Sorry for the delayed reply! I haven’t heard one but the CI-Uniti 102 looks like a good starter option for people, however I do have concerns with integrating multiple functions in a single box because it makes upgrading more difficult/expensive.
As for overseas manufacturing e.g. in China I do sometimes think that manufacturers over-estimate the benefits of this. As an example in 1985 I bought a hand built (in England) Raleigh Royal touring bicycle which had a list price of £255. Since then inflation has probably amounted to 400% equating to £1000. Since then nearly all bicycle manufacturing has moved to China and Taiwan for major brands and yet if anything the cost of an upper end bicycle like that is higher than ever - frequently running to many thousands of pounds.
So either Taiwan and China are not as cheap as people think when transport etc are taken into account or brands are pushing up their margins and being greedy.
It seems to me that hi-fi too has grown more expensive and I’m not sure why. In 1988 a Linn Sondek/Ekos was about £1400 (about £4800 today), today an LP12 (Majik spec) and Ekos would set you back £8000. A Naim Nait was £255, equivalent to under £1000, and yet its modern equivalent was £2500.
I’m no expert in manufacturing or electronics but something has changed and it’s making it tougher than ever for people on real world incomes to acquire these things. Could this be partly why high end audio isn’t selling like it was?
My dealer says this is true, but mostly from European brands. They dropped Linn and Rega after 40 years citing that while prices went up for everyone, the prices for European brands has gone nuts and they just don’t have their act together. He cited US and Japanese brands going up 20% since 2020, but British brands going up 20% every year since then. European speaker manufacturers seem to have managed to control things a lot better but they just can’t ask customer to pay what European brands are now trying to charge because for the same money you get Japanese or American brands two ranges up. They have since culled nearly all European brands from their stock as simply “unsellable”. They have plenty of customers with pockets that deep but they expect a lot more for their money.
When I switched to NC, but decided to keep my 555PSDR to power my new pre-amp, even my dealer was shocked by the price Naim asked for the special Burndy (about USD2000). And there was absolutely no reasoning possible with the wholesaler. I paid, but certainly that dampened my enthusiasm for Naim a lot, and am now starting to explore other brands indeed for the next upgrade path. I will definitely keep the NC350, but the rest will be replaced by non-Naim.
I do agree with your points, if you want to upgrade it’s going to be both difficult and expensive. On the other hand it’s not the aim of the product IMHO, it could work as an entry level point into the Hi-Fi world and this could potentially attract new customers.
I don’t know what other people have done in their personal journey, but I’m pretty confident that at the beginning most people don’t usually buy separates and most people don’t even buy upgradeable products too. If the CI-Uniti 102 is appealing for young generations, it could lead to bigger systems, who knows.
That’s surely one of the factors to consider and costs do matter indeed, however IMHO the main problem is the general lack of music culture.
Thanks Blacknote. Actually I don’t know what has happened over the past 30 years really. Back in the 1980’s many people on this forum got into music first and hi-fi purely as a way to hear that music better. I wanted goosebumps and the only way to get them was to invest in good audio!
Nowadays even the young are spending more on music than ever - vinyl is expensive, concert tickets are exorbitant and yet taylor Swift, Coldplay etc sell out in a matter of minutes. So people are spending big money on music, but they aren’t spending it on hi-fi… I wonder if a collection of hi-fi manufacturers need to club together and pay for advertising on music sites, in music publications and on music related social media? The aim isn’t to keep scrabbling over a smaller bunch of fish in an ever diminishing pond, it should be to enlarge the pond and stock it with more fish!!
The fact is most music lovers don’t even know anything about the specialist hi-fi industry and that’s a huge missed opportunity! I think collectively the industry need to change that.
Just my views, but it strikes me that there are many companies who get on well at hi-fi shows so although rivals, theirs is a friendly rivalry. Some suitable advertising divided between 20 companies or so wouldn’t cost much, but could get people interested.
Obviously you wouldn’t want it to be brand specific - more about sharing the message that high quality audio enriches your life and makes the music you love more powerful, emotional and engaging for the rest of your life.
I’m not going to comment about the equipment cos it’s out of my league. What I would say , as others have already, is to find a dealer you have a rapport with. One that will set up ahead of a visit and have products run in and well n truly warmed up. Also a dealer that perhaps can also show upgrade paths.
Taking a full day of your time to travel and listen to a system is nothing compared to the many hours you’ll experience after purchase. Even doing a demo twice, a week or so apart. At the same dealer can have different results. Our ears aren’t always consistent
From the end of the olive series people have spoken about a change in sound, more mainstream, less musical, more detail , more lifestyle products etc etc.
I also think people expect to be blown away by the next generation of products yet forget how good the previous ones were. Suggestions about lightly used OC line items are well placed.
Great post Johnathan, as far as advertising goes, do you ever remember seeing an advertisement on TV about Hifi? I do not, all I ever see is ads for Lawyers, Ozempic and similar drugs anymore.
It sure would be nice to see a Naim, or Nagra commercial once in a while.
IIRC, BADA used to do some ‘industry advertising’, albeit I don’t think it was prominent outside of the industry mags - and there were issues stemming from those trade members who subscribed to BADA, and those who chose not to.
We need to be clear though, the likes of Naim are small volume manu’s, with material R&D spend needs, especially when it comes to matters digital (the need for capital several years back is well documented). And costs in developed economies have grown out of scale against many others, and Naim remains in the ‘hand built’ category. It’s kinda like when the late Sir John Harvey-Jones reviewed Morgan Cars and commented that their hand-built production model couldn’t survive in the longer term, and the thrust of his comment wasn’t incorrect. Just look at the prices of their models now.
And added to the above is that all businesses need profitability & cashflow disciplines to sustain themselves which, in some ways, is a positive facet of PE ownership, but it also often means fattened profit margins and a punchy exploration of demand curves via pricing elevations.
I think that’s a fair point actually and I’m sure you’re right the handbuilt nature of the product goes a long way to justifying the prices. I know how carefully Naim do things having been around the factory and seen the care and attention to detail and the ongoing support for old products and all of that costs money (but is also what makes them so legendary).
The problem is that as the price rises demand traditionally goes down. Perhaps the answer is to explore innovative approaches to manufacturing, so for example Leema Acoustics are actually jointly owned (I think) by a company that makes industrial milking machines and traffic lights of all things. This means that they have the in house facilities for doing their own castings, metalwork, PCB automated assembly etc. This came to light when I reviewed their top integrated amplifier and went out for lunch with their PR and said “How the hell have they managed to build something this good and this beautifully built for such a competitive price?” The remote control for example was hewn from solid aluminium billet and just beautifully made, as was the casework - like something you would get on a £25000 amp not something costing £5000.
To be fair Naim has always been aspirational and a halo brand and so nobody ever expects them to be cheap, you know what you’re buying and why and as a consumer you expect to pay for the privilege of owning some of the very best audio on earth. My only concern is that they try to maintain the competitiveness of their entry level products because that’s after all where most of us start off and discover the Naim sound. I’ve banged on about the need for a shoebox range in this context, but only they know the real economics of doing that.
At the end of the day like many here I’ve loved this firm and everything it stands for since 1988, I’m not going anywhere else and I hope they continue to be succesful well into the future.
It depends of course on what do you mean by separates. Before CD I believe it was most common in anything purporting to be hifi for the turntable to be on its own, and the only question of separates was whether you had an integrated amp or separate pre and power. And yes I suspect most people at that time started with an integrated amp. Certainly I did. But from the very start I knew I wanted better and had my eye on upgrading, si wouldn’t have bought a single box system as that would have made upgrading on a budget more difficult. After about 10 or 15 years I built a MC head amp. Separate pre-and power didn’t come till just after I added a CD player.m, 20 years into my hifi journey.
You are right about Naim being an aspiration brand, I wanted a Linn Naim system for a few years before I was, fortunately, able to buy one in the early 1980s, getting an LP12, SyrinxPU2/Asak with a 42/110 and Kans. Been with Naim ever since then. I am not sure what the equivalent of that system would be in today’s range but I think it would be harder to get into the position to afford it these days. Would I have my 300 system today if I hadn’t bought into Naim back then, it is hard to know but it would be less likely I think that I would have the system I have. My view is Naim has an empty space in the range without a modern 42/110 equivalent, a few other brands do have that and I wonder if people who buy them would stick with the brand or switch later to a Naim system.
Unless that’s his honest opinion based on his own experience, in which case it might be perfectly justifiable. Perhaps what shouldn’t happen, is for him to have reason to develop such a negative opinion of Naim in the first place.
LOL, a bit naive.
Most dealers want to sell what brings profit for their living expense.
Most dealers are enthusiastic about their portefolio, fair enough, as long as they don’t talk down other brands.
There’s always a few strangers in the flock.
I basically approached the Hi-Fi world that way too, I wanted goosebumps and have always looked for better sound!
Funny enough the young people I know don’t spend much (if not anything) on vinyl and concerts, but I don’t doubt it might different in other places. Maybe young people aren’t interested in Hi-Fi gear because they care more about the artist and trends, rather than the music itself. Could that be?
Rock and pop from the 70s-80s were so much better than the ones you find these days (at least in most cases IMHO). Now most rock/pop music seem somehow similar and monotonous to me. Also let’s not forget the rise of the loudness war, this surely had an important impact on the music listening habits. It’s no surprise that some albums might sound better on cheap headphones rather than a proper Hi-Fi system. I might be wrong of course, but I believe most young people don’t have a sense of what music can really be, there’s no real culture and they just go with the flow using music to fill an empty/annoying moment.
Some Hi-Fi prices can scare young people and some dealers approach won’t make them interested in the hobby, indeed quite the opposite. Young people need to experience the Hi-Fi world in the first place, then I’m pretty sure that if they are really interested from the bottom of their heart, they’ll find a way to invest even in a small system.
By the way I get your point, I believe more affordable gear is need for young generations and a simple shoebox system from Naim could be very appealing and not only for young people.
@Innocent_Bystander you are right, I was referring to pre and amps obviously. I think my first Hi-Fi system was an all-in-one. After realizing I wanted more, I slowly went for separates (not pre/amps). Yes, I had to invest more but it was worth it of course. Sometimes when you take your first steps, you need a bit of time to understand what you really want and how much you are prepared to invest (both mentally and economically).
Sorry for the digression, we are quickly moving away from the OP. Who knows, maybe a new thread should be opened.
