HiFi Subjectivist ¦ Audio Forum ¦ NVA User Group

I think Naim gear is good to buy second hand as it get you a reasonable sound for the money and you will always be able to sell it and not lose money. I don't think I would buy new. I always preferred the Exposure sound especially the dual pre and power and mono power amps. I did buy this new though only now is it good on the second hand market.

Sorry I just don't like it, can't live with it, it makes polluted music as far as I am concerned. People say Exposure and Naim are similar, absolutely no way. One plays music the other makes a noise like a PA system. Especially when matched with their own speakers.

I only think Naim is a good second hand buy because when you find out that you don't like it you get your money back when you sell it on I don't like the sound of it at all

Cooler King wrote: It is ONLY hi-fi after all. :D

Absolutely - although one would never believe it at times. :D

Too right!

The problem is it is so different in presentation to other amps then if you decide that presentation is right then no other amps does the same thing. BUT if people could actually compare it to live real acoustic music they surely would know it is crap. It has the wall of sound dynamics of a good-ish PA system, not surprising seeing that is what it was designed for in the first place - but real music, real musical instruments no way.

When I used to have to go into shops to try and sell NVA I would have to put up with these ff-ing prats wiggling their feet and saying the Naim was far better than NVA and I was sitting their wincing and thinking, well you can guess what. These idiots set themselves up as experts and polluted the industry for 30 years with their combined egos, at the expense of many good British amplifiers of which NVA and Exposure were just a couple. You mentioned the Sound Org when they were in Southwark, well those two idiots were two of the worst, they were just basically brainwashed and deaf. BUT I agree Billy Vee was worse as he combined it with bloody rudeness.

Yes I agree I never bought amps from the sound org they looked after my turntables all of them except the SME30 I bought My Exposure amps direct from the little shop. When they split Hamish went to York and Roger sold the shop I kept going there out of habit and that’s when I got into US amps and speakers then bought direct from America. Then I bought NVA direct.

But I bet the two of them continually tried to get you to buy Naim.

They sold as on a home PA system, it was deliberate because it went a different way with the concept of hi-fi. It wasn't good music it was good marketing. As Gromit has discovered a lot of the better Jap amps at the time were far better than these things - and again I re-iterate they took over our industry for over 20 years and some of us are only now seeing the bullshit and the brainwash. I make *MY* point and *MY* opinions so strongly because I lived and worked through it, through the sheer frustration of an industry run by idiots. I get cross with the marketing of Linn and Naim but they were just being business men and getting the best opportunity to make money, I blame the retailers and reviewers who bought into the brainwash at the Glasgow visits etc, and realised if they wanted to keep working they had better not stick their heads up. Some of them now admit privately that they knew it was all bollocks, but no one (apart from me) was willing to stand up at the time and say this is crap you are going the wrong way. I have even had some of them try to label me insane so as to shut me up or stop people listening. Basically I have been saying this since 1985!!!!

Doc,

Was John Farlowe just as pissed off as you were? Or was he too nice to Naim?

S.

southall-1998 wrote:Doc,

Was John Farlowe just as pissed off as you were? Or was he too nice to Naim?

S.

Not a clue I only spoke to him a couple of times at shows. I always felt uncomfortable with him as he was overtly gay, same with the Pink Triangle pair. Sorry not very politically correct, I am much more relaxed and comfortable in gay company now but back then they just left me perplexed and mildly disgusted.