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Is Naim snake oil?

For comparison, my Rock bought 2nd hand in 1990 ish has needed the bearing resetting around 2000, which Max Townshend took care of, albeit after a considerable wait. It also went back to him for the bellows feet upgrade and he took the opportunity to sell my a platter upgrade at the same time. After waiting a month for it to be ready I pestered him for it. That isn’t a good idea with Max as he then rushed the job through so the result was an overbored platter with the slack taken up with sticky tape around the outside of the inverted bearing. The polyethylene material used reflected considerable energy back into the record which made for impressive dynamics but screwed up the timing, even with the trough damping the cartridge, so that went back in its box after a few weeks and the original plaster one went back on the deck. The bellows feet worked well after a bit of locktite on the studs where they went into the feet.
None of the belts I’ve bought for it in the last ten years has been any good, from Max or elsewhere. They’ve all taken a set after a bit of use and then being stopped on the pully for a while, which affects speed stability (most noticable with piano music).The belt is an O ring and the original supplier is no more apparently. I measured it and found a BS number for the size but nitrile seems to be the only available material in that size so I had no opportunity to try silicon rubber or neoprene to see if they worked better. Still I got 25 years out of it at around £50 a year if you factor in its two trips back to base and don’t count cartridges or arms. The Rock is now retired in favour of a Frank Schroeder design that uses 1/4” tape for a belt but I won’t be selling the Rock.
A bit adrift from the Naim theme but I think we’ve done that to death by now.
 
yeti42 said:
For comparison, my Rock bought 2nd hand in 1990 ish has needed the bearing resetting around 2000, which Max Townshend took care of, albeit after a considerable wait. It also went back to him for the bellows feet upgrade and he took the opportunity to sell my a platter upgrade at the same time. After waiting a month for it to be ready I pestered him for it. That isn’t a good idea with Max as he then rushed the job through so the result was an overbored platter with the slack taken up with sticky tape around the outside of the inverted bearing. The polyethylene material used reflected considerable energy back into the record which made for impressive dynamics but screwed up the timing, even with the trough damping the cartridge, so that went back in its box after a few weeks and the original plaster one went back on the deck. The bellows feet worked well after a bit of locktite on the studs where they went into the feet.
None of the belts I’ve bought for it in the last ten years has been any good, from Max or elsewhere. They’ve all taken a set after a bit of use and then being stopped on the pully for a while, which affects speed stability (most noticable with piano music).The belt is an O ring and the original supplier is no more apparently. I measured it and found a BS number for the size but nitrile seems to be the only available material in that size so I had no opportunity to try silicon rubber or neoprene to see if they worked better. Still I got 25 years out of it at around £50 a year if you factor in its two trips back to base and don’t count cartridges or arms. The Rock is now retired in favour of a Frank Schroeder design that uses 1/4” tape for a belt but I won’t be selling the Rock.
A bit adrift from the Naim theme but I think we’ve done that to death by now.
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That really is a horror story isn't it? I could reel off similar tales about the treatment I've had from Linn dealers too over the years. I don't have an LP12 in the main system anymore, but I couldn't quite persuade myself to get rid, so it resides in the spare system now. It's probably worth repeating too, that many of us here are JV era Naim fans. Whilst I wish no harm to the current company, they have gone too far in the lifestyle direction for my tastes (and a bit too expensive too)!
 
I have to admit these horror stories along with a fair bit of personal experience with dealers etc is one reason why I’m now so firmly entrenched in the world of tried and tested classic audio. The Xerxes experience amongst other things put me right off untested flavour of the month stuff (I’ve little if any interest in current audio!), as did the stories I heard/directly experienced relating to badly made ‘80s cottage industry electronics. I’ve seen good speakers utterly destroyed by some stuff due to inherent bad design/instability etc. As such I’m now only interested in really nice examples of tried and tested classics, and to bring this thread back on topic I would very definitely include Vereker-era Naim in that category (noting one does need to use the correct cables for real stability). I understand some of the early CD players are hard to keep running these days, but that seems the nature of that particular beast as even if a manufacturer has kept a sensible store of transports for future service requirements they can apparently ‘go off’ due to lubrications hardening, plastics ageing etc. Everyone is in the same boat there so it is no criticism.
 
venton said:
I think if you listened to Naim gear with various grades of external power supply you would hear a clear difference. Trouble is, it all gets very expensive and it's then a matter of how good your self control is. Certainly many Naim owners get carried away and spend way too much, and then end up regretting it. They sometimes become Naim haters because of this.
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I used to have a Naim ND5XS and XP5XS streamer pairing (that cost close to £4K) driving my Meridian DSP 7200s directly. I then went for a Meridian 218/AC200 combo with Roon as the source (total cost around £2K) after I discovered the XP5 power supply was mainly intended to feed the ND5's DAC which I wasn't using. The system now sounds a great deal nicer than it ever did before with greater detail and better, more controlled bass. The Naim gear was nicely made and did its job well enough but now I'm of the view that it's grossly overpriced for what it is.
 
Tony L said:
I understand some of the early CD players are hard to keep running these days, but that seems the nature of that particular beast as even if a manufacturer has kept a sensible store of transports for future service requirements they can apparently ‘go off’ due to lubrications hardening, plastics ageing etc. Everyone is in the same boat there so it is no criticism.
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On the contrary, the early players are the easiest to keep running. It's later models we have trouble with. The original CDI/1, 2, 3 and CDS all have tried and tested Philips transports that are almost bullet-proof. Although new spares are impossible to find these days there are thousands of equivalent players that have compatible chipsets, DACs and transports. The amps and pre-amps are also dead easy to maintain and repair.
 
wylton said:
That really is a horror story isn't it?
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It certainly is. If a car were so unreliable you would dump it and never darken the dealer's door again, but as it's hifi it's apparently acceptable. No wonder the industry is falling apart.
 
Forget the bollocks about having to use naim speaker cables. I have it from the Naim technical department ANY 79-strand cable is fine. Don't mess around spending £££hundreds on cable.....just buy Linn K20 at £5/metre, or pop to your local electrical wholesaler and get some 79 strand for bout £1.00/metre.
Most of the crap you hear centring around naim kit is perpetuated by 'naimees' who buy into this shite.
My supernait 2 is connected to my Ovator 400's via 79 strand cables I buried into the walls of my house when I built it!!
 
The tape annoyed me and has cost Townshend my future business.

The Naits (recent ones anyway) are reputedly more tolerant of speaker cable but try putting a high capacitance litz cable on one if you want to test their tolerance.
 
Litz cables are no more high or low capacitance than any other type... It's from litzendraht, meaning "stranded wire" in German. In electronics it means a stranded wire in which each strand is individually insulated. This helps to reduce skin effect and proximity effect.
 
Mullardman said:
:) I have absolutely no idea who Niles Crane is.. (I'll Google it later..), but I can't for the life of me imagine any scenario in which any intelligent person would want to emulate John Wayne.

Mull
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I'm beginning to wonder if this place is Frasier town without the wit :)
Embrace your inner Crane

I'm more Doug Heffernan :D
A classical night out would probably pan out something like this, 15 minutes 20 seconds in
​
 
kimbleman said:
Forget the bollocks about having to use naim speaker cables. I have it from the Naim technical department ANY 79-strand cable is fine. Don't mess around spending £££hundreds on cable.....just buy Linn K20 at £5/metre, or pop to your local electrical wholesaler and get some 79 strand for bout £1.00/metre.
Most of the crap you hear centring around naim kit is perpetuated by 'naimees' who buy into this shite.
My supernait 2 is connected to my Ovator 400's via 79 strand cables I buried into the walls of my house when I built it!!
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I still have the Naim product sheet that predates NAC-A4 in which they recommended RS 79 strand lightly twisted.
 
kimbleman said:
Forget the bollocks about having to use naim speaker cables.
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All I can say is that a Naim dealer was quite happy to sell me non-Naim loudspeaker cables for my Naim amps (Atlas Hyper Bi-Wire); no none is holding a gun to your head to buy NAC A5 and I for one, never liked it, I much preferred the old A4.
 
And Linn K20 is identical to the old naim naca4 but for five quid a metre. Just why the heck people want to spend £32/metre on naca5 just plain beats me.
As I said earlier it's just a load of bollocks Lol!
 
From my own experience, there's a great variation in effect from different speaker cables. I did have NAC A4 a long time ago and 79 strand before that. I currently have NAC A5 but no Naim amplification. I vaguely remember that the actual cores of the 5 were thicker than the 4, which would have, in theory, made a difference to performance, esp. in longer leads.

I find NAC A5 to be a pretty good all-rounder, as they suit my ESLs and valved amplification as well as previous m/coil speakers and Naim stuff. Just to think that back in the day, bell wire was an expected norm for a system; hard to believe nowadays.
 
The output stages of older Naim gear, olive and chrome bumper are affected by the speaker wire. Hence the recco to use a specific wire, anything later than Olive gear tends to be stable into a wide range of loads and doesn't need it.

It's not a myth, it's just largely outdated fact.
 
Mullardman said:
:) I have absolutely no idea who Niles Crane is.. (I'll Google it later..), but I can't for the life of me imagine any scenario in which any intelligent person would want to emulate John Wayne.

Mull
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Ronny Regan, he was a bloody awful cowboy actor (was a most definite cowboy president though)
 
sq225917 said:
The output stages of older Naim gear, olive and chrome bumper are affected by the speaker wire. Hence the recco to use a specific wire, anything later than Olive gear tends to be stable into a wide range of loads and doesn't need it.

It's not a myth, it's just largely outdated fact.
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Yes, but Naim didn't have their own loudspeaker cable in the early days, they just used RS 56 strand in Red and Black, loosely woven at specific intervals. A4 and then A5 came later.
 
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