When did you join the Naim forum?

11th of March 2003. I come and I go but, contrary to HH, I find the forum to be largely as it always was. Small number of people who offer great, thoughtful advice and recognise there are no absolutes. Large number of people who offer advice as absolutes with a huge dose of pomposity about other types of advice or people thrown in for good measure. Pretty much like being online anywhere except for the fact that this forum is gently, firmly and well administrated - something which I think is severely underestimated - and generally a civil place to be. 

The one way it has changed is that the move to online devices has brought the need for more technical queries and more technical knowledge. 

Bought my first Naim back in 2002 and the CDX2 is still going strong. Have been pretty content for the last 7 years bar a major and costly blip which required a replacement cable; amp repair; replacement power supply and the recap of another power supply. The service from my dealer and Mark Raggett at that point was a revelation. About to explore streaming as the space for CDs is at an end and Naim appear to have finally produced a streamer worthy of the name. 

2008,  I moved out the old hotch-potch of makes & started my pre-retirement soft landing with a Supernait & CDX2, followed by a NAT-05 & unmentionable PSU's .   I need a nice quiet gentlefolks retirement hobby thought I,  I know I'll get into the Naim forum, been reading it for a few years,  seems like a nice place.   Then along comes politics, tree hugging, orange painted yanks, brexs#it & those stoopid #*!@in' emoji emoticons things.   Oh well such is life. 

Seriously,  I populate a few 'specialist' forums & this one is top of the heap.

12 December 2000, on a dial up connection as it was for at least 6 years - the music of the modem connection tones.

The first few years the forum was a marvelous marketing device with the race to hear and buy the new 5 series kit (552, 555 etc) as we all told each other how good the gear was and so we tried it and bought it.   Some of us still have the kit.

Will I be a member in another 18 years   --- doubt it.

Joined Nov 2017. Although I've been into hi fi and music since my teens and I'm now retired, can remember Julian and Ivor sharing toys. Agree with HH on just a few of his comments especially when someone asks questions that have been answered umpteen times. Why don't people just do a search first? I enjoy the forum and have the daily digest, hopefully that will continue. It's informative and entertaining especially when HH has the occasional 'strop', it livens up the place. Rich 

I joined 18 July 2010. It’s been a great forum with many friendly and very knowledgeable people. I have  certainly benefited from belonging. Long live the new forum! 

hungryhalibut posted:

When I joined the Forum, some years before the date in my profile - I left for a few years and then returned - it was a really good place to frequent, interesting supportive people and a huge diversity of subjects. Nowadays it’s different - populated by people wanting instant fixes to their problems, incapable of helping themselves, endlessly repeating questions that have been answered umpteen times. The Padded Cell, previously the best part of the Forum is now mindless jokes, endless reactionary drivel and little else. Too many people with chips on their shoulder, those with more money than sense, obsessives, dullards and bigots. There are some lovely people of course but they are few and far between. It’s a pretty miserable place and there are far better alternatives. Good riddance I’d say. 

Once in a while one has to look in the mirror not for the sake of shaving...

Joined in July 2006.

Joined: December 30, 2011.  Seen some good people come but more unfortunately go.

ATB Graham

Mike-B posted:

2008,  I moved out the old hotch-potch of makes & started my pre-retirement soft landing with a Supernait & CDX2, followed by a NAT-05 & unmentionable PSU's .   I need a nice quiet gentlefolks retirement hobby thought I,  I know I'll get into the Naim forum, been reading it for a few years,  seems like a nice place.   Then along comes politics, tree hugging, orange painted yanks,brexs#it & those stoopid #*!@in' emoji emoticons things.   Oh well such is life. 

Seriously,  I populate a few 'specialist' forums & this one is top of the heap.

I feel hurt !

Sometime around late 2002/early 2003, with a fresh 12 inch scar on my chest and the effects of Naim advertising in Listener magazine in my new/borrowed blood.  Except for trying to negotiate about fifteen people in those fifteen years, it has been a pretty good ride.

Joined 2009 or so, took some time off when I didn't have any Naim equipment in the rack but came back for the music forum - I like to occasionally post on classical and opera, especially the latter a severely neglected area over here .

I'll hold off on signing up for the new forum until it's up and running - already dreading what comes next after Hopeless introduced the imbecilic 'like' button.

Cheers

EJ

Don Atkinson posted:

I feel hurt !

You will hurt even more if you don't agree with me ...........      

joined 08 October 2004, around the time I bought a first pair of black boxes (202/200). 

Been a Naim fan since my student days  - recall fondly many hours cluttering Russ Andrew's Edinburgh shop listening to active isobars with a wall full of naim amps. Not a bean to spend in those days but they put up with us for some reason. 

Mike-B posted:

Don Atkinson posted:

I feel hurt !

You will hurt even more if you don't agree with me ...........      

Is that Jacob Rees-Mogg's nanny? He might be denying it!  

Tony Lockhart posted:

Around August ‘99. I plonked myself down in a seat in an internet café, the Gulf Centre, al Khobar, and used the net for the first time. I hadn’t a clue what to do, so typed “Naim Audio” into the address bar. Somehow I ended up registering for the forum! I still use the email address I used back then

Al Khobar I knew it well. I was in Al-Jubail from 1983 - 1989 and went to Al Khobar and Dammam on frequent occasion. 

I joined November 2007 after purchasing my first Naim amp -  122x / 150x.

I too joined in November 2007, but had been and was a Naim owner since the very early 80s, don't remember exactly. I think I have not wasted my time, considering how an audio forum has not the same impact on one's (and others') lifetime as, say, volunteering in hospitals or discovering a way to live without any form of government.

I have often been naive, provocative and have done what Richard Dane has recently called, not unreasonably, 'public grandstands'. I threatened to go and never went – not for good. I have benefited from both excellent and horrible use of the English language here, learning a lot. I only betrayed Naim twice: never for more than a couple of weeks. The last time, soon before a breakdown, when I swapped my wonderful system for a Luxman LX590a, which – with due respect – was a pitiful way to recover a freedom and a youth I had lost forever. But it was pure idiocy, and it only accelerated my fall. In turn, soon afterwards the Luxman became a wonderful pair of new, rosewood S-400s which still delight me with their class, their beauty and their extremely ductile and musical sound. When I see how many are for sale here and there, I simply think that each time I don't do some crap and don't sell quality equipment anymore I am more lucky than smart, but glad anyway.

I have never bought a single piece of equipment on the basis of opinions or suggestions I got here: always using this forum as a mere source of information and entertainment. I have had the much greater satisfaction than one might suspect of winning one of the five copies of the splendid photographic book '50 years of Rock' signed by the author, with two short record reviews. Not being an English speaking native, I felt very proud.

My temper hasn't changed from 2007 to 2017 and I am sure that there are plenty here who consider me a perfect a**hole; but in Jan 2017 I had a very difficult moment that brought me to therapy, which I am only starting to leave now. All in all, I was never able to leave the forum once in. In a post I once wrote 'there's no way out of Naim', which some dealer here was so kind to appreciate it to the point of telling me he would use the sentence with his customers. I hope he actually did.

I got to make at least three friends here, people with whom I correspond more or less regularly; one I have met twice, in mine and in his country. The other two or three I'll go visit personally sooner or later. It's only a matter of taking a plane. 

So this is the end of the forum as we know it. I think I have filled the present, dying one with more words than most other members: I am verbose and I know it. I am sorry for all the time I stole, but I have always taken this place very very seriously – perhaps too much. It's me, I can do nothing about it. I simply cannot take things easy or lightly, am touchy and perhaps have an atom of autism inside that makes me misunderstand a lot of verbal and non verbal communication. From this standpoint, the tongue-in-cheekiness and the plain roughness of some interactions here have helped me a lot. Sergiu Celibidache used to say that you learn much more from a bad concert than from a good one; and a member, here, has stated that this place is basically hopeless and seems ready to leave (for good?). I don't think I will be able to, sometimes posts here are so good or so useless and idiot that I feel I can still learn a lot on the human being. 

*

So, who will still be here next week?

Best and thanks,

The Ghost Of Forum Yet To Come

Crikey, where did all that go?

I joined on 12 August 2000, having been a Naim Audio user since the mid 1980's. Despite being one of the first to join I see my 'rank' is still only 45 

If I get lost in the transition, I hope I'll still be hiding somewhere in the Kabin.

Some time in 2001. Retired for a while when moderation rinsed the Forum of the good, the bad and (more importantly) the interesting. Plus I was bored of the sound of my own voice.

Came back soon after as “Gary Shaw” to discover style had somewhat replaced content. There’s still a lot of good though.

My profile says 2008 but I must have got lost and come back because I was definitely on a version of the Forum in 1997; on dial-up. I remember going to meet-ups in London in 1998 too...

Hope to make it through too!

steve

December 2005 when I bought my first Naim kit (cd5i & Nait 5i).

I had been following it from 2002.

Clive B posted:

I joined on 12 August 2000, having been a Naim Audio user since the mid 1980's. Despite being one of the first to join I see my 'rank' is still only 45 

 

Never mind about rank Clive, after all that time think of all the severance pay, lump sum and pension you'll get 

<>

Debs: joined 11th February 2007 [ ...and thinking then i'll only post and lurk around for a few weeks! ]   

Joined 16th Oct 2006 don't care about rank etc. Have had NAIM products since 1977 as I got my first kit from Russ Adnrews whom I used to sell music to.

Joined  April 2014 after stumbling onto forum site when reading Superuniti reviews. At the time the hot topic was the “Hugo” dac, which was a real big deal back then.