How do you celebrate your 50th? If you're hi-fi legends Naim, you do it by bringing back your most iconic amp and revamping it for the 21st century. The new NAIT 50 takes the iconic NAIT 1 amplifier from 1973 and brings it bang up to date for modern audiophiles.
It's still deliberately old-school, however. There's no DAC in here – you'll need to add that yourself, and the same applies if you want to stream digital audio sources – and the inputs are all analogue. However, there is a new headphone pre-amp and a new MM phono stage that promises better sound performance.
If you want one you'd better move fast: it goes on sale in June and is limited to – yes – 1,973 units.
What does the NAIT 50 offer?
The internal class A/B amplifier puts out 25W per channel into 8 ohms, increasing to 40W per channel into 4 ohms, and the inputs are Aux and Stream DIN connectors and left and right phonos. Speaker connections are left and right only; there's none of that new-fangled surround sound going on here.
On the front it's just as simple. There's the main volume control and headphone socket, four additional controls for phono, stream, aux and mains, and a power indicator. And that's your lot.
This is very much aimed at audiophiles who know their history, and the prospect of a modern take on the NAIT 1 is going to make a lot of listeners very excited. Despite the fairly hefty RRP – £2,699 / $3,599 / €3,000 – I don't think Naim is going to have these in stock for very long.
