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Naim Solstice officially unveiled . . .

Tony L said:
I (and therefore pfm) really can’t get involved with hearsay from ex-dealers etc, that is of zero interest to me. It is clear Naim under its current ownership has adapted to new markets and decided how it wishes to compete. I have no issue with that, nothing stays still. Every business has the right to define how it designs and sells its products. Some things will appeal to me, other things won’t and it has nothing to do with being able to afford a product or not. I’m personally far more interested in design concepts, performance, build quality, long-term reliability, serviceability etc. I see nothing to hate about the new Naim deck, it looks nicely made and should have a long service life. The stuff I detest is all the cheap plastic landfill crap at the other end of the market that works badly for a couple of months and then ends up in toxic landfill of finds its way out to choke a sea turtle or whatever. I can’t see any Naim Solstice ending up there so I’m completely chilled out about its existence.

I still don’t understand why this is such a long thread. I guess it is kind of interesting that Naim eventually made a turntable, but I’m not sure it is a hugely interesting turntable. I really want to see a full tear-down at some point to better understand the design and underlying thinking. I guess pretty much everything that can be done has already been done when it comes to turntable design, but I still find say Rega really interesting as they are chipping away at uncharted territory with regards to removing mass, using composite materials etc. The rest of the market tends to be ‘more money buys more mass’ and I am far from convinced by that as a concept.

If I were to list the truly great turntables my list would look something like; Garrard 301, Thorens TD-124, EMT 930, AR XA, Transcriptors Reference, Linn LP12*, Rega Planar 3, Technics SP-10, Trio L-07D, Roksan Xerxes**, Pink Triangle, Platine Verdier, Well Tempered, Nottingham Analogue Spacedeck, Rega Naiad and many more. I could justify all of these with a good few paragraphs detailing genuinely original thinking.

*I accept the LP12 is evolution of the existing rather than new thinking, but it can’t not be in the list!
** I know it had all the build quality of a £20 MFI bedside table, but there was some genuinely original thinking in the Xerxes, e.g. the motor on a pivot & spring. It deserves to be in the list.
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Your first paragraph reminded me of this, Tony... (yes, it's a Thorens Prestige, likely too big to choke a turtle though)

rkpres_2.jpg
 
Tony L said:
Good grief, how did that get like that? Fire, earthquake or something I guess.
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My mistake, it is a Thorens Prestige, not Reference.

Apparently, it came with the contents of the old Thorens factory, a discarded test bed unit for electronics development, recovered (and restored) by Rolf Kelch. Story here...
 
Tony L said:
Great that someone brought it back to life! Nice restoration.
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Here is the Thorens Reference restoration project that I had confused with the Prestige one. Apparently, this had been found in a cellar and brought to Mr. Kelch for service.

There has never been another turntable that comes even close to this level of build quality.


P.S. I like this quote..."If you turn it by hand to speed, it turns for a cigarette length."
 
Naim should have made a turntable a long time ago. It was ludicrous that they continued supporting Linn, with the Armageddon, which was made especially for the LP12 & the Aro, which was made especially for the Troika , long after Linn had lost interest in the previous arrangement between the two companies. So the Solstice is an about time product, but I would like to see it turn into some spinoff projects, with the new Aro & cartridge being made available as separate items & maybe a scaled down turntable too.
 
wylton said:
Naim should have made a turntable a long time ago. It was ludicrous that they continued supporting Linn, with the Armageddon, which was made especially for the LP12 & the Aro, which was made especially for the Troika , long after Linn had lost interest in the previous arrangement between the two companies. So the Solstice is an about time product, but I would like to see it turn into some spinoff projects, with the new Aro & cartridge being made available as separate items & maybe a scaled down turntable too.
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Like the way the original CDS or 52 gave rise to the more affordable CDi or 82?
 
Nye Samuel said:
Like the way the original CDS or 52 gave rise to the more affordable CDi or 82?
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Yes, sort of. I have a genuine interest in cost effective engineering solutions from cost no object development equipment. The Solstice isn't astronomically priced by any means, but Naim have a real opportunity here to produce a turntable that is competitively priced & I'm sure that they would fly off the shelves.
 
wylton said:
Naim have a real opportunity here to produce a turntable that is competitively priced & I'm sure that they would fly off the shelves.
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Just had a look at their website. I notice their £2.2k Nait XS3 has a MM phono stage built in, so I guess there is an option for a deck in that general ballpark. Why it has a 470pf capacitance is utterly beyond me given that would be a mismatch with the now usual ATs, Ortofons etc (which need to see 150-200pf or so total including the arm lead!).

PS It appears that they no longer make any speakers at all (I really don’t live in the modern audio world!). Is the assumption they’ll be sold as a system with Focal?
 
DuncanF said:
Seriously? What is this snippet trying to say about the deck ... in English? This may be the reason I gave up reading the mags years ago. ;)
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Ok, well. Its written with some humour - you are supposed to smile and perhaps say 'ha!' He's also trying to convey to you (through said humour) that the deck is especially good at eliciting an emotional response to the music being played.
I like reading things like that where I'm encouraged to use my imagination and to share the writer's enjoyment. The poncho and cheroot thing was amusing. I'm sorry you didn't understand it.
 
Tony L said:
Just had a look at their website. I notice their £2.2k Nait XS3 has a MM phono stage built in, so I guess there is an option for a deck in that general ballpark. Why it has a 470pf capacitance is utterly beyond me given that would be a mismatch with the now usual ATs, Ortofons etc (which need to see 150-200pf or so total including the arm lead!).

PS It appears that they no longer make any speakers at all (I really don’t live in the modern audio world!). Is the assumption they’ll be sold as a system with Focal?
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Depends on the dealer. Mine carries Naim, but not Focal.
 
Darren said:
Ok, well. Its written with some humour - you are supposed to smile and perhaps say 'ha!' He's also trying to convey to you (through said humour) that the deck is especially good at eliciting an emotional response to the music being played.
I like reading things like that where I'm encouraged to use my imagination and to share the writer's enjoyment. The poncho and cheroot thing was amusing. I'm sorry you didn't understand it.
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Perhaps he did ..just his interpretation and conclusions was different to yours?
 
Tony L said:
Is the assumption they’ll be sold as a system with Focal?
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Yes, pretty much; there was no way that that were going to be allowed to compete with Focal in the loudspeaker sector. With respect to what brands dealers hold, it reminds me of way back when Linn tried to force their dealers to stock the entire line rather than just the LP12, which is all most of them wanted. A lot of dealers lost the Linn dealership and a substantial number of them closed as a result. I don't know what Naim's position is, wrt to their dealers stocking Focal, but it would seem that they are more relaxed on it than Linn.
 
wylton said:
With respect to what brands dealers hold, it reminds me of way back when Linn tried to force their dealers to stock the entire line rather than just the LP12, which is all most of them wanted. A lot of dealers lost the Linn dealership and a substantial number of them closed as a result.
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My guess is that those dealers were not useful to Linn and likely used the LP12 to lure in customers and sell against.
 
John said:
My guess is that those dealers were not useful to Linn and likely used the LP12 to lure in customers and sell against.
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As I remember it, at that time Linn were allegedly attempting to force dealers to only dem Linn against Linn, via their then range of (three) record decks, amps, and loudspeakers.

Rumours abounded that there were contractual arrangements made as enforcement.

I suspect that more dealers dumped Linn than the other way round.
 
Pardon me if this has already been mentioned, but there was also a bit of related regional industry news recently. Focal Naim North America is now the distributor for Thorens. As the new TT-124 DD package comes in at $14K, it may prove an interesting comparison to the Solstice.

Wonder what my Naim dealer would offer for a fully restored TD-124 Mk 1 on a trade-in for the DD? :)
 
I was using Audio Venue, Crystal Palace & they didn't last long after they lost the Linn Dealership. Similarly Studio 99, which I used for years.
 
Craig B said:
As I remember it, at that time Linn were allegedly attempting to force dealers to only dem Linn against Linn, via their then range of (three) record decks, amps, and loudspeakers.

Rumours abounded that there were contractual arrangements made as enforcement.

I suspect that more dealers dumped Linn than the other way round.
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It's a bit exaggerated, but....something like that.
 
Did you hear about the Linn dealer who sold lots of Linn kit and supported much of the product range who lost their Linn dealership?

Me neither...
 
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