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Naim: Is it personal?

Miss Ariel said:
Argh remember it well with Chris Frankland and his evanganical flat earth mission....Ben Sidran and the bop City album never had a clue who he was and The Crusaders were another band I had never heard of.
The AT95 walking all over the Koetsu Black was predictable...If it had been made by Linn he would have been gushing.
Heady flat earth times looking back.
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It was AT93, aka Linn Basik 'yellow', with 0.6mil bonded conical tip.

Frankland likely would have changed his mind had he bothered to listen all the way to the end of side of Bop City with Basik on, Ittok LVII or no.
 
James said:
That's my experience in a nutshell, except I started with 102/180.
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Allan Probin said:
What used to happen on the old Naim forum(s) was a member would start off with a Nait, then they’d sell the Nait and upgrade to something like a 62/110 and experience a massive upgrade. Then sometime (months/a year or two) later they’d add a hicap and experience yet another massive upgrade. Then after another similar interval they might change the 62 for an 82 for another massive upgrade. After half a dozen steps and several years later they would be at the pinacle, 52/Supercap/135’s, with amazing upgrades every step of the way.

Then they’d feel a bit nostalgic for their first piece of Naim gear so they’d buy another Nait for a second system. Out of curiosity, they’d try the Nait in their main system and … hold on, this sounds 90% as good as the system I’ve spent years upgrading to. Then comes the realisation that if the Nait sounds 90% as good, all those massive upgrades over the years must actually have been quite small.

Having been up and down the ladder more than once I’m not excluding myself from any of the above!
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Same here and back to the NAP 110 40 years later !
 
Craig B said:
I've a copy here. Sad, I know, but JV's posts were a fount of reason in a sea of shit.
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Julian had a very dry sense of humour, which made the place to my mind. A very different internet era, I suspect 85% of the usebase were IT folk! A small forum too, probably had a couple of hundred members tops, if that. It had grown a bit at the time of his death (early 2000), but still small as I remember it. A lot of us knew each other offline as it was fairly That London centred. The Naim Forum was never the same afterwards IMO. It was Julian. There’s a few from that era still here on pfm.

PS In most respects my first interaction with what is now described as ‘social media’, so a huge learning curve. It took me a long while to learn how to write online in any even remotely concise, coherent or articulate manner (still a work in progress obviously), but I was very young and green back then. In a way I’m pleased the evidence has been erased. That said I did come up with ‘chrome bumper’, which seems to have stuck (one of my friends had an MG BGT so I was aware of the phrase from there)!
 
The individual who started me on my hi-fi journey back in my mid-teens had a full rack of Naim gear. As I'm now in my early 50's, I can't possibly remember which Naim models were in play. They drove a set of Linn Isobariks, with a Sondek LP-12 as his front end. A very fine sounding system at the time which really impressed me, coming from a mid-fi background. As his tastes evolved over the next few years, he began moving toward vacuum tubes (valves), and rest was history (for both of us). I haven't used a solid-state amplifier in over 25 years.

My anti solid-state biases aside, I always felt like Naim were simply a pain in the ass to be blunt. BNC connectors on audio? DIN connectors to supply power from various ridiculously named boxes? Numptys, humpties, burndys, etc? Stiff speaker cable that looked as if were better suited to an arc welder? Nah - you had to really drink the Kool-Aid and commit. Glad I didn't.
 
Tony L said:
Julian had a very dry sense of humour, which made the place to my mind. A very different internet era, I suspect 85% of the usebase were IT folk! A small forum too, probably had a couple of hundred members tops, if that. It had grown a bit at the time of his death (early 2000), but still small as I remember it. A lot of us knew each other offline as it was fairly That London centred. The Naim Forum was never the same afterwards IMO. It was Julian. There’s a few from that era still here on pfm.
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I joined the Naim forum quite early on, myself. IIRC, Naim were early to have a web presence, sooner than most. I've a vague memory of noticing the forum link appear on their home page and wondering 'what's this?'. Other than Joe P, a fellow who's name shall not be posted, Mike Hanson, Mike Sae and 'mykel', there weren't all that many of us Canucks on (my apologies, should I have missed someone). Oh yeah, there was Tuan, remember him? He was the engineering bloke working for our nuclear power industry who was always bugging JV to make a 50wpc NAIT. Seems like only yesterday. Happy days.
 
Craig B said:
It was AT93, aka Linn Basik 'yellow', with 0.6mil bonded conical tip.

Frankland likely would have changed his mind had he bothered to listen all the way to the end of side of Bop City with Basik on, Ittok LVII or no.
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Yes, the Basik wasn't even as good as the AT 95, which at the time cost something like an eye watering 18 pounds. Mid 90s I traded up from an AT110, then available at about £22, to a Linn K5. Woo hoo. Was it better? Was it fxxx. I wouldn't be surprised now to hear that it was made from AT parts cheaper than those used in the 110.
 
Craig B said:
I joined the Naim forum quite early on, myself. IIRC, Naim were early to have a web presence, sooner than most. I've a vague memory of noticing the forum link appear on their home page and wondering 'what's this?'. Other than Joe P, a fellow who's name shall not be posted, Mike Hanson, Mike Sae and 'mykel', there weren't all that many of us Canucks on (my apologies, should I have missed someone). Oh yeah, there was Tuan, remember him? He was the engineering bloke working for our nuclear power industry who was always bugging JV to make a 50wpc NAIT. Seems like only yesterday. Happy days.
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The London folk I knew were MatthewR, Joel, Jawed, Tim, & Kevin, plus a few of the Mana crowd. I think in terms of regular posters once you’ve added the ones you mention, Martin Clark, Ron Toolsie, Rob and a couple of Mana folk that was about it! At least in the early period.

PS I’ve deliberately not doxxed surnames unless they are still used here on pfm.
 
stevec67 said:
Yes, the Basik wasn't even as good as the AT 95, which at the time cost something like an eye watering 18 pounds. Mid 90s I traded up from an AT110, then available at about £22, to a Linn K5. Woo hoo. Was it better? Was it fxxx. I wouldn't be surprised now to hear that it was made from AT parts cheaper than those used in the 110.
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Why the hell did you buy it if it sounded worse to your ears?
 
zekezebra said:
I think that HiFi magazines in the 80's were very influential. The reviewers for HiFi Answers, for example, were completely in the Linn/Naim camp and for them nothing could come close.

There was one reviewer who, when testing a rival amplifier, would slot it into his Linn/Naim system and only ever seemed to play one track: Ai No Corrida by Quincy Jones. He would then compare it to the Naim amplifiers which invariably "blew the rival into the weeds".

I do believe that this type of reporting, for some readers, convinced them that it was not worth investigating other manufacturers. Couple this to the chosen HiFi dealers that were almost blackmailed by Linn to only push Linn/Naim systems.

Maybe some folk almost felt cheated by this conspiracy once they realised that there were in fact other manufacturers who made as good or even better equipment. Hence the bad feeling towards both Linn and Naim.
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I don't think this fits with history.

Keith Howard took over Hifi Answers in 1980 or so and not long after JMH was all Krell, then Peter Belt and reviewing a new Koetsu every month. Popular Hifi ejected Chris Frankland in 1983. So 'Linn/Naim' was completely out of the mainstream magazines by 1984. The centre of gravity of the UK hifi press was never Linn/Naim and the 'cult' was relegated to the fringe by 1984.

So it's strange how large it looms 40 years later.
 
stevec67 said:
Yes, the Basik wasn't even as good as the AT 95, which at the time cost something like an eye watering 18 pounds. Mid 90s I traded up from an AT110, then available at about £22, to a Linn K5. Woo hoo. Was it better? Was it fxxx. I wouldn't be surprised now to hear that it was made from AT parts cheaper than those used in the 110.
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IME, Basik was as good as AT95E up to about 2/3rds of the way across a record. 95E was 0.4 x 0.7mil* back then, vs. AT93 at 0.6mil conical, otherwise identical.

AT110E was my favourite cheap A-T cart back when this was current. I sold a lot of different cartridges in my retail days and this afforded many opportunities to directly compare all sorts on the same decks and arms, everything from the absolute cheapest to the esoteric. There were very few cartridges at twice the price (or more) of 110E that could be said to outperform it. This back in the day when one could have a Dynavector HOMC for less than $100.

I think that with K5 people's expectations were higher, when in fact it was the same cartridge as 95E but with a different lid on.

* 95E changed to 0.3 x 0.7mil in 2016, so a current ATN95E replacement stylus is actually an upgrade, especially so for AT93/Basik 'yellow', or any of the old plastic cantilevered AT3400 and OEMs of same (there were over a 100 of these).
 
Tony L said:
PS I’ve deliberately not doxxed surnames unless they are still used here on pfm.
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I am pretty sure that all of the names I listed are actual user names on here, although Mike Sae doesn't come up in a search (not his actual surname, BTW). Perhaps his old posts have long since been archived(?).
 
Paul R said:
Keith Howard took over Hifi Answers in 1980 or so and not long after JMH was all Krell, then Peter Belt and reviewing a new Koetsu every month. Popular Hifi ejected Chris Frankland in 1983. So 'Linn/Naim' was completely out of the mainstream magazines by 1984. The centre of gravity of the UK hifi press was never Linn/Naim and the 'cult' was relegated to the fringe by 1984.
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I haven’t got any magazines of that era to refer back to (aside from Gramophone, who just weren’t playing), but my memory is that it was far more widespread than just a couple of writers. It was the prevailing UK thing with all manner of start-up companies serving up random black boxes and black vinyl-wrap speaker. It was never just Linn/Naim. I certainly remember the Absolute Sounds-imported US stuff appearing in HiFi Answers, but the BADA (British Audio Dealers Association IIRC) kept things very much organised how they liked too.

It would be really interesting to get some writers and dealers perspectives here as I know there are a fair few from that time floating around pfm.

My own experience as a punter was mainly WA Brady on Smithdown Rd, Better Hi-Fi in Liverpool, Music Room in Manchester and Audio Council in Oldham. Before that box-shifters like Laskys and one in St Johns Liverpool I can’t remember the name of, plus the quaintly titled Beaver Radio for blank tapes. They all had their own flavours for sure, to the point one could never get to hear all the stuff on any shortlist in one place. Despite all the accusations of group-think etc it actually felt like a far faster-moving and more diverse market than even today’s ASR Chinese DAC of the month club.
 
Tony L said:
The London folk I knew were MatthewR, Joel, Jawed, Tim, & Kevin, plus a few of the Mana crowd. I think in terms of regular posters once you’ve added the ones you mention, Martin Clark, Ron Toolsie, Rob and a couple of Mana folk that was about it! At least in the early period.

PS I’ve deliberately not doxxed surnames unless they are still used here on pfm.
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I recall most of those members too, I was pretty much a lurker then, enjoying a simple Nait, Kan, LP12 setup. Fun days, sprinkled in with Mana wars, ATC, etc. Fox and Epona Acoustics and various other bits thrown in for good measure. Great stuff mostly.
 
Tony L said:
I haven’t got any magazines of that era to refer back to (aside from Gramophone, who just weren’t playing), but my memory is that it was far more widespread than just a couple of writers. It was the prevailing UK thing with all manner of start-up companies serving up random black boxes and black vinyl-wrap speaker. It was never just Linn/Naim. I certainly remember the Absolute Sounds-imported US stuff appearing in HiFi Answers, but the BADA (British Audio Dealers Association IIRC) kept things very much organised how they liked too.

It would be really interesting to get some writers and dealers perspectives here as I know there are a fair few from that time floating around pfm.

My own experience as a punter was mainly WA Brady on Smithdown Rd, Better Hi-Fi in Liverpool, Music Room in Manchester and Audio Council in Oldham. Before that box-shifters like Laskys and one in St Johns Liverpool I can’t remember the name of, plus the quaintly titled Beaver Radio’ for blank tapes. They all had their own flavours for sure, to the point one could never get to hear all the stuff on any shortlist in one place. Despite all the accusations of group-think etc it actually felt like a far faster-moving and more diverse market than even today’s ASR Chinese DAC of the month club.
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Dave at Audio Counsel was always very fair as regards listening to a broad range of options and became disenchanted with Linn and Naim in the early 2000s such that he doesn't stock them now.
 
tiggers said:
Why the hell did you buy it if it sounded worse to your ears?
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Because I believed what the dealer told me, that it was going to be a massive upgrade, he fitted it for free and by the time I'd got it home it was (a) rather too late and (b) if you take it back as a 20-something and say it's not as good as the old worn out cartridge you're going to get a load of patronising bullshht about the rest of the system isn't up to it, you don't know how to lisyen, etc, so you persuade yourself it's better. It's exactly how free cable returns work and it works a treat.
Perhaps you have forgotten how patronising an environment 80s and 90s hifi shops were, and how intimidating. To this day I still remember some tosser in a Sevenoaks somewhere near leatherhead sneering at me when I expressed an interest in a Gyrodec in the window at about £700. "Right. What are you currently listening to? A Regs 2? It's probably too big a step up, I wouldn't recommend it for you. " Wxxker. His loss, I had the money in the bank and if he'd given me a demo I would almost certainly have carried it out of the shop. I had too many experiences like that, and if that's hifi shops then I don't mourn their passing.
 
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