Has Naim sub contracted its customer support?

I read somewhere on the forum that Naim had a specific support line for Muso range along with the Uniti range  - and a quick Google reveals tmti.net which claims to deliver world-class technical support, so I suspect that's your answer. 

That's sad ... especially as I thought the problems were now solved and just bought a unity core

Japtimscarlet posted:

That's sad ... especially as I thought the problems were now solved and just bought a unity core

 

I can see why they subbed it - the volumes must be much higher with the Musos and (hopefully) the Uniti range. One wonders though if the worldwide support (as opposed to UK) is done by Naim in house. It's a risky move to subcontract support, unless you have the quality sorted. TMTI do have an impressive client list. My guess would be though that there will be quite a few Uniti owners heading the way of this forum should the support quality they provide be lacking...

Get on the phone to Salisbury. That's always worked for me, and has elicited a response from a knowledgeable human being who has been able to address my issues properly.

Cbr600 posted:

i am currently experiencing problems with the uniti core and its refusal to allow ripping CD's to the hard drive, even though it's been doing this for last year and is only at 50percent if its capacity.

trying the correct protocol, I raised a support request. That's now 10 days ago and I have had a few responses, but each times it appears to be simpleton responses. Last reply by me is now 3 days ago when they said they would escalate this.

so much for the statement of response within 24 hours.

latest query, why I had not heard a reply, and noticed at the foot of the reply pages it says the company is TMTI led. 

Is this contracted service and run by people who do not have the knowledge or skill set required?

yet again frustrated !!

I noticed this previously and nearly commented, it may be due to volumes of sales but seems Mu-So/Qb and new Uniti series owners are not offered the same support options as classic series owners and I find this disconcerting owning both:

https://www.naimaudio.com/contact-information

I'd suggest you try this instead, it's official and currently generic:

https://forums.naimaudio.com/topic/naim-support

Wow £1900 to £4200 and outsourced support, I have always emailed Naim or called Naim direct and got a response.

I thought it was just the Muso outsourced.

Nope, new 'cheapo' Uniti range is also second class when it comes to support.

(Apologies Naim if that sounds harsh, but that's exactly how I felt when I saw those support options.)

Shame on you, Naim.

[@mention:4945617434737720] turning to the more important issue of sorting out the problem, you could ring proper Naim support as already suggested.

But things I would try myself are:

1) I assume you did restart the Core? So put it into deep sleep or off completely, not just network standby?

2) It sounds like your Core has forgotten where it's music store is. So you could tell it again which destination to use as the one music store (important not to confuse Store and shares here). Obviously don't let the Core format the music store.

3) But if you have a backup of the music store then you could let the Core reformat the internal hard disc and then you could restore your backup. This takes quite a long time.

4) And you could reset your Core to factory settings. You do this by turning it off completely, e.g. Pull the power plug out, then hold in the standby button and plug the power in again. Keep holding the button until the light by the front panel USB flashes then you can let go the standby button and let the Core restart fully. You will have to reset the music store and any shares but the Core should offer to make your existing music store its own music store.

Anyway those are my initial suggestions.

best

David

Thanks for comments. Have already tried all reset options to no avail.

other interesting points are that I bought abscond , brand new drive, just to be sure it wasn't a drive issue. The drive was prepped correctly as per core process. Tried to rip a CD to it and the process looked OK. Then went to see drive music content and nothing there.

i then tried ripping to an external 500gb drive via the USB, and again seemed to rip during the process, but nothing showing on the external drive.

finally I took a 32gb USB stick that was plugged into my atom and playing fine. Plugged into the core and no music was visible.

changed the internal drive back to original and the core sees the drive and sees it has 4.9tb of content but on the menu it shows no music at all, whereas it previously old play the existing content.

seems the problem is getting worse

Are you sure it's not just a faulty Core?  Have you been in touch with your dealer?  Have they been any help here?

I've flagged this for Phil to take a look at and give his thoughts.

Yes I agree with Richard. It sounds like a fault. I have followed all the posts about Core since it's release on the forum and I have never seen this sort of issue before.

best

David

Alley Cat posted:

Nope, new 'cheapo' Uniti range is also second class when it comes to support.

(Apologies Naim if that sounds harsh, but that's exactly how I felt when I saw those support options.)

Wow - totally bonkers, next they will be made in China also (or are they like the Muso).

All the new Uniti are made in the factory in Salisbury.

best

David

Alley Cat posted:

Nope, new 'cheapo' Uniti range is also second class when it comes to support.

(Apologies Naim if that sounds harsh, but that's exactly how I felt when I saw those support options.)

I don't think so I had an intermittent fault with my Core the first time it happened I contacted the supplying dealer and Naim direct they said monitor the situation the second time it happened (A couple of months later) Naim advised that I should take the unit to the dealer.

When I took the Core to the dealer he could not find any obvious fault the dealer then contacted Naim within ten minutes Jason from Naim returned the call and said a replacement would be dispatched this was installed within three working days.

If this is classed as second class customer support then I can live with it.

Cbr600 posted:

Thanks for comments. Have already tried all reset options to no avail.

other interesting points are that I bought abscond , brand new drive, just to be sure it wasn't a drive issue. The drive was prepped correctly as per core process. Tried to rip a CD to it and the process looked OK. Then went to see drive music content and nothing there.

i then tried ripping to an external 500gb drive via the USB, and again seemed to rip during the process, but nothing showing on the external drive.

finally I took a 32gb USB stick that was plugged into my atom and playing fine. Plugged into the core and no music was visible.

changed the internal drive back to original and the core sees the drive and sees it has 4.9tb of content but on the menu it shows no music at all, whereas it previously old play the existing content.

seems the problem is getting worse

Apart from my previous point where I agreed with Richard that it might be a fault, are you correctly pointing the Core at these various drives? I imagine you are, but the Core does ignore a drive full of music if the storage hasn't been defined as either a music store (for rips) or a music share (for showing the music in the app). Apologies if this is all obvious to you!

best

David 

Thanks david. As I said earlier, the drive has been in use for a year with 4.9tb of music, as the drive was set up and installed as required for the core, and all the cd's ripped with the core.

its just that now the core cannot rip to the drive, and worse still now cannot see any of the music.

hopefully the support team will make contact again and advise further. (4 days since it was escalated, but no response yet)

I'm now reading through Naim's Privacy Policy and yes, they subcontract their customer support. For telephone, it is a third party provider, TMTI Ltd., with offices in Vancouver, B.C. and Wiltshire. For email, Naim Audio’s support desk information is hosted by a third party supplier, Freshworks, Inc., with offices in the US, India, Australia, Germany, and London.

Cbr600 posted:

Thanks david. As I said earlier, the drive has been in use for a year with 4.9tb of music, as the drive was set up and installed as required for the core, and all the cd's ripped with the core.

its just that now the core cannot rip to the drive, and worse still now cannot see any of the music.

 

hopefully the support team will make contact again and advise further. (4 days since it was escalated, but no response yet)

My personal experience is that if you don't get a reply from Naim support more or less immediately, you never will. So I would ring Naim technical support and ask for Phil Harris if I were you.

My point about setting the music store and music shares again is that if the Core forgets those settings for whatever reason, it won't know where to rip and it won't know where to scan for music. So setting it up again from scratch as a new Core may fix that. The only thing you wouldn't need to do is to format the internal drive as the "new" Core should spot that the internal drive is already set up for rips and offer to you that it use that one. Even the outsourced technical support should have suggested this to you as it's one of the things they suggest to people with Core problems.

best

David

fred47 posted:

Alley Cat posted:

Nope, new 'cheapo' Uniti range is also second class when it comes to support.

(Apologies Naim if that sounds harsh, but that's exactly how I felt when I saw those support options.)

Have to agree, although I do not consider the Nova a "cheapo"Product. What really annoys me  is the online Uniti support. It gives hardly answers and is very inadequate and also  very irritating to work with. I rather have an dedicated PDF file.

As for the Core. Works fine here.

 

No, I don't regard it as cheap either in design or cost, just saying rather cynically the Naim Uniti series is being treated somewhat differently to traditional Naim products.

Absolutely agree that the online support pages are awful - primarily due to the need to navigate them - and we really could do with a decent PDF manual.

Pcd posted:

Alley Cat posted:

Nope, new 'cheapo' Uniti range is also second class when it comes to support.

(Apologies Naim if that sounds harsh, but that's exactly how I felt when I saw those support options.)

I don't think so I had an intermittent fault with my Core the first time it happened I contacted the supplying dealer and Naim direct they said monitor the situation the second time it happened (A couple of months later) Naim advised that I should take the unit to the dealer.

When I took the Core to the dealer he could not find any obvious fault the dealer then contacted Naim within ten minutes Jason from Naim returned the call and said a replacement would be dispatched this was installed within three working days.

If this is classed as second class customer support then I can live with it.

Pcd, that's exactly the support you'd want but if you take my point that was not via the dedicated Uniti contact links as far as I can tell.

I get the impression that support may be for run of the mill questions that are easily fixed via scripted Q&A sessions especially for new users, whereas more complex problems will fail to be addressed bh that, and it then depends how quickly things are escalated.

Again my comment was rather tongue in cheek or perhaps sarcastic, just that if you go to support pages and see a different contact you wonder why.

I had a problem today with my Qb not being recognised on my iPad and after messing around unsuccessfully trying to install the Qb afresh via the App, I called the dedicated number offered for MuSo on the Naim website, which I assume must be the outsourced organisation.

After a couple of minutes wait, I finally got through to a very potlie gentleman who, after taking down some details, got straight on trying to sort my problem, which was not a straightforward fix using a scripted q & a but required several steps and tests. Anyway after about 5 to 10 mins of messing the problem was finally resolved with a router restart.

Having read this thread, I did not have high hopes for the outsourcing of Naim Customer Support. Now sitting here listening to my wonderful Qb, I think differently.

The e-mail support offered to Uniti product owners may of course be entirely different, although the contact telephone numbers for Uniti and MuSo support are the same.

A number of weeks ago, my HDX "died". I contacted Naim support by email and didn't receive a reply.

I then contacted a dealer who arranged for the HDX to be collected and sent to that dealer on 23rd April. They had a look, got it going again (apparently it was kind of "asleep" whilst rebuilding the database) and they returned it to me on or around 27th April.

3 weeks after I had my HDX back at home, I received a reply from Naim suggesting various things to try to fix the HDX..... Only about a month too late...

Something's changed - they never used to be like this!

David Hendon posted:

Cbr600 posted:

Thanks david. As I said earlier, the drive has been in use for a year with 4.9tb of music, as the drive was set up and installed as required for the core, and all the cd's ripped with the core.

its just that now the core cannot rip to the drive, and worse still now cannot see any of the music.

 

hopefully the support team will make contact again and advise further. (4 days since it was escalated, but no response yet)

My personal experience is that if you don't get a reply from Naim support more or less immediately, you never will. So I would ring Naim technical support and ask for Phil Harris if I were you.

My point about setting the music store and music shares again is that if the Core forgets those settings for whatever reason, it won't know where to rip and it won't know where to scan for music. So setting it up again from scratch as a new Core may fix that. The only thing you wouldn't need to do is to format the internal drive as the "new" Core should spot that the internal drive is already set up for rips and offer to you that it use that one. Even the outsourced technical support should have suggested this to you as it's one of the things they suggest to people with Core problems.

best

David

Thanks again david. I think this idea has already been peoven by me buying a new drive, installing it and setting it up as required, then the core showing a rip to it, but then when looking, there is nothing in the drive.

same exercise with an external USB drive, setting up as a store, etc and getting same results.

and finally, another day passes with no contact either by email or phone.

i was expecting a call from Phil after Richard had flagged it to him, but I guess he is otherwise busy at this time.

hope springs eternal ????