NAP 100 replacement?

Hey Guys,

With the NAP 100 now being discontinued, is it going to be replaced with a new model? Has anyone heard anything?

With no DAC v1 and the entry level Uniti going from shoebox to a new form factor in the Atom, I think the writing is on the wall with respect to shoebox components from Naim.

I hope that a full source to power amp shoebox system becomes possible again but reckon Naim have put this form factor to bed. I’m not even sure how safe the HiCap or SuperLine are to be honest.

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Some good points there.

I thought it might get replaced with something like the 155XS.

And would be great to see some of the multi channel models again like the NAPV 175 and 6-50 for the surround/Atmos purpose.

I’d like to see stuff like that too but the past decade has seen Naim cull the range massivly and not replace stuff.

  • No speakers
  • No shoebox seperates
  • No entry level pre/power amps
  • No DACs
  • No tuners
  • Almost no CD players
  • No XP5XS (or PSU upgradeable XP5 series streamer)
  • No headphone amp

I’m kind of expecting the 5i range and Flatcap to vanish in the next 24 months and the HiCap to cease when the 282 is replaced.

:-1:

Unfortunately… ( I’m such a fan of)

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A few firms did the small form box hifi. Naim, MF , Cyrus. I guess it’s diffucult to squeeze all the bits in. Especially a decent power supply. Rega appear to be doing some new gear in the small form. And Cyrus never stopped.
Interestingly the Naim and MF small form gear sells for very good money secondhand on eBay. All of this gear being well over 20 years old now.

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One of the reasons why I like them.
But I guess form factor limits some kind of modular strategy Naim may have: a diferent platform takes specific space in the manufacturing process, and by unifying the measures they streamlined the production(.?)

I would have loved to see an analogue line input on the DAC V1 (it was a pre-amp and headphone amp as well) then with the NAP 100 , it would have been a lovely combo.

Sometimes Naim go all hair shirt and have a wonderful sales prevention policy .

It would be interesting to know how many of each unit sells each year out of curiosity. Across the world there aren’t thousands of dealers and droves of people walking out with boxes under their arms. I’m guessing the R and D investment on the Star Uniti etc is big and ideally naim would want to sell many units. The problem perhaps is that in order to do so they need to expand selling these through John Lewis etc and other high street retailers but they are hardly plug and play units? Perhaps this is always a problem for specialist equipment. Leica has always sold low numbers (really expensive!)

Oh god :confounded: why the hell did thy decide to discontinue the most affordable amp of the whole range ??!!! I have 2 units of this lil marvel paired with atom for no amp purpose and planned to buy a third one for my office system. Does anybody know whether naim intend to replace the nap 100? Maybe with an atom-like shoebox ?? That’s be fantastic! Cause I guess not all of us here have the pockets deep enough to stretch upper in the range .
But now I’m confused cause I’m tempted by a smiler sized shoebox from Exposure, in the form of the XM9 mono amp. But absolutely no idea how the exposure kits sound like compared vs naim kits ?? Anybody here had a chance to hear an exposure amp is welcome to enlighten me.

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Cymbiosis can demo Naim vs Exposure.

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Sadly I’m not living in the uk

Naim don’t generally even tell dealers about new product releases until less than a week before launch. And even then via email with an information embargo warning against revealing anything prior to launch date.

I highly doubt we’ll know anything for sure until it has happened. But consider this, if you replace a product, you actually replace it. You don’t discontinue something and leave nothing in it’s spot for months or a year.

I think we can do the math on this one. If compact entry level separates are what you are after rather than all-in-one Uniti, Naim probably isn’t the place to go right now. Which is a shame.

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Yes, but over the years Naim have produced superb products but could have sold a damn sight more if they had been just a tad mainstream .

Suspect the Classic range has been pushed to the back in Naim’s thinking behind Muso and Uniti.

Looking at Exposure and how they are quietly added by dealers such as Cymbosis .

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I asked my local Naim dealer last year if I should consider replacing my 110 with a 100. Before I could even finish the question he answered with a resounding, No! It’s now doing amplifier duty for my UQ1 in the office and sounding sweet as always. I do have a thing for those half cases. Sad to see them go but also nice to know the old ones can be as good if not better than the new. Of course my CB160BD is just that much better…

maybe not - there’s a lot of preamps that use the Hi-cap such as the 202,102,82, 72, 32…

why should Naim discontinue the iconic product that has been the backbone of the whole Naim range?

Maybe the Supercap DR is better on a 282, but I haven’t really been motivated to either audition one, or buy one for my 282. Just not interested at all…

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I haven’t heard Exposure, but Heed Audio do a great shoe-box range of separates and power supplies. I use their headphone amps and the sound quality is great and very suitable with Naim.

Exposure, Rega, Leema and Cyrus all do ‘shoe box’ format products and most of these are priced under the majority of the Naim range. As for sound quality/signature, I would think they are all good in their own way. The exposure XM range in particular gets good write ups with special mention of high current power supplies in the amplifiers.

If Naim do drop the 5i series (they don’t do much with it in terms of development) other than Musso (made in China) they will have very little product available under £2,000. Naim know their market better than I do but I would argue that outside of the audiophile world, that is a high entry price, especially when other manufacturers sell some very capable equipment for less.

Ref the Uniti range, one can argue that they are now the gateway into the range - Atom is priced at the combined cost of CD5si/NAIT 5si and Star/Nova are similar in price to an XS amp/source combination. The difference is the separates can be bought separately where as the Uniti range has to be purchased as a whole unit. As with the auto industry, this is where good finance packages will help.

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Yes, you do wonder if by making the entry so high for the Classic range, whether they will attract new entrants.
Started with a Nait 3 and a matching CD player , worked my way up to CDX 2 and 200/202 Hic Cap, NAPSC and Stageline.
Downsized the box count for various reasons
I think they missed a trick with the DAC V1 when they missed an analogue circuit , that and a NAP 100 would have been a great way to introduce the Classic range .

Uniti is a great gateway to higher end separates. But they are not parallel. A unit customer is not equivalent to a separates customers on the same budget. I have loads of classic boxes. A UQ2, a couple Muso Qbs, and they are all great and were all for very different purposes. For another system of lower cost compact separates, Naim had nothing in the lineup so I went elsewhere.

But playing devil’s advocate, this doesn’t necessarily mean Naim have missed a trick with the gaps in the range. They might have just as easily decided they can’t spread themselves as thin as they used to and want to focus on quality for fewer items rather than be all things to all people. And as a consumer that’s okay. I’m not married to the Naim badge.