New budget Naim.

[LesW]

Les,

Quite possibly, if the Statement amp were the only product Naim made, but I suspect Naim will continue to manufacture a few lower-end components.

Joe

Thanks Joe, I do see that coming although I do have reservations
that a multiple paralleled/bridged module configuration is the way
forward - as this particular product appears to employ.

Oh, it produces the power but my own investigations indicate that
bridged modules refuse to work together in close harmony and
that's perhaps the reason that the NAP500 with its bridged format,
doesn't audition as well as the conventionally configured NAP300.

I doubt whether any system is capable of using more than a fraction
of the rated power of this item so much of the expensive 'muscle' is
totally superfluous.

 

[Mike Reed]

.....I'll lay a pound to a pinch of snuff that there is no-one from PFM
either willing (OR INDEED ABLE) to stump up the kind of cash needed to buy
one of these.

In effect, Naim have priced themselves out of the market as far as PFM
members are concerned.

Q.E.D.

Gosh, Les. We're not all paupers on PFM, y'know. I've yet to have clarity in the pricing of the Statements. Is it $200 per monobloc, per pair or, indeed, for the complete amplification set? The latter scenario, although unlikely, would lend a different aspect to 'high end' pricing.

 

[Joe P]

Les,

I'm really of two minds on this product. On the one hand I'm glad to see that a UK-based audio company has been around for 40 years (and counting), that they have kept jobs in the UK, and that they are continuing to release products that sell, even if the upper end and statement products are much more than I would or could spend.

On the other hand, in a world where more than a billion subsist on about a dollar a day in the developing world and where many millions struggle in the developed world to feed their families, I find it obscene that income distributions have become so tiered that a market exists for $200k amplifiers.

FFS, $200k is what normal people in many parts of Canada spend on a home.

Joe

 

[Mike Reed]

.. The 552 in particular was somewhat short on performance given its price, although with a pit of jiggerypokery could be made into quite a fine preamp.

Not sure of your comparison here, Ron. It's certainly superior to the 52, but I agree that the price gap was and is substantial, as was the 500 when produced and now.

If Naim had kept it simple, without the silly (i.m.o.) mapping business, I guess it would have been cheaper, though I've no idea how much that added to R & D and production costs.

Wonder if the new S1 pre. has this feature.

 

[Suffolk Tony]

...and
that's perhaps the reason that the NAP500 with its bridged format,
doesn't audition as well as the conventionally configured NAP300.

Not in my experience, or that of many folks I know who also, like me, owned 300s and after home demos of 500s ended up buying the latter. For me the 500 was night-and-day better. I accept there are some who prefer the 300 but I really cannot imagine why.

 

[merlin]

Big thumbs up for Joe's post from me.

Tony. I see a problem for the youth being the nigh on impossiblity of their listening to the music at levels that show it off in the modern UK home. Either they are with their parents until their middle twenties or in a rabbit hutch somewhere.

 

[Joe P]

Mike,

I popped into my local audio shop yesterday afternoon and was rather surprised to see several young people -- male and female -- in the store buying audio kit. Headphones only, though it was nice to see someone walk out of the store with a set of AKG 701s instead of those cans with the red b's.

This seems to be where the kids are spending their spare cabbage these days.

Joe

 

[abbydog]

This is where its at, in my view

http://www.wooaudio.com/

Lots of similar companies have sprung up.

 

[Cav]

Most young people don't think about hi-fi and this has been true for ever. They listen to music in the most versatile and convenient and cheap way.

They would rather spend £1000 on a car and £2000 on insurance than spend even a fraction of that on music replay.

Hi-fi, as pictured through rose-tinted spectacles, has always been a niche market and always will be.

 

[Tony L]

Tony. I see a problem for the youth being the nigh on impossiblity of their listening to the music at levels that show it off in the modern UK home. Either they are with their parents until their middle twenties or in a rabbit hutch somewhere.

Has that really changed much / at all? I grew up in a typical semi and with parents who a) had hearing like a bloody bat, b) utterly detested the music I listened to (T. Rex, Hawkwind, punk / new-wave etc), and c) went to bed far earlier than I did when I was a teen. Even in that context I got great enjoyment out of a big old 50s Bush valve radiogram my grandparents had given me and later my first proper stereo (Lenco, Quad, JR149s) that I landed when I was 15. I've never really aspired to 'very loud' though, it was quality I was after right from the start - I just wanted to hear what was happening properly. Typical little computer speakers really wouldn't have done it for me. The old radiogram had a pair of 10" Celestion drivers in it so kicked out a nice big warm sound as I remember it.

The thing that amazes me is that things have gone so far in the direction they have. I just don't understand it. I'd have thought the truly amazing advances in source components (iPhones, iPods, computers, Spotify etc etc) would have made it all so much easier to the extent everyone would have a good system, e.g. all a kid needs now is a nice amp and speakers (or active speakers). They already have the source components. It should have been easy pickings for the audio industry as the whole complexity of arms, cartridges, alignment, tracking weight, turntable siting, record cleaning etc etc is no longer relevant to anyone but the true record collector.

 

[merlin]

I have to be honest. As I spend maybe nine months of the year travelling, and all I have is an iPod, some headphones and a car system, I really don't miss it much.

Sure it's nice to have. But there's an awful lot of other temptations out there and weren't around when we were teenagers.

For me the hifi industry needs to make better products, not ever more expensive ones.

 

[onlyconnect]

Making cost no object products has a research value. You make something fantastic and expensive, then see how you can get most of the performance at lesser cost.

Tim

 

[SteveG]

Mike,

I popped into my local audio shop yesterday afternoon and was rather surprised to see several young people -- male and female -- in the store buying audio kit. Headphones only, though it was nice to see someone walk out of the store with a set of AKG 701s instead of those cans with the red b's.

This seems to be where the kids are spending their spare cabbage these days.

Could be - my kids have decent hi-fi set-ups in their rooms but do a lot of listening on phones & iPods and definitely like decent headphones.

 

[abbydog]

It should have been easy pickings for the audio industry as the whole complexity of arms, cartridges, alignment, tracking weight, turntable siting, record cleaning etc etc is no longer relevant to anyone but the true record collector.

there is a parallel with the film/camera business here which is uncanny and doesn't bode well. 'ipod sonny. Yep, here is a dock so you can hear how crap it is through a £40k system'. Lots of people on this very forum pointed out the error that was being made at the time and more than a decade on its coming home to roost.

 

[abbydog]

Making cost no object products has a research value.

Its an amplifier, not a fusion reactor.

 

[S_J]

Its an amplifier, not a fusion reactor.

There speaks a man that has never designed his own amp before

 

[abbydog]

My last fusion reactor wasn't too clever, either

 

[Julf]

There speaks a man that has never designed his own amp before

There speaks a man that has never designed his own nuclear fusion reactor before

 

[abbydog]

Want me to have a go? No, scratch that idea....

 

[Robert]

Has that really changed much / at all? I grew up in a typical semi and with parents who a) had hearing like a bloody bat, b) utterly detested the music I listened to (T. Rex, Hawkwind, punk / new-wave etc), and c) went to bed far earlier than I did when I was a teen. Even in that context I got great enjoyment out of a big old 50s Bush valve radiogram my grandparents had given me and later my first proper stereo (Lenco, Quad, JR149s) that I landed when I was 15. I've never really aspired to 'very loud' though, it was quality I was after right from the start - I just wanted to hear what was happening properly. Typical little computer speakers really wouldn't have done it for me. The old radiogram had a pair of 10" Celestion drivers in it so kicked out a nice big warm sound as I remember it.

The thing that amazes me is that things have gone so far in the direction they have. I just don't understand it. I'd have thought the truly amazing advances in source components (iPhones, iPods, computers, Spotify etc etc) would have made it all so much easier to the extent everyone would have a good system, e.g. all a kid needs now is a nice amp and speakers (or active speakers). They already have the source components. It should have been easy pickings for the audio industry as the whole complexity of arms, cartridges, alignment, tracking weight, turntable siting, record cleaning etc etc is no longer relevant to anyone but the true record collector.

I agree that the source components are good enough - actually far more capable of getting closer to the studio output than the budget Sansui/Dual TT with rank bottom feeder AT cartridge, or cassette recorder could ever approach.

Perhaps it's us who've got it wrong?
Quite a lot of modern headphones sound very nice. Even something like the latest Apple earbuds are surprisingly good. So in some way a youngster with iPod and decent earphones is enjoying better sound today for £200 than we did in the 70s and 80s with budget hi-fi.

I agree the big change is 'speakers but I don't see it as a quality issue, more changing habits and fashion. Listening on phones is just the thing to do. No reason why it won't change again in a decade or two. It's gone hand in hand with ever shrinking audio kit - the ability to carry thousands of HQ albums in your pocket, and play it on something more capable than the equipment on which many of the recording were made, drives portability and miniaturisation in the transducer area too IMO.

But all these things are in constant flux. Nothing to be despondent about - habits and trends change