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A previous blog introduced the Naim Muso soundbar and the changes at Naim that allowed this new product direction to happen. Now I have heard it and it's worth reporting on.
The Muso is a beautiful piece of kit. With a top plate of aluminium and an illuminated top control panel/volume knob the quality of materials screams expensive. While £ 895 might be the top end of soundbars this really looks and feels the part of an even more expensive product, even on a pre-production sample.
Connections are simple, optical for connecting your tv, usb and an analogue line-in, plus wireless music connectivity via wifi and bluetooth.
Firing up a selection of Tom Waits, John Coltrane and an assortment of female vocalists all gave good results. This might not be a hifi system but it's the best soundbar I've heard!
A soundbar never has the room-filling scale of a pair of separate loudspeakers but that's not the point.
Primarily this will make your tv sound great so that you can make out the dialogue. Secondly it's a decent extra room music system and thirdly you can make it into a networked music system with one in many other rooms even if they're not connected to a tv.
Interestingly from a business point of view who will this appeal to? Any music/hifi enthusiast/Lyric client will want one, almost a given, but will the distribution through wider channels such as John Lewis be successful? The investment in this design and tooling means that it needs to be and £ 895 is expensive in the department store environment( even though they sell £ 3-4k televisions) where soundbars are £99 of rubbish.
Time will tell, I would love this bold move to do well, it should be available and on demonstration at Lyric from early September
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Naim Investment by 2
Two surprising pieces of news one after the other, one product investment and one financial
Financially Naim were taken over by/merged with Focal the French loudspeaker company in 2011
Now the Focal group has a new majority shareholder of a French Equity company called Aquasourca backed by another French finance house called Naxicap partners.
Focal and Naim will be renamed the Vervent Audio Group (VAG) and Focal founder Jacques Mahul, principle mover behind the original Naim investment, steps down as chairman, although he will continue to support the company as a 'brand ambassador'.
Naxicap have invested in over 200 French companies, providing finance and expertise to take these companies to a world stage.
Paul Stephenson, Managing Director of Naim said: “Naim has a dynamic roadmap for business growth going forward. We welcome our new investors and their shared vision for our future.”
Whatever that means!
I am pretty suspicious of Privaty Equity firms intentions with regard to established businesses. I don't see them as interested in the hifi/music business and their end-game is usually to flip the group elsewhere for a profit. Maybe I'm cynical and French PE firms are different.
To clinch a deal like this and make a big payoff to existing shareholders I would imagine that you would expand the product line-up and the distribution base as quickly as possible to build up value in the company.
Which leads neatly to the second investment that Naim has made in a new product direction.
Introducing Muso™ by Naim, this not written by me but by What Hifi
'In a big departure from its more traditional audio products, Naim has today [24th April] taken the wraps off its latest creation – an £895 wireless speaker/soundbar system, the Naim Muso.
Muso comes equipped with AirPlay, aptX Bluetooth and UPnP (Universal Plug 'n' Play) capability and will be available from September through John Lewis and other retailers.
Muso features six 75W digital amplifiers driving six custom-designed Naim drivers. There are two midrange drivers in their own enclosure, a pair of tweeters and a pair of 'racetrack' bass drivers. A dark grey grille comes as standard, but additional ones will be available in different colours at launch.
Inside the aluminium-covered MDF casework is DSP (Digital Signal Processing) technology developed from Naim's work on in-car audio systems for Bentley.
A large, circular aluminium volume control on top of the unit also includes touch-sensitive buttons for selecting different inputs, pause, play and track skip.
Round the back you'll find the heatsink, and additional USB and 3.5mm analogue inputs are on the side. The USB connection will play music from and charge an iPhone, iPad, iPod and many other MP3 players. Underneath the unit (to keep unsightly cables out of view) are the optical digital and ethernet connections.
Additional features include two room EQ settings to optimise the sound when the unit is placed near or away from walls, and a loudness control to boost bass and treble when listening at low volumes.
The Naim Muso can operate as a standalone system or be used as part of a Naim or AirPlay multiroom set-up. A new control app for iOS and Android devices will be available from September 2014, giving access to thousands of internet radio stations.
And there's a strong possibility that the device will ship with a streaming music service on board too, although that's not confirmed at this stage.
Muso supports the following audio formats: WAV, FLAC and AIFF up to 24-bit/192kHz; ALAC (Apple Lossless) up to 24-bit/96kHz; MP3 up to 48kHz, 320kb (16-bit); AAC up to 48kHz, 320kb (16-bit); and OGG and WMA up to 48kHz (16-bit).
A lot of development went into the bass reflex port (shown below) so the size, shape and positioning of it was carefully calculated during the early development phase. The port is ribbed to increase rigidity and is flared to minimise turbulence, which helps reduce resonance and lowers distortion.
As for the electronics, the digital signal processor is the 'audio brain' of the the system. It uses a high-performance, 32-bit silicon chip and the code that runs it was custom-designed by Naim's engineers.
To ensure strong wi-fi performance, Naim worked with a consultant professor from Queen Mary, University of London to develop an embedded wi-fi antenna system. Two hidden printed-circuit slot antennae, one between the bass drivers and one inside the rear heatsink, work in combination with a dual-channel receiver.
Other highlights include the touch-panel volume control which is made from a solid ring of bead-blasted, anodised aluminium and features 11 illuminated volume segments which vary in intensity depending on the volume setting.
Designed and engineered by Naim’s in-house R&D team, Muso measures just under 63cm wide, 12cm tall and 25.6cm deep, and weighs 13kg'.
I really hope that this Naim plan/roadmap succeeds. I love to see innovative local brands finding worldwide success, even if they have to have new bosses to make it . I just hope that is the same Naim Audio ethos we all know and love that is successful and not the vision of a private equity accountant. I want Naim to become what Jaguar Range Rover is, not Rover MG
Ditto for the Muso as it takes on Sonos. Sonos have been unbelievably successful because their systems sound good for the money and are bullet-proof. They are so successful that Samsung, Panasonic, Denon, and other major players are now out to take the Sonos market later this year. There is also a great opportunity for better sounding streaming products but they must be as bullet-proof and simple to use as the Sonos. This requires major investment and Naim are now ideally placed to gain a slice of this expanding pie given the right products and distribution, hence John Lewis as a Naim dealer which would have been heresy just a few years ago. Expect to hear Muso in Lyric Hifi from September with an accompanying review here hoping it will be really good.
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