Naim anomalies!?


OK, so I am a Brit living here in Saint Louis and I love the better English Hi Fi stuff, but I do find some of the things that some of my compatriots do a little bit queer. I just purchased a Naim Uniti 2b all in one component from here on Audiogon. It's a lovely bit of kit, but has some very strange quirks. I wonder what what are other users experiences with Naim have been like and here are my issues which all centre around the speaker outputs. Firstly, they put in large letters on the back of the unit, WARNING: Do not replace supplied loud speaker plugs with individual 4mm plugs. The speaker plugs supplied, are a pretty fiddly tandem affair, that have to have the speaker cables soldered into them. I took them to (an established for 40 years) Hi Fi repair shop and none of their 4 technicians had ever seen anything like them. Furthermore they were reluctant to solder them, without me agreeing that they wouldn't be liable if the plastic cases melted during soldering. I called the Naim H.O. in England and they said that I could use any decent 4mm plugs but to be sure that they never touched (Doh!) I then asked why them why Naim put their right speaker outlets on the left side of the unit and the left side outlets on the right of the unit? Obviously, they are reverse of that when looking at the back, but not from the front. I told them that this seemed illogical because the speaker cables had to cross each other at the back of the unit. Nobody there that I spoke to, could explain why they'd done this. All a bit queer indeed! However, what a fabulous sounding unit it is. 
willsie

Showing 1 response by ivan_nosnibor

Many manufacturers might wish that people buy all their same brand for a complete system, even if most will choose to mix and match with other brands. But Naim always struck me as being different. Seems like they made an effort, more than any other brand, to encourage - or rather discourage - anyone from using their kit with other brands. Oh sure, a lot of that seemed to involve a deep marketing speak that centers around their very unique design and sound goals that (predictably) become cumulative the more Naim pieces you use. But, I mean it ultimately came right down to even connectivity issues that seem only to be "complicated" when trying to adapt their pieces to the industry standard that everybody else uses. Yeah, I suppose one could say that all that might make for a pathway that could be ’better suited’ (somehow...exactly how was never quite really explained to my own satisfaction) for their own particular goals of sound quality.

But all in all, I wound up passing on that kind of a potential headache, even though many folks were pleasantly surprised by the Naim sound. But, I could never quite rid myself of the notion that they were basically just trying rope people into more sales beyond the initial one.

But, still good-sounding kit by most accounts I ever saw.