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[WTD] WANTED: Naim SL2 Tweeters

I'm sure that's completely sarcastic but it does raise a very important point.

Genelec is a large company with an enormous share of the pro audio market and has been around for a very long time and probably will be for a long time to come.

A lot of "high end Hi Fi" manufacturers in reality are little more than a couple of blokes in sheds. I'm not at all sure I want to be investing heavily in expensive products from such manufacturers, or for that matter paying for artisanal manufacture as opposed to mass production.

Linn and Naim in that context are (or at least were) relatively large players yet still retained much of that artisanal approach until fairly recently (Linn less recently).

They are now "big business minded" which will be their undoing since there is no way they are ever going to compete with proper big businesses like Sony and Samsung.
 
colasblue said:
Naim have definitely got something very wrong.
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Oh not this shit again, why not just look at their accounts? They are free to view on Companies House... turnover and profit have grown for the last 6 years at least... maybe longer as I couldn't be bothered to go back any further. Your idea of what they should offer is not what the market wants. Sad old men like us who love lots of boxes and fiddly speakers are dying out, Naim are moving on... which is why they are still here and making money.
 
Well of course the accounts tell a story its called "selling out" and has happened to many HiFi brands over the years and is a very old record.

The founders of the brand sell out, a new owner trades on the name for a while making ever lower quality equipment until the brand loses all credibility.

By your argument they should stop making and selling Hi Fi entirely and go into a properly profitable business like making armaments!

The fact that some company's and their managements don't do that is actually what creates our hobby.

It's not all about profit. To some extent it's about art and the support of enjoyment of that art and I suspect that only one of us understands that!
 
Er, as pointed out they are properly profitable so why do they need to go into a different business? And in what way are they making lower quality equipment?

The real trouble is no matter how you try and spin it (and boy, you are trying… in more ways than one ;)) Naim are very successful… their product range just does not appeal to you or me now. The difference is I’m can accept that no longer targeting old men, who obsess over things like which pressing of DSOTM is the best at every opportunity, and instead chasing a younger demographic who have grown up in the on demand, digital world is totally sensible… you on the other hand…

No worries, I come across resistance to change and inability to see why it’s necessary all the time in my job… you’re not alone.
 
Ryan Air are also profitable as a result of a very similar philosophy, but few would argue that they're anything other than a total PoS of an airline and the only reason anybody travels with them is because they are cheap.

Naim certainly aren't cheap and you're completely correct that most of their current products either don't appeal to me or are so ridiculously overpriced that I would never even consider buying them any more than I'd consider a Vertu 'phone or a diamond dial Rolex. So yes I'm not their customer anymore. Exactly who is their customer these days? Almost certainly not the younger generation you propose I suspect. To the extent they have any sort of system it isn't likely to be made by Naim.

So how are they making money?? Ah yes Muso sales etc in places not traditionally Naim dealers such as John Lewis must be some element of it plus the increasingly diverse range of all in ones at places such as Sevenoaks. Lower but still reasonable quality "lifestyle" products and certainly far from their original core business.

What they're not doing is anything at all in the direction the typical audiophile is heading. I'll be delighted to see the back of my large and untidy pile of boxes provided equally good (or ideally rather better) sound comes out of my new and much more compact class D digital active monitors with self configuring room correction. I don't want an all in one streamer thingy that will cost a fortune and become obsolete as rapidly as the PC platform that constitutes its bones. I expect any DAC I own to based on the sate of the art chips from ESS or AKM or a proprietary technology such as the ones Chord, Mola Mola and DCS have developed.

This is the sort of stuff I'm interested in and there is certainly an expensive end to the available range of products. Thing is Naim just aren't in that market so how secure can their future be as a leading audiophile manufacturer?

What they've done is shift their focus away from their original customers who are now left feeling let down and unsupported (along with certain pieces of their equipment) in pursuit of different ones.

Yes of course that's business but I suspect there's a line of business Naim have missed out on here. It's not like I'm not buying anything new and expensive, I'm just not buying it from them!
 
The typical audiophile as we know it is a dying breed… why can you not grasp this? They are leaving that market to other manufacturers… that is up to them. I wish them well, their older products gave me decades of pleasure and because I am no longer their target customer doesn’t mean I am going to slate them with a tirade of baseless nonsense.
 
colasblue said:
Ryan Air are also profitable as a result of a very similar philosophy, but few would argue that they're anything other than a total PoS of an airline and the only reason anybody travels with them is because they are cheap.

Naim certainly aren't cheap and you're completely correct that most of their current products either don't appeal to me or are so ridiculously overpriced that I would never even consider buying them any more than I'd consider a Vertu 'phone or a diamond dial Rolex. So yes I'm not their customer anymore. Exactly who is their customer these days? Almost certainly not the younger generation you propose I suspect. To the extent they have any sort of system it isn't likely to be made by Naim.

So how are they making money?? Ah yes Muso sales etc in places not traditionally Naim dealers such as John Lewis must be some element of it plus the increasingly diverse range of all in ones at places such as Sevenoaks. Lower but still reasonable quality "lifestyle" products and certainly far from their original core business.

What they're not doing is anything at all in the direction the typical audiophile is heading. I'll be delighted to see the back of my large and untidy pile of boxes provided equally good (or ideally rather better) sound comes out of my new and much more compact class D digital active monitors with self configuring room correction. I don't want an all in one streamer thingy that will cost a fortune and become obsolete as rapidly as the PC platform that constitutes its bones. I expect any DAC I own to based on the sate of the art chips from ESS or AKM or a proprietary technology such as the ones Chord, Mola Mola and DCS have developed.

This is the sort of stuff I'm interested in and there is certainly an expensive end to the available range of products. Thing is Naim just aren't in that market so how secure can their future be as a leading audiophile manufacturer?

What they've done is shift their focus away from their original customers who are now left feeling let down and unsupported (along with certain pieces of their equipment) in pursuit of different ones.

Yes of course that's business but I suspect there's a line of business Naim have missed out on here. It's not like I'm not buying anything new and expensive, I'm just not buying it from them!
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You sound like a jilted lover!

Naim too have lost me as a future customer primarily on price but I fear you’ve it’s the plot that you’ve lost.

.sjb
 
Maybe I do but given that Linn and Naim virtually tried to make a religion out of their products it's hardly surprising there are more than a few like me is it?
 
I thinks it fair to say that the takeover by Focal and the expansion of production to Slovenia does indicate that Naim is likely to become a rather different company in the future. My crystal ball suggests that the Naim branding will in time fall by the wayside. What that means for the product line I have no idea, but if I worked in Salisbury I might be a bit concerned.
 
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