Mu-so

"Racal used to be third largest electronics in the UK" as stated by Wikipedia and now part of the French Thales group. Naim is also now French owned, Focal, and will be expected to make a contribution to the bottom line. Muso and the Mu-so Qb are well designed, lovely sounding products that are not dragging the Naim name anywhere near any gutter. They are not cheap, but certainly allow people who aspire to Naim's pricier products a reasonable entry level price and quality. 

Racal was subsumed to give the French open access to our defence industry, although we still have Vodafone as a very large British rump, as long as Focal do not mess with the Naim offerings the future should be reasonably positive. If you haven't listened to either the Muso or the Qb then please do so and hopefully you can appreciate the market space they ably fill .

Why do you think it's ruining the brand or are just worried that the point of entry and the means that it's not an exclusive club anymore ?

Naim still push the boundaries with their Engineering prowess, just look at the Statement products.

I think i'd rather see Naim diversify and make money they can then plough back into R&D. All the while attracting a different type of customer to the brand who may not normally have come across Naim and bringing new blood into an ageing customer base.

Sounds a good plan to me. 

IMHO 

100% James N,   I want any product I own to be around long term.  The stronger & more profitable Naim are in the marketplace the happier I am.  They are obviously ticking all the boxes as I see the move to high quality mass market as a positive sign & that they are not isolating themselves in "hifi" & what is rapidly becoming a niche market.  We need to keep in mind that getting excellent sound reproduction is no longer exclusive, & the SQ that is available these days for not much money we could only dream about not so long ago.

Quite right Mike - also i should have proof read my text before posting as a phone call interrupted my typing ... it should have said :-

Why do you think it's ruining the brand or are you just worried that the point of entry is lower and this means that it's not an exclusive club anymore ?  

To the OP - I would have thought the SuperUniti is itself a step towards diminishing the values of technical purism.  Cramming a digital source, DAC, pre-amp, power-amp, and power supply to all in one classic sized box, seems to be against the principles you claim to miss.  Works though, does it not?  Take that uniti-type approach to entry level, with a little more mainstream craved functionality (hate that word), and cram the speakers in the box as well, and there you are, it's a Muso.  And why not?  

Great though the Naim classics are, one thing to remember is that very few people, young and not-so-young included, know they exist.  There is little new blood joining us to enjoy the rewards of a more traditional hifi system.  Budget and enthusiasm for music seems to be irrelevant to a large degree, the problem is there are a large number of people who to believe a Bose, or Sonos system is 'like, the best you get'.  I've heard it said many times.  Actually, they're not very much like the best you can get, and neither is the Muso.  However, the Muso at least might surprise people with how well it performs vs what they intended to purchase, if the likes of John Lewis would promote it correctly.  That to me seems one of the best routes to drawing in some new blood that may well be owners of the classics in future.

I am sure I've read that the Muso outsold its forecast considerably, and that the majority of buyers had never heard of the brand.  I fail to see how no perception vs presumably positive perception via Muso, could be considered brand damage. 

So the outlet defines the quality of the product? How.. odd

Perfectly put SONGSTREAM, couldn't agree more. 

JMTENNAPEL - not sure I get your drift. Yes when you go to sell your products through a high(er) volume, non-specialist, non-tied retailer you are reliant on less knowledgable sales staff. In this situation it is necessary to agree some selling standards to be adopted by customer facing staff in those stores and therefore a need to implement some in-store training of sales staff. Easier said than done, but it needs to happen to exploit this channel to meet the sales potential it offers. This I think will be the main challenge Naim will face because sales staff will have to demonstrate the superior SQ the Mu-so and Mu-so Qb offers over the competition in order to combat the lack of brand awareness Naim has in this new route to market.

Businesses that fail to diversify and adapt to changing markets rarely survive. There is no sign that Naim have stopped developing their classic products since the arrival of the Muso, so what's the problem?