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Is Naim snake oil?

I own a 102/180/hicap - the hicap has CHC reg boards on it - only because i bought it like that - im just a normal guy - wanted to try the olive gear for years and I do quite like it - I joined the naim forum OMG what a load of idiots on there. Unless you have 500 series components then you a right down the naim hierarchy and seen as a peasant.

fools
 
Mullardman said:
Well I was setting out to check whether those comments you quoted qualify as 'Naim Bashing', but it seems the OPs of the comments have responded and demonstrated that, in context, they weren't.

I reckon it is very difficult to find any genuine 'bashing' of either NAIM or its adherents in this thread. People were asked their opinions (albeit in an arguably provocative way) and have responded. I pointed out myself that NAIM has pursued a number of idiosyncratic approaches to amplifier, power supply and loudspeaker design. I do not see that alternative views, questioning etc., constitute bashing.

Forums can get very 'rude', but I'd argue that PFM, especially considering that it also has lengthy discussions in areas such as politics and religion, manages to largely avoid 'Ad Hom' posting. As such, it succeeds in allowing and fostering debate without fear of undue censure.( And censorship) However, if people see criticism or questioning of a product, or a company ethos, as a criticism of themselves by extension, merely because they own that company's kit, then I really do feel that they need to look at their confidence in themselves, rather than any perceived slight.

Mull
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Yep that puts it well Mull... Long have I wondered at the way some take even a technical critique of something as a personal insult...
 
mr sneff said:
15 pages!!!.......well, it is the pantomime season.
To summarise, for anybody who doesn't want to wade through it all:
Is Naim snake oil?
Oh yes it is
Oh no it isn't
:)
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Thanks for the summary. I was hoping for one as would probably giving up reading all the pages.

OP if you're considering Naim I'd suggest looking at Densen. I went from Naim to Densen and it's been a revelation. (I freely admit this could've been mentioned already.)
 
Tony L said:
The Xerxes was a right PITA. I bought it because it could play 45s without pulling it to bits, but in reality it was a horrible piece of design. The PSU blew up and the top-plate had sagged within a couple of years of purchase and whilst I got the former fixed under warranty Roksan simply refused to acknowledge any issue with the latter. As such they remain one of two companies (I won’t name the other) who I will have nothing to do with. My first and last Roksan product! The Naim on the other hand performed flawlessly for around a decade (HiCap and Kan IIs added a few months after the picture) until I eventually upgraded to a second hand 32.5, 135s and Isobariks.

I wish I knew then what I know now about turntables. I could have bought a 301, 124 or even an EMT for peanuts back then, yet for some reason we were led to believe cheap band-sawn MDF the likes of which one could find at Ikea was the answer!
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Xerxes and Elite Rock my favourite turntables of all time at any price with Logic DM101 after that. I wouldn't give yer £50 for a 301 or TD124 or EMT...(unless I could flog them to buy something else of course!). I could have had a 401 and 301 for about that much from a mate who collected them and was always trying to get me interested in them, to no avail. "Yes we're all different" according to the large crowd in The Life of Brian...
 
The one thing that is missing in these sort of debates is the loud speaker. The amp should work well with its speaker and not the other way around. Its possible that amp A gives a perceived better performance with speaker A but gives a poor performance with speaker B. Then we may find that amp B gives a better perceived performance with speaker B.We then have two people arguing whether amp A or B is better when in fact the answer is 'it depends'.

Cheers,

DV
 
Tony L said:
The Xerxes was a right PITA. I bought it because it could play 45s without pulling it to bits, but in reality it was a horrible piece of design. The PSU blew up and the top-plate had sagged within a couple of years of purchase and whilst I got the former fixed under warranty Roksan simply refused to acknowledge any issue with the latter. As such they remain one of two companies (I won’t name the other) who I will have nothing to do with.
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Re the Xerxes, I'd go one step further and describe it as a complete pile of Sh*t; a budget record player of the worst order, dressed up with an audiophile price tag! Like Tony, I won't deal with the company either after the way way treated me.
 
Interesting comments on the old Xerxes

Are the later Roksan 10 & #20 different animals I guess?, never heard of problems and possible easier to get going

To my knowledge Touraj has left/sold Roksan and created Vertere, I heard one of their turntables at a show and it was stunning, didn't like the looks though but you sort of forget that once the music gets going
 
wylton said:
Re the Xerxes, I'd go one step further and describe it as a complete pile of Sh*t; a budget record player of the worst order, dressed up with an audiophile price tag! Like Tony, I won't deal with the company either after the way way treated me.
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I actually feel a bit embarrassed for buying something with such a blindingly obvious design flaw. That a naff piece of unsupported MDF would inevitably bend under the weight of a fairly heavy platter and tonearm didn’t really need the computational power of NASA to figure out! By saying that it absolutely isn’t the role of the consumer to analyse such incompetent design and inadequate build, and it was an insane amount of money for me at the time hence my still being a tad annoyed even now! One of the most stupid ideas in audio history IMHO backed up by total intransigence when it came to customer service.

Mine must have been one of the very first Xerxes. I bought it just after the initial rave review in HiFi Review, so would have been in 1986 IIRC. As can just be made out in the pic it has the Mk I PSU (the type that blew up as it didn’t have adequate heat-sinking) and was in the totally black finish (including opaque black lid) that was the only available finish at the time. I only had a fairly lightweight RB300 on it, so I hate to think how quickly it would have failed with say a FR64S!
 
The Xerxes did sound great but so did a lot of other turntables at the time. In Roksan's case, the real risk to a designer's credibility is that history tells us that it isn't always wise to attempt to find novel engineering solutions to problems that don't actually exist.
 
Craig B said:
The Xerxes did sound great but so did a lot of other turntables at the time. In Roksan's case, the real risk to a designer's credibility is that history tells us that it isn't always wise to attempt to find novel engineering solutions to problems that don't actually exist.
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Its almost funny. If one has to cut a structural integrity compromising channel in a material to break up resonances the lesson learned should have been that material was fundamentally unsuited for a turntable chassis in the first place, and to look for better alternatives! Lucky whoever designed it wasn’t an architect or car/plane designer!

PS Current deck: 1965 TD-124/II, mint condition, no sag!
 
Craig B said:
The Xerxes did sound great but so did a lot of other turntables at the time. In Roksan's case, the real risk to a designer's credibility is that history tells us that it isn't always wise to attempt to find novel engineering solutions to problems that don't actually exist.
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You sum it up nicely sir, in a less angry fashion than myself. I must admit, as well as being embarrassed (still to this day) like Tony, at ever having bought one, I still feel guilty at selling it, especially given that the guy travelled all the way from Belgium to collect it! In all honesty, I should have skipped it.
 
TONY, I sold my Xerxes (with Artemiz and Shiraz) in 1995 when I got the Orbe. I had it for about 5 years, which means I bought it a few years later than you, so maybe they improved it in the interim, as I had no sagging problems at all. The power supply, however, failed soon after set-up and was replaced (by Raleigh HiFi) and I think that was the original hot-running box as well.

The Xerxes was by no means a budget turntable; as I went from LP12/ Ittok, I considered it a more costly upgrade at the time.
 
I liked the sound, but never heard of those Xerxes probs till now.
Similar story to PT maybe. Loved that decks sound, but quality control was apparently non existent.
It's odd but I've never heard an SME 20. Always did wonder how that would be. Nor, come to that the new Rock 7...even odder since I loved my MK2. One day maybe.
 
If I could find one cheap enough (way less than £100) i would be tempted to buy it and then start to try and find a way of curing the sag. I'd build my own power supply for it.
 
Already fixed, there's a number of companies that do it now, it can even be done DIY.
 
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