? I have a Core that seems bricked (not responding to the hard reset / factory reset) and will need to send it in. Thanks.
Try to unplug the power cable then plug again 10 mn later.