Naim CES announcement?

My dream is to have a house built to my requirements. Unfortunately funding has precluded to date, and will continue to do so unless I win the lottery, but in that event a key requirement would be engaging the services of an architect who understands the acoustic needs of decent HiFi. Not something I'd thought about until now, but a key qualification would be the architect having designed their own listening room demonstrably sounding brilliant!

I use my muso most days. Most excellent piece of kit. 

Innocent Bystander posted:

My dream is to have a house built to my requirements. Unfortunately funding has precluded to date, and will continue to do so unless I win the lottery, but in that event a key requirement would be engaging the services of an architect who understands the acoustic needs of decent HiFi. Not something I'd thought about until now, but a key qualification would be the architect having designed their own listening room demonstrably sounding brilliant!

I have a client!...when you win the lottery give me a call IB.

G

For anyone designing a listening room, the relevant BS/ISO/IEC specifications are worth a read.

BS 6840-13:1998, IEC 60268-13:1998

Innocent Bystander posted:

My experience of architects is they are interested in the visual, not the aural, and whilst in the TV Programmes I've seen showing expensive property developments cinema rooms abound, HiFi tends to feature very little, and where it appears at all the emphasis visually seems to be on minimalism, in terms of visual impact.  And many have very obviously 'echoey' with no view to acoustic treatment.

It'll be interesting to see if Don's distilled 'market knowledge' accords with this.

Oh !, I'm not suggesting that anybody on here will like their suggestions. Good grief - whatever made you think that ?

In fact I was gob-smacked and appalled at the recommendations of my student and I have no doubt whatsoever that I shall be equally appalled at what my daughter tells me people want in their home entertainment systems.

For sure it won't be Naim or their Statement. It simply isn't expensive enough ! I mean, if you cough up for a £10m extension you ain't gona skimp on a £200k stereo system that doesn't play movies or Sonos for Christ's sake, are you ? Even Dave Dever pointed out last week that Naim's Statement isn't expensive enough for many people in the USA !

Who said there had to be any correlation between expensive hifi and common sense ?

jon honeyball posted:

For anyone designing a listening room, the relevant BS/ISO/IEC specifications are worth a read.

BS 6840-13:1998, IEC 60268-13:1998

Not having free access to British Standards I can't easily study that, however this  paper makes interesting reading:  www.gearslutz.com/board/attach...ssible-roomsizer.pdf.  But these approaches appear to be limited to rooms with parallel surfaces, whereas my perception is that non-parallel would be better, so a sloping ceiling and walls not at right angles to one another. And of course in real life it may be desirable to incorporate an acoustically challenging large expanse of glass for a pleasant outlook. But I think this is straying somewhat too far off topic.

Innocent Bystander posted:

jon honeyball posted:

For anyone designing a listening room, the relevant BS/ISO/IEC specifications are worth a read.

BS 6840-13:1998, IEC 60268-13:1998

Not having free access to British Standards I can't easily study that, however this  paper makes interesting reading:  www.gearslutz.com/board/attach...ssible-roomsizer.pdf.  But these approaches appear to be limited to rooms with parallel surfaces, whereas my perception is that non-parallel would be better, so a sloping ceiling and walls not at right angles to one another. And of course in real life it may be desirable to incorporate an acoustically challenging large expanse of glass for a pleasant outlook. But I think this is straying somewhat too far off topic.

 

If you're interested in rooms with non parallel surfaces and some glass you might enjoy looking at northward acoustics webpage and gallery. They specialise in such rooms for extremely high quality mastering studios. aiui, if you had a choice about an ideal room for audio it would not have any (remotely) parallel surfaces. 

Another point to bear in mind is that in 1987 as a junior civil servant I could afford to buy a house (jointly with a friend) in Reading, aged 25. 

Very little chance of that these days - if you're in your 30's trying to buy your own home and start a family, god help you. Having £3k to spend on a frippery like an NDX is pure fantasy. 

So the Mu-so is not only a brilliant product at it's price point, it is also commercially very astute. 

Olly

I think that's a rather good point Olly.

Olly posted:

Another point to bear in mind is that in 1987 as a junior civil servant I could afford to buy a house (jointly with a friend) in Reading, aged 25. 

Very little chance of that these days - if you're in your 30's trying to buy your own home and start a family, god help you. Having £3k to spend on a frippery like an NDX is pure fantasy. 

So the Mu-so is not only a brilliant product at it's price point, it is also commercially very astute. 

Olly

We bought our first house in 1986 when I was 25 and Hilary was 22. We had a joint income of £17,000 and our house in south London cost us £38,500 - a massive price at the time. But we did have an LP12, Ekos and Karma, a Naim 42.5, Hicap and 250, and Kans. An affordable house and a bloody good stereo. How times have changed. 

Olly posted:

Another point to bear in mind is that in 1987 as a junior civil servant I could afford to buy a house (jointly with a friend) in Reading, aged 25. 

Very little chance of that these days - if you're in your 30's trying to buy your own home and start a family, god help you. Having £3k to spend on a frippery like an NDX is pure fantasy. 

So the Mu-so is not only a brilliant product at it's price point, it is also commercially very astute. 

Olly

Yeah I've made a similar point about the number of home owners dropping year on year in in a different context (not having control of your mains). But I don't think that being able to buy a home is a prerequisite to purchasing an NDX. I don't see the relation at all. Yes houses price practically everyone out of the market - but not because people have less income - because houses are rediculously expensive now.

I had a full Linn system 20 years before I could even contemplate buying a home. Many others may feel they can never afford a house but, in comparison, a mid-high end Naim system is perfectly reasonable (and attainable) in their rented flat, especially in cities where car ownership and therefore related expense is dropping.

All this talk of Musos for the changing way people listen to music is a bit strange. Yep, fine product and captures new segment for Naim. But hifi has never been mainstream. The muso buyers of today are not the entry level hifi purchasers of 20 years ago.

I want NAIM to come out with a DAC in the $1500-$2000 USD price point: An updated V1 without the pre-amp/volume control BUT WITH the option for an add-on NAIM PS. Or a NAIM DAC with USB input the size/footprint of the V1. 

Yes would be nice to have a Naim car audio someday, but till then I am not exactly slumming it with my Chord Hugo plugged into my Aux input on the car stereo.

Why should Naim car audio be only for Bentley owners.  

A couple of responses to postings:

non parallel walls and ceilings are not the panacea you might think. having helped design at least one IEC spec listening room with a sloping ceiling, often all you end up with is unpleasantness rolling along the room, which in many ways can be worse than a static issue.

Why should naim car audio be only for bentley owners? Well, given Harman does a huge amount of the car hifi, both branded (including B&O in-car which they now own too) and unbranded R&D for manufacturers, I think we should be grateful that VW group still view Naim as being a niche for bentley level customers. And who knows what the contract is between Naim and VAG?