Naim Audio amplification

Naim Audio is a specialist British manufacturer of high-end audio amplifiers well known for their signature qualities of "pace, rhythm and timing". The company is equally known for its uncompromising and idiosyncratic approach to hi-fi design, insisting that specifications and test bench power ratings are poor indicators of how good an amplifier sounds.

Naim's approach is characterised by the absence of tone controls, the use of the DIN connectors instead of the RCA connector used almost ubiquitously in the home audio equipment industry, and reliance on over-engineered external power supply units (PSU) to deliver current for musical transients.

The company's two-channel NAP 250 amplifier that made its début in 1975 is among Naim Audio's most long-lived and well-known products.

The company, established in 1973, is one of the best-known hi-fi manufacturers in the UK. Its first product was a power amplifier named NAP 200; this was soon followed by the NAC 12 pre-amplifier. Until 1985, Naim's activity was centred on audio amplifiers.

The two-channel NAP 250 power amplifier that made its début in 1975 is among Naim Audio's most well-known analogue products. Its basic circuit layout would be the model for its power amplifier range for more than 25 years, until the introduction of the flagship NAP 500 in 2000.

All of the early models were designed by Naim founder Julian Vereker, who wanted equipment that he himself and friends could enjoy listing through. Seeking to understand the problems associated with faithful reproduction of recorded music at the time, he experimented with constituents of the sound reproduction chain: source components, amplifiers and loudspeakers. Received wisdom was that amplifiers were "straight wires with gain" that had no effect on the sound. But through auditioning Vereker determined that the performance of amplifiers on the market ranged from bad to abysmal.

Entirely self-taught, Vereker had taken some 12 months to learn enough about electronics to design the first product initially for personal use, named the NAP 200. Vereker decided that the amplifier's premise was "to drive the loudspeaker with a musical signal such that I could compare the sound with live music and get the same degree of enjoyment". From that starting point, Vereker determined that the amplifier must be able to drive loudspeakers' "widely varying impedance under musical conditions", without information loss. This has been adopted as Naim's ethos.

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