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Focal Powered by Naim Stores

I'm sure Naim/Focal have done their homework on the Sevenoaks location planning. It has excellent motorway and train links and an affluent catchment area.
 
Hopefully it's near a dentist too so they can put the enamel back on people's teeth.

I'm half-joking. The only time I ever heard the Naim demo rigs at a local store sound genuinely unpleasant was when they started using Focal speakers with them. Repellingly bright and etchy. One salesman agreed. Till that point I'd used those rigs for initial demoes on lots of speakers and always found them enjoyable and revealing. Seemed an odd way to go. Maybe things have moved on...
 
Have either company changed their voicing at all since the merger/take-over? It’s no great secret that I wasn’t ever a Focal/JM Labs fan (they epitomise high cabinet-mass, bright, lean, dry and forward to my ears, I’d use the word ‘hyped’), the only time I’ve personally got on with their sound to any degree at all is on the end of a really nice valve amp! I haven’t heard anything recent though and I’ve no idea what Naim are doing these days, so I’m curious how synergistic this partnership is now sonically?
 
Does anyone have Naim / Focal here?

The only time I’ve heard the pairing was at Salisbury and IMO it was not a good match. Big Focal Utopia’s of some sort, NAP500 and a Statement used too with a NDX front end and Tidal. Too bright and not particularly involving either. I thought at the time I’d sooner have my system!
 
Stuart Frazer said:
I'm sure Naim/Focal have done their homework on the Sevenoaks location planning. It has excellent motorway and train links and an affluent catchment area.
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The store is directly opposite a car retailer that sells posh cars.*

* Well there was the last time I went by a couple of years ago.
 
AndyU said:
Yet it is the norm for car manufacturers to have one brand showrooms, and no one seems to mind. Then again, Linn had their own shop in Glasgow and closed it, so who knows. I certainly think manufacturers should have a flagship demonstration space.
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Except this flagship is in another country, well it is if you live in Scotland :D
 
I’ve heard a small number of Naim/Focal set ups, and the only one that I thought worked was a Naim all-in-one unit with little stand mount speakers. Even the ND555 demo I went to sounded horrible, although it did appear to show the difference between the NDS and the 555 quite well.
 
The combination works very well - Naim have not changed and certain Focal (eg Sopra) has a warmer voice and is good to listen to. I still prefer and use naim speakers (Have and use SL2, SBL, IBL, Nsat) and honourable mention to my Linn Kans in office system.
 
I'm not far away from Sevenoaks, so I'll pop in for a gander at some point. The Sevenoaks Sound and Vision store has been there in the same location for a number of years.
 
Dark Lord said:
The combination works very well - Naim have not changed and certain Focal (eg Sopra) has a warmer voice and is good to listen to. I still prefer and use naim speakers (Have and use SL2, SBL, IBL, Nsat) and honourable mention to my Linn Kans in office system.
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Interesting - that was definitely not what I heard at the factory
 
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