Mu-so Qb

tonym posted:

Naim is a business, and as such its directors have a statutory duty to ensure its success and profitability. It doesn't take much thought to realise they needed to expand away from their traditional markets if they were to fulfill this obligation.

...

I very much hope it took enough thought to ensure they have taken the right decisions. Expansion and growth do not necessarily imply higher revenues. Markets can get saturated very easily. But let's hope for the good, of course!

nbpf posted:

tonym posted:

Naim is a business, and as such its directors have a statutory duty to ensure its success and profitability. It doesn't take much thought to realise they needed to expand away from their traditional markets if they were to fulfill this obligation.

...

I very much hope it took enough thought to ensure they have taken the right decisions. Expansion and growth do not necessarily imply higher revenues. Markets can get saturated very easily. But let's hope for the good, of course!

Whether its a good move or a bad move, its similar to the way car brands are going.  Look at the range of Minis; Fiat 500s and Land Rover Range Rovers and Discoverys there are these days.  Like subdividing the range for branding purposes.

So we have the same with Naim ...

The only reason that the MuSo might cause Naim to fail is if people stop buying the higher end BECAUSE they resent the MuSo having the same branding.

Eloise posted:

nbpf posted:

tonym posted:

Naim is a business, and as such its directors have a statutory duty to ensure its success and profitability. It doesn't take much thought to realise they needed to expand away from their traditional markets if they were to fulfill this obligation.

...

I very much hope it took enough thought to ensure they have taken the right decisions. Expansion and growth do not necessarily imply higher revenues. Markets can get saturated very easily. But let's hope for the good, of course!

Whether its a good move or a bad move, its similar to the way car brands are going.  Look at the range of Minis; Fiat 500s and Land Rover Range Rovers and Discoverys there are these days.  Like subdividing the range for branding purposes.

So we have the same with Naim ...

The only reason that the MuSo might cause Naim to fail is if people stop buying the higher end BECAUSE they resent the MuSo having the same branding.

Eloise, my point is that I do not know whether it was a good or a bad move in economical or financial terms. Thus, from this point of view, I cannot judge it.

But I do know and care about exclusivity (in the sense explained above) and I believe Naim has lost part of its own long before coming out with the Mu-so range (please, see my first post in this thread).

I consider the firmware upgrade made available for the DACs in Dec. 2015 by Naim a very exclusive product. I felt previleged to be able to take advantage of Naim's knowledge and of the efforts of all beta testers. It was also very affordable.

I would certainly have preferred if Naim had announced a software that fits the needs of classical music listeners instead of the Mu-so Qb. I am sure that they could have sold it for about the same amount of money or even more.

But it might have required higher R&D costs and certainly would have been less popular than the Qb.

Fred, thanks for your reply, the next time you are in the UK visit naim, I will buy you lunch explain some of the reasons behind our thinking and introduce you to some of the many naim staff who care about music and audio.  You are welcome here along with valid questions and criticism but please keep it focused and don't insult the integrity of naim it's staff and the majority of forum members here who do listen, enjoy music and be respectful to the views and fellowship of forum members. Now where were we

We have a small house a main NAIM system. A year ago we bought a MuSo primarily for SWMBO, we have a spot in the bedroom and it connects to the upstairs network switch, all good very enjoyable but no replacement for main system. 

I'm not sure we would have bought MuSo if the Qb was available as it would (i guess) have done the same job but with a smaller footprint.

For the life of me I can't see how these products can do anything but enhance /secure NAIMs place in the shark pool.

Now that is what I call customer service......

Eloise posted:

The only reason that the MuSo might cause Naim to fail is if people stop buying the higher end BECAUSE they resent the MuSo having the same branding.

Apple was about to fail when they developed Newton which was both a great product and a commercial failure. They reached their highest market capitalization (so far) with the iPhone, one of their worst products. There are more things in heaven and earth ... who knows?

I am far from saying that Naim should focus on expensive gear and I have nothing against (and, in fact, much for) affordable devices as long as these are well engineered.

But I would prefer to see Naim focusing on flexible server concepts, customizable application-level software, better integration of services. This is the area where they are at risk to fall behind and where I would like to spend my money. Yet another kitchen device can also be built by other companies. 

Why is the iPhone one of Apple's worst products - surely it and the ipod turned the company around and led the market in smartphones for several years . They are also generally very effective devices - so on what basis are you thinking its one of their worst?

Simon

BigH47 posted:

For the life of me I can't see how these products can do anything but enhance /secure NAIMs place in the shark pool.

I can see that quite clearly, as explained in my previous posts. But let's wait and see. It would be interesting to know, at a certain point, how many Mu-so have been sold and how many of these have been sold to new Naim users.

nbpf posted:

basically unusable for classical music.

How so?

Since my work involves quite a lot of listening to classical music, to say the least(!), I have quite a lot of experience of using both ND- and Uniti series products for the purpose, and haven't found any problems with them when playing such content – at least since the early lack of gapless playback was resolved a good while back.

Yes, success in such playback is dependent on the ability of the UPnP streaming software used at the server end, but then that's the case with all kinds of music: some packages can create track order confusion and so on whatever the musical genre. But with the likes of MinimServer running on the storage, and a little care taken with tagging using freebie software such as Mp3tag, there are no problems at all, and indeed the Naim software/app works rather better than some I could mention in this respect.

nbpf posted:

Eloise posted:

nbpf posted:

tonym posted:

Naim is a business, and as such its directors have a statutory duty to ensure its success and profitability. It doesn't take much thought to realise they needed to expand away from their traditional markets if they were to fulfill this obligation.

...

I very much hope it took enough thought to ensure they have taken the right decisions. Expansion and growth do not necessarily imply higher revenues. Markets can get saturated very easily. But let's hope for the good, of course!

Whether its a good move or a bad move, its similar to the way car brands are going.  Look at the range of Minis; Fiat 500s and Land Rover Range Rovers and Discoverys there are these days.  Like subdividing the range for branding purposes.

So we have the same with Naim ...

The only reason that the MuSo might cause Naim to fail is if people stop buying the higher end BECAUSE they resent the MuSo having the same branding.

Eloise, my point is that I do not know whether it was a good or a bad move in economical or financial terms. Thus, from this point of view, I cannot judge it.

But I do know and care about exclusivity (in the sense explained above) and I believe Naim has lost part of its own long before coming out with the Mu-so range (please, see my first post in this thread).

I consider the firmware upgrade made available for the DACs in Dec. 2015 by Naim a very exclusive product. I felt previleged to be able to take advantage of Naim's knowledge and of the efforts of all beta testers. It was also very affordable.

I would certainly have preferred if Naim had announced a software that fits the needs of classical music listeners instead of the Mu-so Qb. I am sure that they could have sold it for about the same amount of money or even more.

But it might have required higher R&D costs and certainly would have been less popular than the Qb.

Well, clearly you've really no idea about how Naim operates as a business. It's really futile to try and judge Naim's business strategy because we lack the vital facts regarding their current sales data. Their decisions appear to have been very successful and given the feedback on the full-size Muso it's hardly surprising Naim have done the obvious thing and gone for a smaller version.

I listen to classical music on my system, and on my Muso. It sounds excellent. I really think you should stop this endless trolling nbpf, it does you no credit.

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Why is the iPhone one of Apple's worst products - surely it and the ipod turned the company around and led the market in smartphones for several years . They are also generally very effective devices - so on what basis are you thinking its one of their worst?

Simon

That's my personal assessment, of course. Both on the Newton and on the iPhone. The Newton was a truly innovative product. Handwriting recognition was not working properly but ... it was 20 years ago! The iPhone was a huge commercial success, as I have mentioned. But, otherwise, a terrible product. Innovation was mainly driven by restrictions. It was one of the first mobile phones that could not be used independently of another computer running iTunes. It was one of the first PDA devices that came without a file browser and, in fact, with an OS strictly limiting the access to the file system level and prohibiting the installation of a proper file browser. Transferring and playing .flac files (and, in fact, all sorts of files) to/on and iPhone is still poorly supported. X forwarding on ssh connections is not supported. Apple has crippled down essentially all basic OS functionalities and left the user at the mercy of iTunes or similar software. The iPhone's memory cannot be expanded via SD cards. The popularity of the device has contributed to creating huge areas of computer illiteracy and low expectations on software quality. Through the iPhone, it has become a common practice to throw at the market cheap apps with virtually no specification, no documentation, no support. The iPhone has virtually erased decades of progress in software development and organization. We meanwhile have to install one app for running ifconfig and another one for running ping. Do you want to trace the route to another host? Install a third app! Thank the iPhone, we have achieved insane levels of software fragmentation, duplication and constraining. With the iPhone, many original and innovative ideas that had made Apple so popular in the beginning have been completely lost or negated. File trasfer via drag and drop gestures was meant to be applyable seamlessly, no matter whether the storage was local or remote. With the iPhone, this idea has been negated: you cannot exchange files with your iPhone as you do with an external drive or with a NAS drive. For the iPhone, you have to use an iPhone specific protocol.

I am possibly a bit exaggerating but the point that I want to make is that commercial success has very little to do with the quality of products. Except, of course, if one measures quality in terms of commercial success!

Trevor asked me how many musos did I think they had sold in approx the first year. I gave a figure. He said it was four times that  I won't give the number because k don't know if it is public knowledge: paul Trevor or dougie will comment if they want it wisely known

four times more than I thought  

the intention is for qb to do at least the same amount again in 2016 on top  of the muso numbers  

tjese two products will do vastly more to bring new customers to the Naim brand looking to buy additional pieces (qute etc and upwards) than anything else that Naim can do. And incalculably more than the Luddites hereabouts

And if the Luddites want an excellent example of a niche brand let me just say the word Cello

nbpf posted:

Simon-in-Suffolk posted:

Why is the iPhone one of Apple's worst products - surely it and the ipod turned the company around and led the market in smartphones for several years . They are also generally very effective devices - so on what basis are you thinking its one of their worst?

Simon

That's my personal assessment, of course. Both on the Newton and on the iPhone. The Newton was a truly innovative product. Handwriting recognition was not working properly but ... it was 20 years ago! The iPhone was a huge commercial success, as I have mentioned. But, otherwise, a terrible product. Innovation was mainly driven by restrictions. It was one of the first mobile phones that could not be used independently of another computer running iTunes. It was one of the first PDA devices that came without a file browser and, in fact, with an OS strictly limiting the access to the file system level and prohibiting the installation of a proper file browser. Transferring and playing .flac files (and, in fact, all sorts of files) to/on and iPhone is still poorly supported. X forwarding on ssh connections is not supported. Apple has crippled down essentially all basic OS functionalities and left the user at the mercy of iTunes or similar software. The iPhone's memory cannot be expanded via SD cards. The popularity of the device has contributed to creating huge areas of computer illiteracy and low expectations on software quality. Through the iPhone, it has become a common practice to throw at the market cheap apps with virtually no specification, no documentation, no support. The iPhone has virtually erased decades of progress in software development and organization. We meanwhile have to install one app for running ifconfig and another one for running ping. Do you want to trace the route to another host? Install a third app! Thank the iPhone, we have achieved insane levels of software fragmentation, duplication and constraining. With the iPhone, many original and innovative ideas that had made Apple so popular in the beginning have been completely lost or negated. File trasfer via drag and drop gestures was meant to be applyable seamlessly, no matter whether the storage was local or remote. With the iPhone, this idea has been negated: you cannot exchange files with your iPhone as you do with an external drive or with a NAS drive. For the iPhone, you have to use an iPhone specific protocol.

I am possibly a bit exaggerating but the point that I want to make is that commercial success has very little to do with the quality of products. Except, of course, if one measures quality in terms of commercial success!

I don't even know where to start on a surgical dissection of this wholly misguided and ill informed rant about Apple. So I won't bother. 

Andrew Everard posted:

nbpf posted:

basically unusable for classical music.

How so?

Since my work involves quite a lot of listening to classical music, to say the least(!), I have quite a lot of experience of using both ND- and Uniti series products for the purpose, and haven't found any problems with them when playing such content – at least since the early lack of gapless playback was resolved a good while back.

Yes, success in such playback is dependent on the ability of the UPnP streaming software used at the server end, but then that's the case with all kinds of music: some packages can create track order confusion and so on whatever the musical genre. But with the likes of MinimServer running on the storage, and a little care taken with tagging using freebie software such as Mp3tag, there are no problems at all, and indeed the Naim software/app works rather better than some I could mention in this respect.

Andrew, no problems at all with (classical) music replay of course!

What I consider to be "basically unusable for classical music" is the software used to index and browse music collections.

I am aware of the fact that some limitations of this software are imposed by the UPnP. I also know that Naim's competitors are not doing better in this area.

But this does not imply that one should be content with the current situation or that Naim could not develop their own UPnP server to meet certain minimal quality standard.

Of course, for classical music (or, even more, for more specific domains in classical music, say, for instance, instrumental or vocal) one would need a system that supports custom tagging.

But even a simplistic browsing scheme like composer / work / interpretation would be a good starting point. I might be mistaken, of course, but my understanding is that the current Naim app does not support browsing a music collection according to this scheme. One can help oneself, of course. We can use hierarchies of symlinks to simulate unavailable filtering schemes. But, as mentioned, I would prefer if Naim would put more efforts in developing a more professional system for indexing and accessing musical contents. 

Best, nbpf

Before my son had an iPhone (4), I had seen no value in having a phone that was a (poor) camera and could do all sorts of things very awkwardly with horrible keys. He then proceeded to do all sorts of useful things, including running a free satnav app when we were in the car searching for something. I see no use whatsoever for a satnav 99.999% of the time so would never buy one, but a single small device that could do all that, and a tolerable camera for when I haven't got one with me, and I was sold on it ... and inherited it when he upgraded! And it can control the HiFi, too! 

Sorry, bit of a digression...

Innocent Bystander posted:

Before my son had an iPhone (4), I had seen no value in having a phone that was a (poor) camera and could do all sorts of things very awkwardly with horrible keys. He then proceeded to do all sorts of useful things, including running a free satnav app when we were in the car searching for something. I see no use whatsoever for a satnav 99.999% of the time so would never buy one, but a single small device that could do all that, and a tolerable camera for when I haven't got one with me, and I was sold on it ... and inherited it when he upgraded! And it can control the HiFi, too! 

Sorry, bit of a digression...

+1 I love my iPhone 4. A classic design.

G

nbpf posted:

rackkit posted:

fred40 posted:

Yes. But we have to face the fact that Naim is not a high-end brand anymore. The exclusivity is gone. Naim is becomming a Household name, a mainstream product.Like there are hundreds seen on the shelfs. Most Naimies seem to welcome this for whatever reason.

Why does it matter if they do become a household name? Does it affect your existing gear if your next door neighbour buys a Mu-so and few Mu-so Qbs to scatter around the house? 

I've scrimped and saved for years to own a 7 'high end' Naim black boxes, 2 pairs of speakers and subwoofer! I think it's great that they're now doing these all in one units as i've been after decent sound quality elsewhere in the house (Kitchen). Before the Mu-so Qb nothing they had would fit but this does. It doesn't threaten the rest of my gear but compliments it. 

I really don't see what the problem is here.

 

rackkit, I think that fred40 has in fact a very good point.

Of course, it does not affect me directly if my neighbours buy a Mu-so (although, now that I think about it, it coud in fact affect me quite badly: at the moment I can hardly hear them but, with a new toy in their kitchen, who knows ...)

But this is not the point. What is under discussion here is not whether the Muso range is going to be directly beneficial or detrimental to me or to you or to our neighbours.

What is under discussion is a decision, by Naim, to further develop a range of products which is well outside the focus that has, so far, shaped and informed the perception of Naim as a brand.

I think that it is legitimate to raise doubts as to whether this is a sensible decision. There are many examples of companies that, by expanding (or trying to expand) beyond their original focus and niche market, have lost part of their identity and appeal and eventually failed.

Another reason why the decision to further develop the Mu-so range could be criticized is that it could be seen to set false priorities. Naim is already struggling to properly support its original range of products, think for instance of the server family or of their software and firmware products. One could possibly argue that they had better invested time and resources in improving their core-market products.

I do not know whether it was a good or a bad idea for Naim to further develop the Mu-so range. The only interest that I have in a cheap streamer is for testing the Naim app. But I see good reasons for arguing against such decision.

Porsche were criticised in some quarters for entering the SUV market with the Cayenne years ago but the profits from the sales of it has led to even better sports cars (911, Cayman, Boxster). 

Naim aren't abandoning their core products  just like Porsche haven't.

I don't own a Porsche BTW... 

Innocent Bystander posted:

Before my son had an iPhone (4), I had seen no value in having a phone that was a (poor) camera and could do all sorts of things very awkwardly with horrible keys. He then proceeded to do all sorts of useful things, including running a free satnav app when we were in the car searching for something. I see no use whatsoever for a satnav 99.999% of the time so would never buy one, but a single small device that could do all that, and a tolerable camera for when I haven't got one with me, and I was sold on it ... and inherited it when he upgraded! And it can control the HiFi, too! 

Sorry, bit of a digression...

Agree, iPhone and iPad can be very handy and work very well as remote controls for music replay. With MPaD one can also browse the liner notes of the currently playing album which is very nice indeed.

jon honeyball posted:

Trevor asked me how many musos did I think they had sold in approx the first year. I gave a figure. He said it was four times that  I won't give the number because k don't know if it is public knowledge: paul Trevor or dougie will comment if they want it wisely known

four times more than I thought  

the intention is for qb to do at least the same amount again in 2016 on top  of the muso numbers  

tjese two products will do vastly more to bring new customers to the Naim brand looking to buy additional pieces (qute etc and upwards) than anything else that Naim can do. And incalculably more than the Luddites hereabouts

The QB now enters a highly-sought after portion of the CE market, one that excludes many niche manufacturers and accessory vendors whose commercial futures are very much in doubt. Though I'm not at the CES show this year, I do know first-hand that there are many manufacturers at the show who are desperately trying to raise product development briefs to catch up to the market, or, at the least, to stand their ground through another product change cycle until they can figure it out, while hoping to pay their bills somehow....

To Jon's point, the up-sell component of a successful entry-level all-in-one product (range!) cannot be dismissed as a sell-out - it's critical to survival, and the revenue allows a company to grow, develop new (and upgraded) products across all of its ranges, and to build (and sustain) a brand.

After the existing customer base is dead and gone (and it can be said that the separate-components user segment of the CE market is certainly aging), the brand, its ethos and expertise remain to develop class-leading products. That is all that one could ever ask for, after many industry years of one-hit wonders, buyouts of buyouts, and unsupported, orphaned technology products.

nbpf posted:

That's my personal assessment, of course...

And there was me thinking it is rather good and incredibly useful with some great apps (loads of dross though).  Perhaps the Apple iPhone and iPad are aimed at consumers who really don't need ipconfig, ping and traceroute on their phones.  My business is digital marketing plus the necessary IT support and I can't say that I've really missed these features on my phone.  However, if you want some really iffy software go and install Windows 10.

nbpf posted:

But I do know and care about exclusivity (in the sense explained above) and I believe Naim has lost part of its own long before coming out with the Mu-so range (please, see my first post in this thread).

I'm not sure how you consider exclusivity, but I have no care in how exclusive Naim is (by my definition of "exclusive").  I want a music playback system that brings me (and my visitors) joy and I can be proud of owning and if everyone else has a "Naim" system of whatever level I see that as all to the good.  From the demos I had I could certainly enthuse with friends about the MuSo and enjoy listening to it.

Now if the MuSo was a poor "speaker dock" for the money then that would dilute Naim's brand, but the MuSo is as exclusive amongst its competition as the Statement is because of their relative performance.

I consider the firmware upgrade made available for the DACs in Dec. 2015 by Naim a very exclusive product. I felt previleged to be able to take advantage of Naim's knowledge and of the efforts of all beta testers. It was also very affordable.

I don't know how Naim work ... but I wonder how much cross over there is in development teams between things like the nDAC and its firmware upgrade and the MuSo?  Does developing the MuSo distract from that development or simple provide income to enable Naim to provide such upgrade for zero cost to the user?

I would certainly have preferred if Naim had announced a software that fits the needs of classical music listeners instead of the Mu-so Qb. I am sure that they could have sold it for about the same amount of money or even more.

But it might have required higher R&D costs and certainly would have been less popular than the Qb.

I assume you are meaning software for streaming that fits the need of classical music?  Personally I find MinimServer (which is not from Naim of course) along with the Naim App very suitable for classical music but YMMV and classical is only of secondary importance for me (it took my time to tag but I can browse through Composer ... Orchestra ... Conductor ... Work and down to Movement).

As I say YMMV and just my 2c

Eloise

PS. at the end of the day, isn't this whole "debate" the same that was had over the Uniti line and that hasn't seen the end of Naim's high end components has it?

Eloise posted:

PS. at the end of the day, isn't this whole "debate" the same that was had over the Uniti line and that hasn't seen the end of Naim's high end components has it?

...and if it wasnt for the original Uniti I wouldnt be on this Forum now, having moved on from what was then an entry level component for Naim to my current NDX/SN2, Powerlines and SuperLumina 'full loom' and soon to be XPS.

Good point Eloise.

If a portion of new customers can be inspired by great music replay like I was, it can only be good for Naim and all of us Naim equipment owners. Im sure the mu-so range will do this.

PeterJ wrote:

"if you want some really iffy software then install Windows 10"

I have, and it works rather splendidly for me - both on a hi-end PC I have built for myself, and on an old laptop I have recently upgraded. It really isn't 'iffy'. Some people have had teething problems with Windows 10, but no more so than with new versions of IOS.

I am not personally an Apple fan. I choose to run Microsoft based PCs (after a flirtation with Linux)' and possess an Android smart phone. However, I am writing this post on holiday using my iPad Air of which I admit to being very fond. So I guess I have a foot in each of the main camps, and my taste in software is as eclectic as my taste in music.