Mixing Naim Fraim colors

From Naim web site - https://www.naimaudio.com/product/fraim-0   "Modular design allows for system expansion over time "

From the Sex Pistols : "Never mind the bollocks, here's the...         "    ...please fill in the blanks for yourself:

My offering - "Never mind the customers, here's the... latest money saving idea from the marketing department"

Come on Naim, give us a break, please,   this "any colour you like as long as it's black" trend that Henry Ford started never was a good idea.

Roger

Ooh, so the cherry version - as shown in the link incidentally - is no more. People with existing cherry won't be happy about that. Given the Focal speakers I'm surprised that red and orange have not been introduced.

I'd suggest either getting some used maple shelves or getting black ones. You could then use the new black ones as the base and relocate the base levels to the new shelves. Two black shelves at the bottom would look OK I'd have thought. 

If mixing colors is a big issue, one answer would be refinishing your maple shelves to black. Black seems a fairly neutral color in a listening room, if you can go with the change. Needn't be expensive provided you are handy with sandpaper and a paintbrush, and you are not overly concerned with potential SQ impacts of the color change . I'd also assume you are into Fraim for the long run as painting the shelves would diminish the resale value.

rjstaines posted:

Come on Naim, give us a break, please,   this "any colour you like as long as it's black" trend that Henry Ford started never was a good idea.

Well Naim are learning from Henry Ford ... at first allow a range of colours, then after the first generation restrict to black!

I have mixed 'old' cherry and 'new' cherry (which look completely different) and it looked fine in an asymmetrical 2 stack set up.   I have however, now gone to a symmetrical 2 stack arrangement and had one shelf of new cherry amongst the original cherry shelves; it looked ok but my OCD tendencies couldn't stop noticing it.

A call to my dealer secured a straight swap for one of his original cherry dem shelves and I have to say I am much happier!

I'd suggest calling a few dealers, if you have that option, to see if a similar deal could be struck.

Cheers,

Ian

Piscovery posted:

Hello,

I currently have a Naim Fraim in maple and aluminium. The fraim consists of a base and two shelves. The problem is that maple is not available any more and I need to add one shelf. Has anyone mixed different colors on the shelves of a Fraim (maple and black for example)?

I've seen a Fraim somewhere in a picture with a single black base, the other shelves (including the upper base level) in cherry, with a pair of cherry speakers (may have been Kudos?) that had black plinths.

Looked good.

Maybe get a single black level and do this?

Mike

They still list ash, black ash and cherry asfar as I can tell, where did this black only story come from?

Ash would be fairly close to maple in colour if not in grain.

I heard that mixing the colours has a dramatic and detrimental effect on the sound.

yeti42 posted:

Ash would be fairly close to maple in colour if not in grain.

Not a mix of wood I would want to look at, especially as Cherry usually darkens quite a bit with age, so the difference would only get greater.

The ash comment was for the OP.

I've just placed an order for a standard level in (old style, light ) cherry with black uprights so I'm going to find out fairly soon. 

When I looked at the website and the Fraim page, it only mentioned black and ash. No cherry. Maybe it's a mistake. 

If there's no cherry I'll find out around about Tuesday but it's still mentioned on the specifications page. They don't mention that a lighter version can be ordered to match existing cherry shelves from a few years ago (when they still listed maple) but it wasn't mentioned   six months ago when I last ordered one.

I recently bought some new untinted cherry  in the mistaken belief this was the same as the lighter version cherry which would match my existing Fraim. In fact it's light cherry veneer without much colour at all so I'm hoping it will darken a bit over time. However it's certainly a better match than the orangey colour of the later cherry Fraim.

Mine is all black and, whilst I accept that it might have looked nicer to have used a natural wood colour, at least new and old sort of blend. I purchased two bases and six shelves not long after Fraim came out and more recently had to add two new shelves to accommodate a couple of new components. You might think that all black would be an easy match, but it's not so. The original shelves all show a clear grain pattern, whereas on the new shelves the grain is much less evident, having an almost plain satin finish. I guess this is as a result of cost cutting as it's also possible to make out joins in the veneer which wasn't the case with the original shelves.

Despite the apparent cost cutting efforts, the price has increased dramatically.

The black boxes don't match either and not just between 500 series and classic. There was a blacker black on the two flanking panels of the triptych front on recent supercap and 552s. (Maybe it corresponds with units originally built with DR). 

Mike1380 posted:

I've seen a Fraim somewhere in a picture with a single black base, the other shelves (including the upper base level) in cherry

I'm seriously thinking about buying something similar if it is possible - with black uprights but with ash shelves. I find the double ash base a bit too much ash together with black uprights, but fine with silver.

If I can't split the colour of the base that way I will probably go for a black base but the rest of the shelves in ash