What's the Point of this Forum?

About five years ago I was a reasonably regular frequenter of this forum, but I somehow fell out of love with the whole hi-fi thing and ended up listening mostly to Spotify on my headphones. Part of the reason was that I was having intermittent connection problems between my Qute 2 and my network and playing music from my NAS was therefore a bit of a faff. Anyway, I came here last weekend to ask for suggestions and have a sniff around to see if others had had similar problems with their networks.

There was only one response to my network-related post, but I did glean some tips from other posts and set about cleaning up my network - Iā€™m in the ā€œeverything else on my network works, so it must be the Naimā€ camp - and Iā€™m interested to see how the changes Iā€™ve made improve things. (I was embarrassed to discover that my router firmware was not even up to date - a rookie error.)

But then I started getting curious about other ways to improve things. An Atom looked like a good next step, so I borrowed one from my local dealer and swapped it for the Qute 2 in my system. It was love at first listen. A revelation.

One of the Atomā€™s other features that intrigued me was the support for Qobuz, so I signed up for a 30-day free trial to see if it was worth the hype. Lo and behold, not only were the hi-res recordings sounding fabulous, many of the standard-res classic albums sounded much better than the CDs I bought in the 80s and 90s. It seems that thereā€™s ā€œCD qualityā€ and thereā€™s ā€œCD qualityā€, and just because an albumā€™s on CD, doesnā€™t mean itā€™s a great version of the album.

Off, then, to the Music Room, where I got some great suggestions for different recordings of classical pieces and non-classical artists I had never heard of and would never have encountered otherwise. And what do you know, so far, theyā€™ve all been available on Qobuz.

I have to (very reluctantly) return the Atom to the dealer tomorrow, but Iā€™ll place my order at the same time, so itā€™s all good. What to do with the Qute 2 it will replace? Well, Iā€™d like to use it in my home office, but Iā€™ve grown so fond of Qobuz itā€™s a shame it doesnā€™t support itā€¦ But wait, whatā€™s this: I can use the multi-room feature to stream Qobuz from the Atom in my lounge to the Qute 2 in my home office? This is the gift that keeps on giving.

Iā€™m not sure what the point of this post is, except to say how useful I have found the forum, and how nice it is to fall back in love with music again. Iā€™m guessing Iā€™m not the only oneā€¦

47 Likes

Youā€™re not, albeit for slightly different reasons. Check out the saga of my End Of My Tether thread. For me a change of source did the trick but Naim amplification remains at the heart of things. I listened to next to no music for sometime but this year Iā€™ve probably listened to more music than I have in decades.

1 Like

You are right. Somehow ā€˜sound qualityā€™ is the perceived holy grail, but esthetics / stability / accessibility are at least so important. Iā€™m trying to convince my wife for getting an atom too.

2 Likes

Welcome back and thank you for reminding us all that our Naim systems are almost always marvellous. Life is too short to sweat the small stuff and great music is such a joy.

3 Likes

I came across the previous version of this forum about 3 years ago.

I then had a Naim CDP, 112x, 150x and Ariva speakers I had bought about 20 years ago.

Thanks to the oceans of information and ideas I have gleaned from this forum (and others) Iā€™ve ended up with a much better system, with a level of SQ that I had never heard before and never thought I would have.

And itā€™s fun to share ideas and music and experiences with the people here.

2 Likes

ā€œWhatā€™s the point of this forum?ā€

Itā€™s a great marketing tool designed to empty your wallet.

And it works.

:rofl:

13 Likes

Bitterness is good for a laugh but it never makes one happyā€¦

2 Likes

Iā€™m not bitter, just skint. :grinning:

1 Like

I went off the forum for a few years but came back on in 2019. The support, advise and banter makes this a great community to be involved with.

Great to have you back MM!

3 Likes

ā€¦it provides that wonderful vicarious pleasure of spending someone elseā€™s money :grin:

And a bit like the P-word we cannot mention, thereā€™s no come-back if things donā€™t work out!

Itā€™s assentially a form of social media for a narrow specialised interest community. I can count on one hand the number of people in my life that even would even know what Naim was let alone be interested in talking about itā€¦

I also find that music recommendations from other enthusiasts are often very good - regardless of genre - Iā€™ve found quit w a lot of great vinyl recommendations here.

For the most part the discussions are interesting and intelligent - as a life long (Fender) strat player the only other forum that I frequent is Strat Talk which also has a great community vibeā€¦

5 Likes

Thereā€™s definitely an element of Stockholm Syndrome about it. But as long as weā€™re all consenting adults and weā€™re not spending money we donā€™t have, then itā€™s all good clean fun.

1 Like

Personally Iā€™m very disillusioned with the forum at the moment another thread that I enjoyed has been closed because of fully grown men running to tell teacher over some petty argument.

1 Like

Bob, itā€™s just closed for some hours or one day, after being cleaned. From what I understood by Richard post.
Sometimes interesting threads just disappear, and donā€™t reopen. Itā€™s more sad .

1 Like

Bob did you not see my reply to you?

The football thread was quarantined late last night for review following a complaint. It will be reviewed today and replaced after any necessary editing or moderation.

1 Like

Yeah the Lost art of flat vinyl thread I still regret to this day. My own fault for not water-off-a-duckā€™s-backing more. The one thread I created here that really took off and then I managed to get it canned as I could not stomach the personal attacks from someone anymore. Secretly hoped a sanitized version would return, but it never did.

Oh I am not blaming anyone for that. Heck I would not want the task to moderate and clean up things here.

2 Likes

I donā€™t know what the point of the forum is, but I have found it an absolute mine of information on all things Naim, which has helped me get to the level of kit I now have. So a marketing tool, yes, but also a very helpful one. I wasnā€™t new to Naim having started in 1986 but I had got stuck with my personal disappointment with a 202/200 a few years back. This place gave me the information and buyers confidence to try again with Naim. I shall return the favour soon with my thoughts on upgrades for any other new member that has an interest.

4 Likes

The Point of the Forum is a secret and is know only to those who fully understand, embrace and believe in NaimLore.

Otherwise its just a load of useful informationā€¦ :smiley:

2 Likes

Not sure what the point is but a couple of behavioural changes Iā€™ve noticed in myself from frequenting here:

  1. The purchase of a much wider variety of music

  2. A willingness to spend time neatly rearranging cables to improve the sound

  3. A epic readjustment of what is a reasonable amount to spend on a Hifi box. Historically this was probably Ā£10,000 when the 500 appeared. Now I find myself looking at the S1.

2 Likes

This forum has always had a rich spectrum of content.
You could spend hours, days, months and years here without even coming anywhere close to the optimal shelf for that Supercap DR.

1 Like