DSJR
Major Contributor
They were pretty crap then on the bench (why they 'sounded' different to everything else, especially in the CB era of the 80's) and they're not hugely better now. I suspect this dismissal of measurements was actually to hide shortcomings in these updated but old fashioned designs back then - Julian wasn't an electronics chap I remember, but was very well educated enough to adapt old established designs to his purpose. Been there with the brand since 1975 and boy, were we led a right dance in that time as to what we were told a 'good sound' was! It's now bought by new retirees with healthy pension pots who missed out on the 80's subjective 'flat earth 'fun'.' The 'feel' and basic looks are good in units like this though with the sexy rotating 'disc' on top.Since my friend Julian passed away, Naim has lost the plot. Shame as they had a decent R&D department until they were sold to the French.
Like the Hegel and Rega amps measured here, the performance of this thing is 'good enough for purpose.' By 80's standards, it's very good for a subjectivist product... I can't get past the arrogance this brand has always had, especially after I 'fell off their tour bus' in the mid 80's. The products started to gradually improve, but every new model meant a huge price hike over the internally pretty similar previous one and as I just don't get marketing for the sake of it, I despaired and ultimately, more than a little contempt took over.
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