Are Naim Label Taking the P**S

Agree.

i would expect that Naim label operates as a totally seperate business unit to Naim hifi, for business reasons, so they would not expect to see the same linkage.

Are they extracting the urine?

probably, as in niche markets, the seller often relies on this enthusiast principle as a driver for their business model

On Qobuz it is indeed customary that when a high-res album becomes available of an album you bought in lower-res you can upgrade for the difference in price. Also all lower-res versons are also available for free (or included) when you buy a higher-res version.

I think that's a very neat way of handling it and should set an example to all download shops.

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Aleg

Firstly, may I stress how much we enjoy hearing from our customers. We are a small team, who deal with enquiries as personally as possible. Any problem large or small can be dealt by e-mailing info@naimlabel.com . We would always favour a resolution over complaint on a public forum. From the feedback we receive, I genuinely HOPE that for every unhappy customer, there are countless satisfied customers.

To Old To Rock – In regard to your initial frustration that albums you purchased at normal price were added a sale a few weeks later, this is simply incredibly bad luck I am afraid. I know how frustrating it can be when you walk into a shop and see the same thing you’ve just bought, in a sale! The sale runs for a specific, limited time and I hope you can appreciate that if we start crediting the difference for customers who already own these particular downloads either before or after, it becomes almost impossible to control – the sale would never end!

In general, I hope you can appreciate; it is very hard to make one rule for a customer without making them for another. I believe you’ve been supremely unlucky on the two occasions where you have chosen to purchase our music. AND so of course in this instance, I do believe it is possible to make exceptions.

I must apologise, I personally would have underwritten these problems myself, had I seen your recent complaints. Again, simply bad timing, as I have been out of the office with meetings and other members of staff have been dealing with incoming customer enquiries. I do - very much - value all the support of our forumites and returning audiophile customers and it pains me to see any negative feedback!

In regard to the Classical offer, if ANY customer has misinterpreted this offer and writes to us at info@naimlabel.com , we’d be happy to fulfil the offer of the Ltd Edition CD/HD Download. We will update the wording of this offer entirely and I am grateful to you for bringing this to my attention.

In regard to the new 24bit 192kHz selection of recordings. One particular problem, is that these albums are very competitively priced at £17.99 in order to entice new customers into the world of Super Hi Def. Most of our customers will have bought the previous 96kHz master at £16.99. Unfortunately, we are small label, the lines between success and failure as not as thick as our major counterparts. Add to that the high cost of running an HD store for our own material. Though data costs are coming down, hosting a catalogue in multitude of HD formats and providing pipelines large enough to download such large files as seamlessly as possible, is not as cheap as consumer cloud services would now lead you to believe. With this in mind, I hope you can see the potential of a theoretical £1 upgrade to receive a NEW totally different version of an album we’ve thrown a great deal of resource and time in order to totally remaster in order to satisfy our customers thirst for 192kHz, would require us to loss lead on the delivery cost (in addition to the royalties we must pay to songwriters) of an additional 2GB to 3GB file could, again, be challenging to control and potentially crippling.

HOWEVER, anybody who sees the post and feels consistently let down by our offering, should get in touch in order for us to find a resolution. I DO NOT want ANYBODY to leave disappointed.

I believe the Qobuz offering is great and I hope they succeed in the long term. Any service that promotes high quality music is a friend of mine. Though I believe customer experience is key, I do not believe it is a fair comparison to equate an independent record label store with a passion for quality with a new service, born of a behemoth investment that will need this kind of added customer experience to eventually become sustainable operation (which I do not believe it presently is). These new 192kHz masters, are not just a new version of old masters we’ve been holding back out of a greedy desire to sell it again at a higher price to the same people that already own it. These new products represent a years’ worth of experimentation, listening and re-transferring old tapes in real time before creating new remasters. We only did this when we felt confident that the process yielded the sonic results. So in a sense this is far from a matter of upgrading one format to another of the same recording.

I have been very mindful of the potential to alienate our existing customers with releasing remasters throughout the entire process. In a way, I am pleased you have raised this issue, so that you all know I am never far away should you have any problems!!!

I’d be happy to clarify any further points you’d like to raise on this issue guys.

Happy listening.

HI Simon,  Many thanks for the detailed reply which is much appeciated. 

My intention was not to post a complaint on the forum as such - I genuinely wanted to to know if others felt the same way as me or whether as I stated I was just being a grumpy old bloke out of step with everyone else. I am always prepared to admit I am wrong!!

I fully accept on reflection that allowing a move between one HD format and the other for 1 or 2 pounds makes no sense for you. However, I still feel there has to be some sort of a compromise which allows you to make a proper profit from the transaction but at the same time acknowledge that you regular customers are being asked to purchase the same album twice or in some cases 3 times. If say a 50 pct discount were made available it would perhaps tempt customers who would otherwise feel it not worth spending £18.00 on an album they already own. Perhaps making the regular price of Super Hi Def i little higher to completely new buyers to compensate.  I guess in the end time will tell. If you get the numbers repeat purchases you are hoping for the Super Hi Def then clearly your marketing strategy is sound. 

Either way Thanks to the production team for making more  Super HI Def recordings available I still marvel at the quality of 'Meet Me In London' every time i play it.

Tricky one this. The music you have originally bought is yours, but uniquely it has no 'resale' value. if I upgrade some HiFi kit I probably get a part-ex to soften the blow.

When I but a music download I agree to buy it in that format and that resolution at that time. if the two different formats were out at the same time I'd be able to choose (like the Linn site), however when the HD format comes later afterwards...I might be a bit miffed.

How about this? if I buy a Naim download I get a guarantee for a 25% reduction on a subsequent HD release of the same item. it may never happen, but if it does I'm more likely to upgrade, and maybe more likely to buy the original too.

Bruce

To Old To Rock, you aren't being a' grumpy old bloke' at all and are entitled to voice your views on the subject here! I am glad you did ultimately, so we can make sure we are prepared and equipped to keep our customers happy in the long term.

For future ref, if you encounter a potential disappointment like this, please do not hesitate to get in touch and I am sure we can find a solution with a unique discount code etc as you describe. That goes for all of you!

In a way, it is regretful for me that the likely tech support bill for implementing a sort of front end 'pay the difference' feature would be unsustainable. I am looking into it as we'll have more 192kHz in the future.

I don't feel we are sufficiently large, that we can't deal with your enquiry on a case by case basis. if it ever feels like this is not the case, remind me of this very thread! After all, where would we be without you guys?!

BTW all - Naim Edge Records is Amazon Label of the Month. It is only 320k MP3, but its a great taster of the new music we have been working on since this exciting sub-label launched five years ago. Please do download, give it a listen and spread the good word!

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/pro...amp;pf_rd_i=77197031

Some of the download prices seems a little excessive compared to the price of the CD.  For example the Ramon Ruiz and Anita La Maltesa (listed on the Naim label as "Alumni") CD Flamenco Havana is £4.99 whereas the CD quality download is £9.99.  Even the MP3 download at £6.99 is more than the CD.  I realise from Simon Drake's helpful comments above that there are costs involved with downloads that are not obvious and that these have to be taken into account.  However it does not seem to make sense to buy a download at twice the cost of a CD when both are of the same quality.  Of course deciding which version to buy lies with the customer.

Back To Vinyl...

Not sure how this plays?

How many versions of Abraxas and DSOTM have there been? I don't recollect there being a vinyl trade-in offer for these? Some artist(e)s have had royalties off me several times over.

Just imagine of you were the last person to buy, at full retail price, a non DR 552.