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AR Sound

bob atherton

pfm Member
After over 7200 hits the AR Sound thread has been axed on the Naim forum. I can’t blame Naim for pulling the plug; the cables have made a massive stir in the Naim fold. There has been an unprecedented ground swell in favour of the Green & Yellow cables over the standard Naim ones and even in some cases preferred over the many times more expensive Naim Hiline cables. I feel more than a bit responsible and I waxed lyrical about the improvement the Green 2 gave me over the Naim Lavender.

I’ve just discovered that AR Sound now has a web site and here is the link.

http://www.ar-sound.com/

I know I’m coming over as some sort of evangelist over these cables but after all these years it totally knocked me out that any cable at any price could improve the quality and enjoyment of my system so much.

In hindsight it was very good of Naim to let the thread run for the time it did, I guess they thought it would blow itself out.
 
Bob,

I ordered a Green 4 to tryout after reading the thread.

Simon

Edited for Joe.
 
Bob,

You're welcome to post here about new cables you've tried, but it's all too easy for pfm to become a dumping ground for disgruntled members of other forums.

So, discussion about AR Sound cable is fine, but please leave problems about the Naim or any other forum at the door.

Joe / moderating

P.S. I've edited the thread's title.
 
Hi Joe,

I have no beef whatsoever with Naim or their forum. My relationship with Naim Audio goes back about 25 years to when I used to sell their products through Radford Hi-Fi, Bristol. I have friends at Naim and this has been the first occasion in all these years that I may have upset them. I still think they make the best hi-fi out there.

As far as I’m aware I have never said anything anywhere that would indicate that I had an axe to grind against their company.

To be honest I’m disappointed that you felt it necessary to change the title of my thread from” AR Sound thread axed by Naim” as this is not a thread just about AR sound but a thread about the impact of an AR Sound thread on the Naim forum.

If you still have a problem with this that is your prerogative but I thought that we had a little more leeway on freedom of speech here.

Kind regards, Bob
 
Bob,

Of late several posts have popped up here, complaining about the Naim forum, in particular complaints about the level of moderation. The first two posts in this thread were continuing the trend, so I stepped in.

Sorry if this went over as unnecessarily harsh, as that wasn't my intent. It's just that this thread had the ingredients necessary for another Naim or Naim forum bash. As a mod I try to nip these sorts of things early on.

Anyway, tell me more about these new cables, as I still have a Naim CD player and may want to try a different cable to connect it to my toob amp.

Best,
Joe
 
Hi Joe,

Thanks for your quick and friendly reply. I had not seen any other posts on this thread and can fully understand why you felt it necessary to change the title. The last thing that I would want is more Naim bashing on PFM. Naim have great products, forum and team. I knew Julian Vererker and I feel we all here owe him a great deal.

In short I tried an AR Sound Green 2 cable between my CDX, XPS and 72 to replace the Naim Lavender. The improvement after about 10 days (took a long time to burn in) was nothing short of a work of alchemy. The sound opened out, became more natural, clearer vocals, clearer backing vocals, space between instruments etc etc.

All this for less than 70 UKP, though I think the Yellow 1, which I understand is a further development from the Green 2, costs a bit more. The system has never sounded so good nor, more importantly, has been played and enjoyed so much.

Kind regards, Bob
 
Bob,

Some one told me about your thread in the Naim forum - I didn't see it although I'm reading there once in a day or so. I think that it is not right and even not fair to praise competitors' equipment in a private forum that belongs to commercial company.

Arye

PS - when will I see you in Haifa?
 
Bob,

Some one told me about your thread in the Naim forum - I didn't see it although I'm reading there once in a day or so. I think that it is not right and even not fair to praise competitors' equipment in a private forum that belongs to commercial company.

Arye

PS - when will I see you in Haifa?


Hi Arye,

As always good to hear from you. The recent thread on the Naim forum was not ‘mine’ it was one that I contributed too. I think your comment about praising a competitor’s product on their forum was at first a bit of a grey area that mushroomed into a monster. I think if I went on their forum and started talking out how much better Avondale and Teddy Pardo power supplies were than their own that would be out of order, rude, and I would expect to have everything thrown at me.

What was being discussed was an alternative to their cables. Over the years there have been many threads about alternative interconnects and speaker cables. Their amplifiers and power supplies are I think sacred ground and it would be wrong to praise another’s.

There have been many threads about alternative speakers and CD players to Naim’s but these have never been banned. I think Naim allow posts about other manufacturers product on the edge of their core business, their amps and power supplies, because it gives them useful feedback about competitors products and also just because someone is raving about the new Neat speaker, they are doing so in the context of the new Neat speaker with Naim amps.

Where the last thread about AR Sound products almost broke the mold was that there was yet another thread about an ancillary product that was an alternative to Naim’s, nothing new here except that the enthusiasm for this product and the fervour from die hard Naimophiles was I think unprecedented. It became a monster that quite understandably upset Naim.

When will I see you in Haifa? Probably when I visit Israel as the UK distributor for AR Sound (that was a joke!).

Kind regards, Bob
 
Thanks, Bob.

I see AR Sound makes a DIN-to-RCA interconnect. I may give it a try.

Joe
 
Chaps

I once met Mark Tucker when I was daft enough to attend a hifi show. I spent a couple of hours with him in the bar shifting whisky and beer. For those of you who do not know, Mark used to work at Naim in a senior managerial capacity.

Mark never objected to a competitors products being advertised or commented about on the Naim forum because as he said, in nearly every case, the Naim equivalent was better and it was always useful to know what Naim fans think of the competition, be it good or bad.

If you allow unrestricted comments on your own forum, it demonstrates confidence in your own product.

Regards

Mick
 
Still hard to see why naim axed that thread because Avi's cable business is a cottage industry! I have Greens in my system, I'll be getting 5 pin snaics next. I hadn't looked at the thread since friday.

the only place that the AR sound cables can "hurt" naim is in preference to a Hiline, in every other case Naim includes the necessary cable with the kit, except of coursefor Naca 5.
 
More likely in my case, is that Hi-lines will start to be sold off at a reasonable 2nd-hand price, I'll buy one and be impressed, and this will kick-start a new phase in upgraditis culminating in a new CDS3.
The interest in the AR Sound stuff is clearly driven by the price difference and even then, they are not cheap. The real clincher is that the Hi-Line and Naim power cables are ridiculously expensive causing a number of us, myself included, to come to a cut-off point. Once we find a psychological barrier like this, we tend to not work around it, but stop upgrading entirely.

It doesn't take much to spark an interest again, and after nothing much happening from Naim recently down my particular line of interest (old school system) this is exactly the thing to start me off again.

I think maybe Naim have been greedy with cable pricing and not particularly clever in identifying the value in getting people spending on Naim specific items. The likely scenario of Naim pitching a Hi-Line at £150 and a powerline at £65 is that they would have sold tons and caused lots of additional equipment upgrades in the process.

The AR Sound cables will probably start movement in Naim equipment sales both new and used and it's just a shame that Naim have lost the foresight to manufacture this interest themselves.

Naim will do well from this, despite what they may think right now. It happened with me before when I bought a pair of Mission speakers, and ended up with changing all my Naim amps, Naim CD players twice, and bought a new pair of SBLs.
 
Chaps

If you allow unrestricted comments on your own forum, it demonstrates confidence in your own product.

Regards

Mick

Mick,

I totally agree that unrestricted feedback and discussion is sign of a confident manufacturer.

Maybe as time (and people) have moved on, and more alternatives become available, such confidence is harder to maintain.

Steve
 
More likely in my case, is that Hi-lines will start to be sold off at a reasonable 2nd-hand price, I'll buy one and be impressed, and this will kick-start a new phase in upgraditis culminating in a new CDS3.
The interest in the AR Sound stuff is clearly driven by the price difference and even then, they are not cheap. The real clincher is that the Hi-Line and Naim power cables are ridiculously expensive causing a number of us, myself included, to come to a cut-off point. Once we find a psychological barrier like this, we tend to not work around it, but stop upgrading entirely.

It doesn't take much to spark an interest again, and after nothing much happening from Naim recently down my particular line of interest (old school system) this is exactly the thing to start me off again.

I think maybe Naim have been greedy with cable pricing and not particularly clever in identifying the value in getting people spending on Naim specific items. The likely scenario of Naim pitching a Hi-Line at £150 and a powerline at £65 is that they would have sold tons and caused lots of additional equipment upgrades in the process.

The AR Sound cables will probably start movement in Naim equipment sales both new and used and it's just a shame that Naim have lost the foresight to manufacture this interest themselves.

Naim will do well from this, despite what they may think right now. It happened with me before when I bought a pair of Mission speakers, and ended up with changing all my Naim amps, Naim CD players twice, and bought a new pair of SBLs.

Excellent points, Rasher. Hopefully, management will read your post.
 
rasher says: that the Hi-Line and Naim power cables are ridiculously expensive causing a number of us, myself included, to come to a cut-off point.

I don't know how good the AR is, but the Hiline that I own worth its cost. I don't care if in order to improve the sound I have to buy a box with electronics in it or a cable - and the Hiline brings a great improvement.

Arye
 
I don't know how good the AR is, but the Hiline that I own worth its cost. I don't care if in order to improve the sound I have to buy a box with electronics in it or a cable - and the Hiline brings a great improvement.

Arye

Maybe, but that doesn't make it any less difficult to sell to the average Joe, and being able to sell stuff is what Naim is in business for. You have to be pretty far down the line of hi-fi addiction to pay £500 for what most people would refer to as a piece of wire. It's nice to think of Naim as a group of like-minded hi-fi nerds making stuff to satisfy themselves primarily, but let's get real - it's only business.

This isn't about hi-fi, it's about marketing and what makes best business sense for the long term security of the company. You get someone to buy their first Naim unit and you've possibly got them hooked for a whole system in the not too distant future.
Naim have traditionally survived on brand loyalty. If they lose that, they lose everything.
I care because all my stuff is Naim and there is nothing I would rather have. I want them to stay healthy because my system and playing music is important to me. If they don't engage in discussion about this sort of thing, then natural hi-fi nerds like me who love to discuss these things endlessly will be alienated by them, and that isn't being very bright.

I'll bet you that half the attraction to the AR Sound stuff is the romantic notion that there is this hi-fi geek in a small workshop trying out endless wires and arrangements. The attraction is in the image of alchemy, rather than accountancy. Hi-fi needs its pinch of geekery, and AR Sound are providing that to fill the hole that Naim have left now that they don't really do that any more.

Who agrees?
 
Maybe, but that doesn't make it any less difficult to sell to the average Joe, and being able to sell stuff is what Naim is in business for. You have to be pretty far down the line of hi-fi addiction to pay £500 for what most people would refer to as a piece of wire. It's nice to think of Naim as a group of like-minded hi-fi nerds making stuff to satisfy themselves primarily, but let's get real - it's only business.

This isn't about hi-fi, it's about marketing and what makes best business sense for the long term security of the company. You get someone to buy their first Naim unit and you've possibly got them hooked for a whole system in the not too distant future.
Naim have traditionally survived on brand loyalty. If they lose that, they lose everything.
I care because all my stuff is Naim and there is nothing I would rather have. I want them to stay healthy because my system and playing music is important to me. If they don't engage in discussion about this sort of thing, then natural hi-fi nerds like me who love to discuss these things endlessly will be alienated by them, and that isn't being very bright.

I'll bet you that half the attraction to the AR Sound stuff is the romantic notion that there is this hi-fi geek in a small workshop trying out endless wires and arrangements. The attraction is in the image of alchemy, rather than accountancy. Hi-fi needs its pinch of geekery, and AR Sound are providing that to fill the hole that Naim have left now that they don't really do that any more.

Who agrees?

Works for me Rasher. JV was that geek in the workshop once. People have to decide whether the same care and innovation goes in when traditionally 'enthusiast led' concerns go corporate. The original model was far less commercially cynical but that is the deal in that sector of the market, it's true of many organisations in different industries to this one.

The romantics will think they do whatever. I incline more to your "it's business" view.

Steve
 
Come to think of it, you know what I would do if I was Naim?

I'd get a bunch of the AR Sound cables and evaluate them and set up demo evenings in Naim dealers throughout the country. I'd make a big fuss in the hi-fi press that we all need to hear this and make our own minds up. We'd be biased, of course, but we'd get everyone in a dealership listening to Naim gear, and everyone would get the bug again. We might share the market in cables, but we'd sell some Naim gear to be sure. And the Naim name would be all over the mags.

You know what, I'm still sceptical. Naim put a lot of effort and time into selecting their cables and I don't see how their involvement can be beaten by one guy in Israel. I think this is still 99% romantic ideals we're seeing and hearing here.
 
If I were NAIM and AR cables really were better I'd be inclined to either

- buy a set and copy them .... I doubt there's much AR could do, but it's nasty business practise.

- OEM them from AR, get an exclusivity deal, apply my markup, and pay AR a decent cut per cable sold. Everyone's a winner: AR get NAIM's marketing prowess, NAIM get a better product for no R&D cost.
 
Provided AR say yes, it's a no-brainer.
Selling them isn't going to be a problem, is it. The marketing has been done!

There will be those that say that the new ones aren't as good, of course. :D

The real answer is to just endorse them, with provisos, and regain their geekery kudos in exchange. And I'd still get as much publicity out of the discussion as I could just to get the brand known to a new generation.
 


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