Is the Nait 50 just nostalgia for Naimees, or is there value for new listeners? Gautam Raja, content manager, finds out.
I remember the exact moment I fell in love with high-end audio, and it was all Naim Audio’s fault.
The year was 1999 going on Y2K, and my family was visiting relatives in Dubai. One quiet afternoon, my uncle suggested a little outing. He took a few of us to Dubai Audio Center (now Dubai Audio) a high-end retailer run by his friend’s three sons, Ahmed, Adil, and Amir Anwar.
Adil, who was to later become "my" hi-fi specialist, looked after us that afternoon, and led us from demo room to demo room, each with increasingly expensive gear. Though some of Dubai Audio's rooms were worth a few hundred thousand dollars, it was the relatively inexpensive Naim Audio room that captivated me. There was something about those stern black boxes, the radium-green logo lights, and above all, the energetic sound that made a profound impression. I was captivated, but not yet in love. It was only when I walked over to what was most likely a Naim CDS 2 with a CDX power supply and peered over the back, that Cupid let fly. All of the obsessiveness and magic of high-end audio seemed contained in the fatness of that Burndy cable, a power and signal interconnect that, to my naive eyes, better belonged in a nuclear plant than feeding a mere household appliance.
I knew then that Naim Audio was in my future, and indeed, my first “real” system while working at a magazine in Muscat, Oman, was a Naim CD5 CD-player with Flatcap 2 power supply, Nait 5 integrated amp, and the infamous Naim Intro 2 speakers, all from Dubai Audio. I lived off falafel and shwarma sandwiches for a long time to afford this phalanx of black boxes—the Middle Eastern equivalent of subsisting on instant ramen.
What this means, is that although I encountered Naim and the Nait much later in the brand and model’s life (Naim was founded in 1973, a year before I was born, and the first Nait was introduced in 1983), I believe I’m well-placed to tell you whether the 50th-anniversary celebration Nait 50 integrated amp is Naim-enough for the long-time fan, and amp-enough for the new Naim inductee.
Hello There, I’m Nait
As you've probably guessed, the Nait 50, released in 2023, is a modernized re-issue of Naim's first integrated amp, the Nait 1.
“Naim’s DNA has been poured into the iconic design of this 50th anniversary, celebratory piece,” says Mark Raggett of Naim Audio. Naim actually used an original Nait “and measured, tested, listened, and compared at every stage of the design to replicate/stay faithful to the same characteristics of the sound but now with more power and conviction to handle a wider range of modern-day speakers.“
The Nait 50's power output is 25 watts (more on that deceptively low number later) and it comes with a moving-magnet phonostage and headphone out. While the phonostage uses RCA jacks, the two line inputs are in keeping with Naim tradition and use DIN connectors. Don’t worry, we’ve made life easy for you with a special Cardas cable bundle, more later on that too.
Naim’s products are informally divided into time periods based on their looks: Chrome Bumper (circa 1975–1989), Olive (circa 1989–2000), and Black (2000–present). The original Nait, of course, is a Chrome Bumper, and this isn’t a finish so much as a reference to the cut edge of the thick, black aluminum sleeve that the electronics are slipped into, almost a hollow girder that’s sliced into sections. There’s a beautiful simplicity to that, and something puppy-appealing about the Nait’s shoebox-size footprint with its typewriter-like radio buttons and chunky volume knob.
The Sonic Jack-in-the-Box
Even if you’re familiar with Naim’s wattage-defying performance, the Nait 50 is a sonic jack-in-the-box. I actually jumped when it started playing, not because the gain on the volume knob is tremendous, but because the sound emanating from this shoebox was that massive.
This is the magic of “Naim watts”, the tongue-in-cheek suggestion from people who encountered the 15 Wpc Nait 1, that Salisbury, where Naim is based, somehow has access to special watts: How else could just 15 of them sound so huge? Naim’s secret, something that’s common knowledge today, was to use large power supplies capable of handling high-bandwidth transients, knowing that this rapid slew rate, rather than overall loudness, conveyed music’s awe and scale.
As I let the Nait 50 settle into my office system featuring a Lumin U1 Mini streamer with Sbooster LPSU, a classic Monarchy Audio R2R DAC, and the “poor man’s L100”, the JBL 4312G, I marvelled at how it grappled with the JBL's 12” paper-cone woofers, swiftly pinning them into a firm lockstep with Naim’s characteristic driving rhythm, known popularly as PRaT.
Short for Pace, Rhythm, and Timing, PRaT describes a sonic philosophy that focuses on the energy of the music rather than creating a large soundstage. PRaT has become entwined with Naim, Linn, and Rega, and thus with the very idea of “British hi-fi.”
“We never used [the term PRaT] at Naim but understood what people were trying to articulate,” says Paul Stephenson, who joined Naim as product and customer support in 1981 and left in 2016 as chairman. (You might remember Paul from my story on Radio Paradise.) “Coined by an audio journalist, the term was used massively on the Naim forum as a way to express the performance of Naim in comparison to other brands.”
Though I’ve never encountered a Chrome Bumper Naim, supposedly the PRaTiest of them all, I’ve spent some time with the pretty snappy Olive Nait 3, and of course my Dubai Audio–bought Black Nait 5. The Nait 50 is not as full-tilt as these older Naits, but still has you instantly reaching for that air guitar or invisible drumsticks.
A Musical History
To fully appreciate the Nait 50, it's important to understand the world into which its predecessor was born. "The 70s and 80s," says Paul, "were an extremely exciting time—not just for the Naim's and Linn's of this world—but for the entire audio industry."
Describing the era as a "voyage of discovery, a period of growing up", Paul talked about the highs and lows of learning how to go from a few great-sounding handmade pieces to being able to consistently manufacture hundreds of them.
"The industry was booming, music was big, and getting an audio system into your life was a really high priority."
Paul was hired into Naim by Julian Vereker himself, Naim’s greatly missed founder who died on January 14, 2000, aged 54. (I’m realizing as I write this, Julian’s death was mere days after I first encountered and fell in love with his brand.)
I asked Paul for a story about Julian, and it was fitting that he picked—not a tale of late-night engineering breakthroughs, nor joy at finding financial footing—but a peaceful picture of “seeing Julian at home with a huge smile on his face as he listened to his favorite recording.” Naim has always been about this final magical moment in the audio timeline, and it is baked into every bend of its wiring and every kilo of its famously overspecced transformers.
Bundled with Bandon
The Nait 50 sold well, but when Focal Naim America was ready to free up some warehouse space, we bought the last of them to offer to Upscale customers at a special price. It’s a celebration of a very British brand, and we are proud to create a bundle with a very American brand: Cardas Cable, based in Bandon, OR.
Here’s what I wrote about Cardas, back when we visited in 2023.
Every so often, we'll have someone call Upscale Audio, determined, even militant, that the product they buy be 100% made in America. We usually have to disappoint them. A complex component such as an amp or DAC has part counts in the hundreds, and achieving 100% USA-made compliance in a global, connected market is nearly impossible.
A cable has far fewer parts than an amp, but it's still a lot more than, say, a Lodge frying pan or Pendleton blanket. The “USA-only” approach needs to be inspired by the idea of "good enough parenting" rather than messing everyone up by aiming for perfection.
"We exhaust all options in the US before looking overseas," says Brian Von Bork, Cardas' tech advisor and sales director, during our tour of the facility. All reasonable options, that is. Brian reaches into a parts bin and picks out an overseas-sourced XLR connector that would cost over 100 times more were it made in the US. This is the point where even the most hardline America-only customer would balk at the price difference.
But under the "good enough" approach, Cardas is quietly one of audio's few brands that are impressively true to the 'Made in America' badge. Brian is rightly proud to tell me how the copper comes from the East Coast, the braiding and jacketing facilities are in California, and, as I point to a random bin as a test: "Those spade connectors? Those come from Oregon." And Cardas's proprietary silver plate with rhodium flashing? Done at an Oregon facility not far away, but exactly which one is a trade secret.
Plus, when you have complex, unusual windings and layer upon layer of dielectric materials, you need control over every step of the process in a way that only older, slower machines can provide.
"We require machines that are no longer built," says Brian. "We actually own some of the older machines in our partner facilities. We use old analog machines where you have to go in and swap out a gear to change the twist per foot."
You can see why we’re proud.
Cardas has specially made us a 1 meter RCA-to-DIN version of their Iridium cable which uses golden ratio copper conductors in a star-quad arrangement, and as Cardas says, “achieves the perfect balance of detail and warmth. Natural treble is blended with a smooth midrange and quick bass response for a very musical interconnect.”
It’s a wonderful pairing, and helps celebrate how the Nait 50 offers you a chance to own a piece of audio history, albeit modded for the modern age. But what we love is that even when you relieve this newest/oldest Nait of its pomp and circumstance, it stands up by itself as a musical, muscular, room-filling amplifier that will thrill Naimees and noobies alike.
“Ignore specification sheets, they only tell you part of the story,” says Mark Raggett to anyone new to Naim. He advises using the best instruments available to judge sound performance, “one’s own ears” and adds, “If you like the sound DNA Naim has to offer, then you’ll be hooked.”
Just as I was 25 years ago in that demo room in Jumeirah, Dubai.
***
We’ve used the power of bulk purchase to offer you the $3,599 Nait 50 for just $1,999.99. Add the Cardas RCA-to-DIN interconnect for $150 more. (Bought separately, a 1 meter Iridium interconnect costs $250, and anyway an RCA-to-DIN would be a special order.)
At these prices, those who ignore audio history are doomed to never be able to repeat it. Get your Naim Audio Nait 50 before it’s gone forever.