There clearly must be a financial gain to selling their demo stuff. But definitely frustrating when they do so just before a demo.
Ill ask next time im in my dealer. See what they have to say.
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Dynaudio1
Not trying to conjure anything. Just pointing out that I don’t think Naim would talk about it even if there was one coming. I have no idea what Naim’s roadmap is and I love the 500 series.
Wow - 552/500 is a Deal!
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No, there isn’t. Nothing like the 500 Series is coming anytime soon.
Did you consider that there is another company behind Latham that also operates in other countries, not just the Benelux?
So perhaps the sales you’re seeing aren’t just from the Netherlands, but from other countries as well.
Barcelona are diversifying from football into Hi-Fi?
When is it coming out, any details on pricing?
If the 500 series is brilliant as-is, sits above the NC300 series and does not need replacing, why not just keep it the same, and put it in a new chassis with white LED’s
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Would you have said the same about the Classic series during the long wait for its replacement? Nothing stays the same in the world we live in: even if Naim try to keep the internals the same, there are fundamental differences in layout associated with the heatsink arrangement, network standby regulations mean that switching has to be redesigned and fitted into the case, long term component availability has to be considered, and so on. I find it hard to imagine that Naim wouldn’t want to move on and offer a range that improved on the performance of any previous product, especially one that first arrived over a quarter of a century ago.
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Nice idea, but this is not as product development works. You need to bring out new products and 500 series (as brilliant as it is) has been part of the portfolio for a long time (except nd555).
Well it actually IS how it works. Audio companies bring out the next generation of their existing audio products all the time. Eg we are now on what our 4rth 250 amp (cb, olive, oc, nc)?
Nonetheless I get your point. Tha audio world is much more challenging now and just coming up with new versions of existing products is not enough these days.
Yes - that is how it works, or mk2, mk3,… but this is also some kind of technical difference not only the same body in a new case. Except 250-2 I guess 
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Yes of course I agree.
I have to wonder if the 500 situation is a misreading of numbers. My guess only so take with grain of salt…
500 sales are probably low so Naim must be wondering if developing a replacement is worth it. But are they low because of a weak market or are they low because potential customers aren’t so positive about spending for a 25 year old amp? Self fulfilling prophesy perhaps?
I personally love the 500 and think to better it Naim may have to go with twin monos that are sort of a scaled down Statement that run at 300 watts or so. The new 500 if it ever shows up is going to be more expensive than the existing…
As I said take with a grain of salt. I have no idea about Naim’s roadmap or how they are analyzing this situation.
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My sense is there won’t be a direct 500 replacement per se…..
I think they will build something and price it inbetween statement and the current 500 price ie a £40k box.
I guess time will tell but regardless any 500 replacement will be expensive and there has been so much time / depreciation since I bought my 552 the cost to change would likely be prohibitive psychologically…. I can’t look my kids in the eye whilst they work out how to get on the housing ladder whilst I spend £40k on a HiFi box!
I hope Naim R&D are on it as I fear the longer they leave it to produce some more products the harder it will be for them.
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Yes, it can only be a certain age if they want to sell it as ex-demo. More than two years or so and it has to go on as second hand.
It has been pretty quiet on this front after the initial drop of NC devices. I belief a direct replacement would not come as it would need to sit strangely in the lineup. It would then need to be stereo but outperforming the 350 mono blocks. So my guess is that if, and I mean if they come with something as a kind of replacement it might become mono blocks which outperform the 350’s. But even more interesting they would also need to develop at the same time a pre which would need to have an interesting position better then the current 552 but at the same time worse than the S1. Better than the 552 should be feasible but does it have enough distance then to the S1 to even warrant a price difference.
Honestly I am somber with the current ownership situation if the investors would sign off on a market lounce of something replacing the current 500 series as it would also require to launch a new ND555… At the quantity of sales units it might be a difficult and risky undertaking. One thing is being able to, which I think Naim is engineering wise capable, but will it lead to the business case. Which would mean that the 300 series would be the top of the line below the statement going forward. It would be interesting to see if they would develop a pre on 300 level without streaming and then see how the combination of ND555, preamp and 350 monoblocks would perform in comparison with a 500 system…
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I think the 555 has to be replaced eventually…my understanding is it is based on older digital tech. Not necessarily worse…but older which means eventually no longer available.
Looking at Naim’s superb supply chain management that won’t happen ugh ugh
#supernait3,unitistar,xs3,nd5xs2,musoqb,uniticore,5si,etc,etc 
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Well I’m not sure the situation is because of issues with Naim’s supply management. In some cases the possible replacements seem to be lame so the products get cancelled.
But I agree your drift … it is hard to grow revenue and profitability with less and less products being offered and nothing new coming out.
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I don’t think you can let the statement stand in the way of progress.
It has its place and always will, it was at the time the best naim could do, but things move on and so should naim.
I am sure big inpovements could come from the pre amp section and some newer mono block bigger amps to sit above the 350’s, probably do a 4 box mono set up, separate power supply for each mono, that would be a naim way to do it.
Then as for the nd555, split it into a dac only and do a separate streamer. Maybe go streamer and upsampler in one box and separate power supply once again, but the dac they really need to go for it i think. But then doing this might give the statement owners a nice dac and streamer to sit by the side off the statement towers.
But i am sure they know where they want to go and hopefully the new owners will support them and not hold them back
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