Is Naim dying?

I have, and more than one ! Of two kinds: the ones who don't even notice the quality, and the others who do but couldn't care less. Very disconcerting.

Everything has become samey, you only have to look at the gaming industry or the film industry or even fashion. No one is coming up with anything new regarding the source material, therefore people care less than they did about the quality of the carrier......

When was the last time a new musical movement happened? 

The mid- nineties is the last time I checked...

It's the same with everything, it has become less exciting. Forgive me if i'm coming over as negative here but you have to factor these things in.

Ok, one more - When was the last time you saw a new model car that really stood out from the crowd?

You could go on and on....therefore people care less and look for other things to spend their hard earned cash on or not?

I'm taiking about going forward not back.

regards,

Steve

You are of course correct, and I should have qualified my statement. I was thinking of family, friends, and friends of friends that I've met and actually spent time with over the years. Those are really the only folks with whom I have had a chance to sit down and listen (other than some kind strangers I've met in music and/or audio stores).  So yes, my comments apply to people who already have some natural appreciation of music, and are by their nature discriminating. There are, of course, lots of people for whom music (and the other arts) have no place in their lives. I feel sorry for many of them, as they are often in very difficult situations. But it is too true that the world is also filled with lots of ignorant, cold-blooded philistines. I just try my best to ignore them!

That really is one of the real "problems" for HiFi.  Technology creates new products / markets every day.  So many choices for disposable income.  As a man in his 40's, when I was a teen there were only two choices 1. Car 2. Music.  Today kids have computers, iPhones, video games, iPads etc.

A lot of the joy of craft, engineering and design has gone. In hi-fi as in many things. The blandness of modern cars is a good example.

Take SBL's, what more recent speakers inspire like these in form, placement and construction? None.

If you look at the iconic Naim products - 72, 52, 250 and SBL's - there is really nothing to touch them since. I am sorry but no-one is going to remember a hard-disk server or network player in the same light. These things will be in landfill whilst the former are lovingly maintained.

This is why I feel Naim need to sort out the pre-amps - to keep the mojo alive. For others and myself, Naim has completely lost its mojo. The Statement and Muso embody this.

Probably nobody will care about these "iconic" products 40 years from now.  I believe people covet things that connect them to their past.

The range from the Nait 5i to the 552 is far batter than what was replaced.

One would have to be a hairy shirt person to want to go through the SBL experience given the choice of better and sometimes newer speakers, including the excellent Ovator S400s. No charisma, but only great musical quality.

Remember that charisma is a cover for a lack of fundamental personality - it is pure surface charm, with no guts to support it. If charisma is why you like a person or something, then examine deeply your reason doing so. Apply a bit of skeptical critical thinking ...

Real greatness is never the cohort of charisma. Real greatness is never comfortable to be round. It is not inherent;y attractive at first. Real greatness asks too many questions to ever be comfortable with. It makes you question yourself. Naim has that effect, but one learns to be humble in the face of it. Music first and all that. It can be an uncomfortable journey that is partly painfully and abruptly honest ...

ATB from George

Yup, this i think is not naim's (amongs't others) fault because it would be very unfair to shoot the messenger. Thank god naim are still producing amazing products for us all to purchase but it must be becoming increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd.

I remember (without trying to sound like a fuddy duddy) when you really felt like you had a real choice, now it seems, to me anyway, that you only have the illusion of choice.

It;s fantastic that Naim are still here and if they are still growing, even better for all us music lovers but you get my drift....

God in the Quad

There was a young man who said "God
Must find it exceedingly odd
To think that the tree
Should continue to be
When there's no one about in the quad."

Sometimes Esse est Esse - despite the limitations of your perception.

Music and hifi is not dying.. how we listen to it and what is new and creative is evolving as it always has done.. After all me and my family don't all sing around the piano that often now..

.it does make me smile and perhaps feel a little saddened when people say there is no new good music anymore ... Just like many in every older generation has done for decades past.

if you go searching beyond the commercial haze of mediocrity in music, and having a teenage son who loves his music helps.. There are great artists who are contemporary and refreshingly different.. They create music that feels relevant to today's zeitgeist... You could call it a new movement.. But that sounds a little too much like the record label marketing machine to me..

Great new artists/collaborations I have discovered through my teenage son include:

Madvillain

King Kruel

J Dilla

The Streets

fantastic, new and often thought provoking music .. And you won' hear too much of this on Radio 1 let alone Radio 3! (Edit but perhaps Radio 6)

Music  and the ability to appreciate it well is alive and well.. Our habits on how we listen and what we listen to are changing.. It's becoming less centralised and controlled which is good in my opinion..and if Naim evolves like I believe it is at the edges.. It will survive to service this demand..

Simon

Mmm.. Syncretism.

Syncretism .. Like it.. Not very catchy though.. Although I think it's more J Dilla and DJ Krush rather than the others I list.

But yes the current zeitgeist includes in part cultural fusion and the challenges of self identity within that .. And so could be a good label.. If you need or want need labels of course.. 

Simon

I'm sorry about this, I'll try to be more active in the future  

Seriously speaking, the epidemi of our days, we want more out of nothing. Not satisfied, alot of comments on "I want a smaller setup or fewer boxes", but not willing to compromize.

Don't blame Naim, take a look in the mirror 

Hmmm....just checked and my 12" of Lost and Found by DJ Krush / DJ Shadow is 20 years old so hardly new music. Neither was it refreshingly different. It was good at the time but derivative. Also sanitised versus something like Fear of a Black Planet.

As for The Streets. To mention this in the same breath as Stevie Wonder is wrong - no matter what your personal taste. One is a supremely talented musician with few equals who came out of a period of huge social change in the US and the other is pedestrian middle class witterings / witticisms about the tough streets of some leafy UK suburb.

To characterise this as new underground music 'beyond the commercial haze' suggests being quite out of touch.

Alternatively, one might simply want a boundary placement option.

This thread has lost it's magic, the OP has not responded to any postings. It seems like Harry was right to mention the word "narcissism", look at me I'm 'disappointed', no-one has flashed their lights at me, no secret handshake etc. etc.

If you feel the same way as the OP fair enough, good for you. If you don't, better for you! Now cheer up please. I'm off to a Donkey festival, when I get back I'll put some lovely music on one of my Naim systems (none of which are proper hifi anyway), maybe "L'Apocalypes des Animaux". 

Forcing people to use N-Stream with new products is a commercial decision. It is about creating an ecosystem [sic]. That is all. People who would now defend it are the same people who have endlessly moaned about it - when will we have the Android version, when will it story my favourites liks this etc.

All I am saying is that the inclusion of the streamer module and software in so many new products has to me not offered the value and modularity of previous products. When I look at the attitude to new and previous products in general it suggests I am not the only one who sees it like this.

People have on here been stressing with validity on whether their streamer will be able to cope with new streaming software when it is released. Meanwhile new cards stil get developed for 20 year old pre-amps. The difference is stark.

DJ Krush wasn't in my original list from my son..but could belong to the label of cultural fusion that Steve eluded to.. My son doesn't really care for DJ Krush.. Not sure why.. I think he is great

Perhaps my son and others in Suffolk are a little out of touch living in a Suffolk back water rather than in some heady urban conurbation/vast suburb I couldn't really careless.. It's not a competition .... But my point is that this music is relevant, new and evolving for the people that enjoy it, listen to it... and make and add to It.

No marketing contrived counter culture / underground culture what not here.. Just honest new and alive music.. Really refreshing and we are loving it. 

And one of my friends sons (who does like DJ Krush)  is now recording and self publishing his music which I would label as Dub/Trip Hop.. He is also from Suffolk, but has sold some of his music around the world... Back water or not contemporary music is alive in Suffolk

Mark you lost me.. I don't understand your labels chap.. What's your question? .. And yes they are my words I think there is a lot of bland mediocre commercial music that my daughter listens to probably more as background music and she is fed up of me going on about emotionally cold and unconnected it leaves me. 

i like the fusion of styles and cultures myself, and I have also recorded my own music fusing Arabic and European styles and beats . perhaps not uniquely original in concept.. but I like those styles.. Out of the music I like that my son listens to, I do enjoy the music that fuses or brings together different themes and styles.. But hasn't music nearly always done that? Borrow styles and themes and evolve..

what about you, what new music and styles do you enjoy?

+1

Willy.

An interesting discussion this, reminds me of those I had with my dad in the 80's when he was raving about groups from the 60's and I was listening to Led Zep and Rush.  Times move on and it appears to be human nature that when they do we default to the position that our times, and our music, and our hifi, was better than they have now.  Truth is, for music, its just different, things have changed but there have been loads of 'movements' over the years its just that most of us on here don't appreciate rave music or trance or rap or whatever it might be as 'good' music or as a movement - I doubt if today's teenagers, who are probably all streaming their music directly from the net care.  As for Naim, many year ago when I was first into hifi I didn't like Naim, the sound was too coloured, its was too niche, looked like something my dad had made in his shed and was damned expensive. I was streaming music and videa in the 90s via Pinnacle and into my AV system - its only recently with the UQ that I've seen a product that delivers music how I want it and at reasonable quality and that has what has made me a Naim customer and I'm sure I will spend lots of money with them over the coming years.  Times move on and Naim's offer appears to be moving with the times which is a good thing overwise many of you would not only be wallowing in nostalgia about its fine old products but also looking back at what a fine old company it was.  Its not the fittest that survive in business but those most able to adapt to change. 

I wonder if we shall see Naim going into headphone / IEM market. That would be interesting and picking up on how many are listeingn to recorded music now? Perhaps the association with Focal R&D might help..

Simon

+1 Absolutely - but quality does still matter to some like it always did. Those teenagers I know - including my son - who love music and follow it, create it etc - then lossless downloads or CDs (and even vinyl!!) still feature. For those where the music is disposable and perhaps largely wallpaper or here today / forgotten tomorrow  music - then lossy appears more than adequate.

Did we not have this 35 years ago. Singles sounded decidedly average and were largely disposable - albums sounded hugely better but were expensive - and you only bought an album if you more fervently followed a band / genre or really wanted the better quality. Otherwise it was WHSmith C90 cassette copy - the mp3 illegal download of its day.

And remembering my friends and neighbours in a reasonably well-to-do suburban area in north Hertfordshire 35 years ago  - I would say only about 1 in 20 had a 'descent' hifi system - everyone else was music centre or 'Ghetto Blaster'. Again is that so different now?

Simon

It is a requirement that as one ages one turns into one’s parents and does not like the current crop of seemingly banal, characterless music, packaged into minimum talent cash generating drones. That’s a given.

But there has been another fundamental change.  Production quality has plummeted. It’s now the done thing to dynamically compress, even to audible distortion, so that music turns into a brick wall of sound effects in which nothing is loud because it’s all loud. That wasn’t happening in the 60s, 70s and 80s. Sound quality and the means of exploiting it was improving by the month.

People have always listened on poor quality portable devices and from Walkman days on, fed poor quality material in. That hasn’t changed. In fact something like an iPod could only be dreamed of for sound quality in the 70s. For what it is, it does very well indeed.

However, the serious end, generally and mostly, is now served by crap quality – as in production quality, not musical taste.  Happily there is an almost infinite source of back catalogue magic to dip into on a variety of formats. Just avoid remasters whenever possible. The day might dawn when so much stuff from the 50s on has been ruined by spicy remastering that stuff now selling for pennies becomes considerably more valuable. It should IMO.