Well… interesting.
Looking at sold items on eBay, seems a 250 similar to mine sells for around £900, at present.
Well… interesting.
Looking at sold items on eBay, seems a 250 similar to mine sells for around £900, at present.
Have a peek at the High End Munich 2023 thread.
There will be a Focal Naim press conference on 18th May. It looks like there will soon be more Naim New Classics. Perhaps the 300 series?
I hope it would be good for Naim to quickly roll out the succes story. While I belief they will also properly plan it, as they might get overwhelmed with upgradiritis …… I do hope the 500 is not coming too soon, as I just upgraded to DR……, not possible to constantly upgrade…
I was at a well know UK Naim dealer yesterday. I asked about how the NC range was doing. ‘Disappointing’ was the word used. Not flying out of the door.
Surprising as the reports on this forum have all been quite positive. I guess the pricing must then be the topic. For the start of the new classic line I find the pricing on the higher side. And I guess people are not all prepared to pay that level at the base level of serious hifi….
I believe probably the same situation down under Ian
Prices pretty steep not to mention that classic range has been discounted impacting trade in values so the gap to trade up just got much wider
Pricing is most certainly the issue, and the now significant price gap between the already excellent classic gear (either used, or discounted new stock) and the new classic range.
A question for @110dB, if I may. Assuming initial burn in is completed - when bringing the NC amps out of Standby, how long do they need to warm up before sound quality is optimal?
Second hand values are really low. There’s a lot of kit for sale. Great time to build a classic rig, we’re pondering a system 2 upgrade as gap from SU to 252/300 is just too big.
We were disappointed with what our 250DR achieved when sold late 2022 given it was less than two years old. And we were upgrading within
the classic range.
If we’d been moving to 250.3 that single box upgrade would have been £3.5k. We’d have been unlikely to have bothered.
I think initial “pent up” demand from 272 owners will dissipate, and then you’re looking for people with £11k spare cash for a 222/250 (17k with PSU).
The economy, inflation, depressed wage growth and general cost of living/energy prices mean people with £11k burning a hole in their pocket must be pretty thin on the ground. These new naim boxes are a niche market.
If what we’ve heard about prices for upcoming kit are true then those will be VERY niche, regardless of how fantastic they sound.
We could guess that Forumites are a minority here. Serious sales should be to ‘normal’ people. Who - as others have said - react to the prices. Its a big jump in price - perhaps a rest to deal with the recent past and our present difficulties…? But its still a big jump… IMO…
(The numbers for ‘my’ 250 could be taken as a ‘Should Cost’. Say around £2500 - but not more than twice that.)
I guess it’s a bit like “one swallow doesn’t make a summer”. A couple of UK dealers I have spoken to lately said they have been very happy with sales of the new kit so far, so I wouldn’t just take one dealer’s word and assume it’s the same for all.
I think there’s a few here who feel their upgrade path has been shut closed. The new stuff is considerably more expensive than the boxes they replace and the erosion of the value of their trades makes it so much harder.
Very true. My report did say it was from one dealer…
On prices, I have the NAP250DR at £4,500 as of Sept’22 - £5,700 is +27% - which is a lot… IMO…
Just the facts here - nothing more. Still very happy with my £822 worth…
I just had my 3 x 250’s (Olive) serviced. A friend asked why I’d bother to get them serviced?
I replied that the service cost was around £300 per amplifier (Class A) so was very worth while.
He then asked how much is a replacement. When I replied that a current 250 was around £5,500 each, he nearly choked.
I recall paying about £900 for each of mine, 2 were new, one 2nd hand.
If I had to replace all three is now, it would definitely be quite eye watering!
However, how good would they sound in comparison to my Olives?
Also, I think we’ll have to wait and see what new products come along later in the year, as we might just find there’s a new 200 or 140 in the mix, at a nicer price point, which sounds as good as an olive 250…
I’m not sure why Naim depressed the s/h market by discounting the existing classics as sales of the new classic to people who want to trade in are bound to suffer. The price differential between the 272/XPSDR/250DR and NC222/300/250 components was probably enough, I would say, to maintain a market for the former whilst stocks existed. With the 555DR and 300DR it might be different if the NC components are at that level (as has been suggested by a few here). For me a depressed trade in value means that I will not even consider a move to the NC 250 (222 is not for me full stop and the 300 cannot power my CDX2) on the basis of what I heard from a quick demo (not a back to back comparison admittedly). On the same basis if the prices of the next NC components to be released are even higher and not fully backward compatible (stageline and headline) then I won’t be bothering with them either which is a shame because I do enjoy an upgrade from time to time.
Are Naim discounting anything? Perhaps its the dealers moving stock through with less of a mark up until the new kit be becomes accepted at the new price level.
It’s not that complicated.
New car models always result in a reduction in value of the outgoing model, for example.
In Australia the Naim distributor sets the retail price unlike the UK where Naim itself sets the retail price I believe
The distributor here in Australia has discounted many of the classic range by circa 30% and in some cases 35%
Given the substantial price hike for the new classic range the discounting had widened the gap price wise for a upgrade
It’s not a great position to be in for anyone
It’s always been a rather small market here for the higher end naim gear and the market could now become even smaller
It’s ironic that that the image is now used to describe us Naim owners as the total opposite by a few elsewhere.
There is an interesting piece in today’s Guardian about greedflation, where companies are using general inflation as cover for profit maximisation. Of course, Naim would never lower themselves to this, or…