Naim obviously are victims of their own success. They do so much more than so many manufacturers to repair and even offer upgrades to legacy hardware. BUT WHAT ABOUT MUH CD PLAYER (where no one makes the hardware that’d be required)?
Talk about a ‘glass 1/16th full’ view of life.
Next time I’m in Boston, about 1x yearly before COVID, food’s on me at Helmand, I’m really not a glass 15/16 empty person 
Appears my posts on this thread do come across the wrong way though, they really are not intended to be any kind of knock against Naim! Speaking personally I’m just trying to understand what the options are to keep my CD player running. If there aren’t any then I’m very happy to leave it at that. I like Naim at least partially due to the serviceability and longevity of their gear, I like to think of them like Land Rovers, large proportions of them are still running etc.
Anyway, if the table helps keep track of what the options are for Naim CDP owners, I hope that helps a bit.
I’ve not been to Helmand in about 3-4 years but the food sure is good there! That neighborhood has changed a LOT! Biotech has been booming there for 2+ decades now.
(As to Land Rovers that keep running, I reference the “Car Talk” radio show (Click and Clack) and their discussion of why so many Volvos were reaching 200,000+ miles. This was back in the late 1980’s. Their answer?? "Because who wants the embarrassment and ridicule of their neighbors for having NOT gotten 200,000 miles from their Volvo. Owners make unreasonable repairs just to avoid such embarrassment!)
Since it’s the mechs which are our source of angst, what really needs to happen is for Phillips to be persuaded to make new batches of them. That’s unlikely and probably unrealistic, but there’s nowt wrong with hoping.
If they became available again, I’m sure Naim would grab all they could and then continue to keep our wonderful CDP’s going for many years to come.
An obsolescence strategy for this is not hard. What is, is the priority of it, and at what cost. Solve those two, and you will get an answer.
This is useful information, thanks.
I’ve had a CD3.5 from new, and upgraded to a CDS2 a couple of years ago. It’s had a laser refit since then. I’ve kept the CD3.5 purely to rob it for the mech if the CDS2 mech fails. I spoke to someone at Naim about doing this if it ever came to it. He seems to think it could be done theoretically, but in practice it might not be possible. I would have to risk losing a second CDP in order to find out. This is apparently not something they have tried yet.
That would be lovely.
To address some of the questions higher up in this thread about why Naim ‘don’t just source some more’: we’ve gone from the stage of these mechs being rare/incredibly hard to find to non-existent. They are the Dodo of the tech world.
We will continue to try and hunt down any hidden mechs - maybe there’s a ‘Lost World’ somewhere where these extinct creatures live - but in the current global supply chain/component shortage nightmare, we don’t simply don’t have the expedition resources to track them down.
It’s taking immense efforts to source components and materials for current Naim products right now, which has to be the immediate priority.
But our built-to-last ethos remains one of our core values, so we won’t give up on CD mechs.
Irony is that Phillips still make audio systems with a CD capability.
In the CDS3 the original 1250 can be replaced with a 1202 if one is found. I think the CDX2 had the 1202 from the start
It would be interesting to know how complicated the integration of a CD-Pro8 mech would be.
It is a new mech made by ex-Philips engineers and is widely used among good cd transports available today.
But probably something for the upcoming naim cd transport everybody is waiting for 
It really would need something like this long term as the vam mechanisms have not been made for years and did not store well anyway. I personally cannot see Naim making a new ground up player. They could have continued and even developed their own like Rega, Accuphase, Marantz etc but have decided not to.
It’s worth bearing in mind that when Naim re-engineered the CDX2 to accommodate the VAM1202 in place of the VAM1250, it was far from just a drop in replacement, requiring a whole new control and servo board as well as new firmware. As with all things Naim it was a major R&D project, especially important to optimise the performance.
That’s right and mine had the 1250 replaced with a 1202 back in 2016. I’m now worried about the next time.
I know that the CDX2 exists in 2 forms, with different Transports.
Originally VAM1250, later/last VAM1202.
Thanks @Richard.Dane
See my post above.
As per my post on the CDX2 above, the VAM1202 is far from a drop in replacement on the CDS3. The player had to be re-engineered in a similar way.
Sure didn’t mean to suggest it was an easy drop in. But it used to be possible to send one to Naim with a 1250 and it came back with a 1202 plus whatever changes were necessary. Obviously all subject to availability of parts
Yep, that’s exactly what happened to mine.
There are a lot of people who have bought naim cdp players over the last few years at great cost. They won’t see the same value per year of ownership relative to high cost should there be a failure.If they bought a CD5XS 4 years ago the effective annual cost would be c.£500 p.a
I appreciate and honor your brand loyalty, and have no interest in dissuading you from your steadfast position. However, the DAC being used by Naim is far from the best or near-best on the market today. Most audiophiles who are going to have the DAC in the line would choose to put it on the pre-amp or integrated amp side, not with the streamer. Aurender, for instance, makes an amazing streamer, but not an amazing DAC. The Uniti series is one of convenience, and they are solidly built. Yet there is an Atom and a Nova, which do essentially the same things, albeit with more power per watt for the unit that is twice as expensive as the other. People on these Naim forums are usually or often arguing for ‘separates’ and yet the Naim separates (perhaps with the exception of the Statement series) are in the middle of the quality pack of same type separates – you may believe this is not so, but they do not stand out against the innovative competition.