The Naim New Classic Range - Part 2

Yes but just don’t mention the war. :rofl::rofl::rofl:

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Which one?

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Never mind @Gazza. We may not spell correctly, or our use of grammar may be imperfect. However, when people need new products or to be repaired, who do they call then ? ….Engineers :blush:

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Back to the actual thread topic…

Can anyone with the New Classic Remote Control post a couple of pictures and let us know their thoughts about it, thanks.

I presume it is compatible with my CDX2.2?

I think you’ll find that New Classic uses that horrible Zigbee remote that all the 2nd gen streamers have. That isn’t going to work with a CD player.

OK, not really a problem for me just checking.

Yeah, the remote is kinda neat the way it lights up but isn’t very useful beyond playing/stopping/advancing streams and adjusting volume. I wish there was a way to select an input with one press of a button.

I really like the recent remotes, much better looking than the previous remote and work more reliably. The ones I have for the Star and the 222 are slightly different, mostly in how they light up when you change the volume. I would post a pic of the 222 remote but one of the Petite Panthers is asleep on it.

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IMO Naim ought to up the design and quality of their remotes. I’d like to see them making the most of their aluminium talking point by using that for the remote body, increasing weightiness and perceived quality. The buttons and layout are fine for me but the sharp pointed corners need to go.

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To my mind the remote supplied with the 1st gen streamers are the best Naim made. There was nothing at all fancy about them, but they sat nicely in your hand, did everything you would need, and were compact and reliable.
Zigbee instead of IR is a nice idea because it doesn’t matter in what direction the remote is pointing, but that really is the only good thing I can find to say about the current ones. They don’t sit at all nicely in your hand with those square edges, every fingerprint and scratch shows, they use more batteries more quickly, and they are less reliable.
Most annoying for some is that the most commonly used inputs (server, Tidal, Qobuz) cannot be controlled by the remote!

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Yes, I certainly agree with this, but wonder whether it’s a software limitation with the streamers, rather than the functionality of the remote? Either way, it could be much more user friendly.

To be honest, poor though I think the remote is, I couldn’t really care less (apart from the fact that I paid for it.) My iPhone is a full featured and reliable remote, and the Zigbee things are back in their boxes with batteries removed.
I guess I should have bought an ND5XS2.

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The ND555 remote is rather nice. Aluminium, weighty, altogether very good.

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If Naim were to make a remote control matching the quality of their equipment available as an upgrade I’d be all over that.

There are some really good and really bad designs out there to learn from - Hegel offer a nice weighty aluminium remote (but the buttons are tiny and the text invisible). Vinnie Rossie included a very solid high quality remote control with his LIO and L2 ranges. Devialet have a great take on a desktop remote for their Expert range. These are just some examples I’m familiar with.

Did you buy that as a separate item?

Tom Graham from Focal Naim America brought the New Classic 300 series to a local hi fi shop today.

The sound definitely was opening up as the units were played . . . they had been shipped in today.

My general review is that the music was extremely engaging and I could listen for hours . . . and I’d rather hear some different speakers but I had no control over that :). To be fair, I did find that the midrange on those Focals was far from annoying, the overall balance was excellent as was the sound stage.

Tom confirmed that as far as he’s heard there are ZERO plans for a new 500 series. And that the output of the new 300 monoblocks are in the same league as the Classic NAP 500DR.

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Awesome, thanks for sharing Bart. That’s one nice looking stack for sure. (I won’t comment on stacking as most of us know dealerships sometimes have to do this). How was the new streamer?

Hi, need your opinion having heard the 300s.

Would you prefer the sound of NSS333+NPX300 more than NDX2+555PS DR? Or did your dealer say anything about that comparison.

I’m having an NDX2 (plain, no PS) to 552 and NAP500 now, and considering whether adding 555PS DR to the NDX2, or just replace it with the NC300 streamer+PS.

Appreciate anybody’s input on this :pray:

Interesting comparison against 500DR.

Spoke to someone who’d heard the 350 monos this week - their opinion is they are fabulous and an absolute steal even at the £12k UK retail price.

Combined with the 332/300 (which is better than 252/SCDR) the 4 box pre/power are apparently a stunning combination and a great long term goal for us if we decide to move on up.

Of course we’d need new speakers which does make it a bit of a larger purchase :frowning_face:

Interesting times ahead - our current system doesn’t really “need” any upgrades, so do we spend 25k on amps and 20k on speakers for small gains….suspect a high end pair of speakers does make sense first.

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It came from another Forum member who didn’t need it, but they can be bought separately for about £800 I believe.