Guys, thanks for all the inputs.
My brand loyality is not especially about Naim. In choosing hi-fi, some people (i count myself among them) will try to see the bigger picture. I have no doubt that given a certain budget, you can get a better sounding system than going with Naim. It is certainly not the brand with the best value, nor did it ever try to achieve that.
When i made the choice to use Naim, besides sound quality (which is subjective), many other factors came into play. Where are the products made? How do they look and feel? Are they serviceable? How good is the resale value? How is the user experience when playing music through the app, the remote and so on.
If going with another brand with separates, i would want to stay within the brand as much as possible. Of course this means that some compromises may have to be made. I never liked mix and match systems visually, even if ultimately sound quality can be fine tuned better to your liking.
As Naim does not make a separate DAC i am not sure how you can compare its performance to other standalone DACs on the market, as you cannot completely isolate it and make a fair comparison.
Now back to the Uniti Star (which you choose as an example). I really do not see many devices which offer the same functionality in one box as the Uniti Star. Can you spend 5000$ on 3 separate devices and get a better overall sonic performance than the Star? Absolutely. But than you are missing the point why people buy all-in-ones in the first places.
We seem to be drifting off topic here.
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Iām in a similar situation regarding cds3 it was serviced over a year ago using a vam1202. Having doubts about how long it will last before it ends up in the wheelybin costing around Ā£2000 not happy. I bought some new speakers ATC few weeks ago and running them in. However because I donāt want to play cds3 24/7 to burn them in and shorten itās life I retrieved from loft my trusty old Mission PCM 4000 ( Google it). Itās had many many hours use over the years and still going strong (38 yearās old and counting).
To be honest it still sounds ok a bit sharp at the top end but very useful for burning in speakers Philips mechanism and made in Belgium.
If I had a 555 cd player and mechs run out Iād be fuming throwing Ā£15000 worth of player in the bin bad enough the prospect of mine being thrown away
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Agreed. Best of good listening to everyone!
I have a Cambridge cd player in my second system that I have twice removed the mech and cleaned and lubricated the mechanical parts of with plastic friendly grease when it stopped functioning properly with great results. Is it the laser that malfunctions usually or just the mech. If my CD5 stops working I will try this approach, nothing to loose and everything to gain.
Would be interesting to see what Phillips would want for the IP.
Maybe Naim and a consortium could out source production, or setup local manufacture and make super VAMs.
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Naim isnāt in the Japanese market ā so not something they need to worry aboutā¦
Had the laser in my cdx2.2 replaced recentlyā¦sounds like that was probably timelyā¦.sadly
The Philips mech were well made and lasted years I feel the replacement mech will not last if only they could do a product run Iām sure they would sell all of them to naim for owners when their mech fails
Well made and built to last mine has been knocked from pillar to post and still plays well. What player is the picture of please
Another good obsolescence plan, buy the IP. Rarely cheap though.
The Philips CD 104
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The overall best solution is for some of the correct VAM variants to be sourced. Either being made ānewā (probably not likely, sadly) - or NOS. With any NOS there is the risk of a significant proportion being found DOA.
I think I have seen comment on here that Naim did find some mechs - and a lot were DOAā¦
Or at least Out of (Naim) Spec - ?? @Naim.Marketing - ??
IIRC, Naim once bought lots of CDM9s that unfortunately turned out to be mostly all DOA. You expect a certain number of mechs to be reject or dead, and Iām told they also degrade or die the longer theyāre kept so yields get worse and worse.
I canāt imagine itās much fun to buy a load of parts and have to throw them 
Or were they able to return?
I might ask for your review of my table one I think Iāve got all the initial data in there. No idea if it is of any use to anyone, but it satisfied my desire to see it all in one place, and the āprogressionā of mechs was interesting X)
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No it just means that there are quality CD players from the likes of Luxman, Yamaha and Denon still available.
I was about to write Itās a shame Naim only have an entry levelā CD, but many would view a CD player at a thousand pounds as more than entry
No returns or guarantees on this kind of thing.
I thought Naim use the streamunlimited platform in the streamers? Maybe also take a look at their CD mechanism: https://www.suos-hifi.com/
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