We are an ageing generation who are busy with our Hifi systems and the way people listen to music has changed over time. How do you think this will affect Naim’s future?
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Naim has already crystal-balled our futures in retirement villages / nursing home, by introducing to us the headphone listening via an ATOM-HE whose chassis perfectly matched the Core(hopefully to be replaced by a Core-2).
Would love Naim to bring out a Core 2… But I don’t see it unfortunately
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Very senior friendly - tethered to a black box by a six-foot cable.
They need to implement bidirectional Bluetooth for headsets & speakers. The sound quality loss will be marginal given the likely degradation in hearing with age.
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That will be Focal looking after us.
DG…
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Naim and Focal more aligned and synergistic I reckon. I am surprised there hasn’t been more obvious combined marketing/branding to date.*
I predict more divergence between high-end products for the keen hobbyist as one area and ‘lifestyle’ multi function units creating low box count (and maybe cable-free) easy to build and use systems as the other. The latter aren’t necessarily all lower cost either, see the recent Focal Diva Utopia.
What perhaps gets lost are the lower cost ‘introduction to HIFI’ seperates? That is a low margin and highly competitive market I imagine. Times past almost every one of our family friends had some sort of HiFi or 'music centre '. No longer.
Bruce
*…or maybe they will split apart again?
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I agree, none of my friends or family have a Hi-Fi system as such. Most of them use something like the Amazon Echo and all think I’m mad for spending this sort of money on Hi-Fi.
DG…
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I also think that we will see more alignment on the lifestyle side of products. Perhaps Focal with more systems like the Diva and Naim with more systems like the Muso. Plus more integrated systems for cars and yachts, etc.
Given the recent interview with JG, stating that they see their CI amplifier being their entry level and no new products being developed, will their current range be the last of their separates range?
Interesting times ahead to see how things develop in the short, medium and long term.
DG…
The closest my family comes to owning a hifi is because of me but not because of the big black boxes in the lounge that nobody is allowed near. It’s because I bought a pair of semi-active Edifier streamer/speakers for our garden room, then the kitchen and finally my workshop.
My daughter was so impressed with performance vs cost she bought some for her kitchen and my granddaughters bedroom. Then my son bought a pair for his workshop and his front room. That’s seven pairs of of these amazing little things that in total cost less than a Powerline. Think of them as a very considerable next step up from the Amazon Echo but less expensive.
As for SQ I’d put them close to old Linn Kans run with a Naim amp. Yes, that good. Maybe Naim need to exploit the next step up from this but I’m not sure how their costing model would cope?
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This bit of the OP is key for me.
Music is as popular as ever despite competing with entirely new areas of entertainment. It doesn’t however have the seismic, divisive, identity defining impact it once had. It has simultaneously become a more solitary pursuit and more background. it’s easy to confuse low sales and profits as lack of interest but those things skew the data rather than fundamentally change it. Get on a bus 40 years ago and you’d occasionally get 1 idiot with a ghetto blaster. Take a look around you now and you’ll see more than half the bus with something in their ears. Now yes, that may be for TV/film on the phone or podcasts but music is very much in there.
The theory is that the next generation of audiophiles are amongst us and we just need to persuade them to pursue separates and speaker listening with the same zeal they pursue headphone listening. I don’t see that panning out. A vanishingly small proportion of headphone listeners may make that move but most are where they are because it overwhelmingly makes sense.
Vinyl may have ultimately been forced out of the market by CD but it sowed the seeds of its own destruction with poor quality; the fact it gets worse after each listen; the faff in having to get up to turn over every 20 minutes etc. CD and cassette offered portability and one appeared to offer quality as well. It too contained the seeds of its own destruction when you could get good enough or the same/better quality via downloads and then streaming. Compounded by being able to view tiny album covers and booklets on a screen size of your own choosing.
Audiophiles may think we make a compelling case for speakers, multiple boxes and improved supplementary elements (power, shelving, cables, headphones, cartridges etc.) but we really don’t. We’re a very small minority and we struggle to recognise that. If you have an ATOM HE; a decent pair of headphones and a smartphone then it’s hard to make a case for a £100 dongle DAC let alone a Naim 200 system. Actually, it’s near impossible.
Thus I see a future for hi-fi in general by accepting the new status quo rather than trying to revert people to a past which barely existed. Naim are in what is foolishly and pejoratively called the “lifestyle” space with things like the Atom, Muso and Nova and I would expect them to build on that as a significant core of their service rather than the barely tolerated but necessary add on many here see it as.
That same new status quo is why Naim can be found in Bentleys and multi room etc.
The case for separates still exists but not in the traditional sense of pre, power, sources, power supplies. The case for those 20 years ago was overwhelmingly strong because it was hard to make anything integrated which was the equal of separates and unheard of to make “better”. Nowadays, digital and wi-fi have changed that landscape forever but traditional analogue tech such as turntables or valve amps have also been so aided by digital advances (the ability to measure and test for one example) and so even small systems there can make the idea of separates laughable for most people.
Of course I speak with the perceived bias of a downsizer but my ears tell me that to beat my current system of streamer, DAC and valve amp by any meaningful distance would essentially require around 30% of my pension pot. The days of MP3 being “good enough” but poor have long since gone. Good enough nowadays is often outstanding.
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Meanwhile, back in the care home;
ATB, J
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Thinking back before Naim company were sold, lifestyle products didn’t have their attention.
When ownership changed they needed finances to create and develop both Statement and Muso’s in order to improve future profit margin.
Maybe they succeed ?
We still have separates 200/300/500 and Statement.
To be honest I doubt there will be more of this kind upcoming(apart from a NC Supernait).
Their receipt will be more lifestyle products like the new Focal Diva, new Muso’s, new Uniti’s maybe entrylevel integrated amps, made in China ?
Maybe they will do a better promotion of their brands in future ?
naim and Focal is not widely known like fx B&O, Sony etc…
They never will be, but Muso a’like products helps.
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My mid-20s daughter has built a system that is now a Rega P2 (inherited), Rega io amp, Eversolo streamer, and Fyne 301 speakers. The Wellington stereo store where she shops had stopped carrying Naim before she started buying seriously last year … that’s a business opportunity for Naim, don’t lose dealers! Hard to make that first sale if young people can’t find your product.
She and her flatmates listen to records as a social activity. They also stream, probably mostly stream, but they seem to like the social aspect of records. When I visit, the way they use and consume music doesn’t strike me as all that different from what I was doing in the 1990s. Earbuds are a supplement rather than a replacement.
She’s flatting in a house in suburban New Zealand though. Here in NYC, land of small and thin-walled apartments, the 20-somethings I work with seem to be all headphones all the time. Don’t know what they are using for source or electronics.
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“Daughter of audiophile may also be an audiphile” shocker 
Important to remember that the kids of audiophiles are representative of little.
My offspring has a Muso QB. Their friends with similar have Sonos. All have phones and in ear buds.
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Well, they ain’t listening to Sonos via earbuds 
Getting rid of the Naim marketing team is unlikely to help Naim become better known, and relying on Focal to market Naim doesn’t seem to be working very well.
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I suggest that ‘systems’ are in a slow death spiral - younger consumers consume via smartphone (& earbuds, headsets). Black boxes & monster ugly speakers are not the future 
Totally. Apple doesn’t fall far from the tree etc, so apply a hefty discount rate to this one example.
It’s still heartwarming to watch them all playing records, though, even if the sample is confounded by genetics and socialization!
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@Middle glad your daughter is getting into audio. I too am from NYC. I have been an audiophile for more than forty years. Innovative Aufio is my dealer and this is my first Naim system snd love it. Be well. Not every apartment in NYC has paper thin walls. Just newer construction. Our apartment has thick plaster and concrete which presents its own challenges.
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I think you’ll find they absolutely are. Long been an option.