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The Focal powered by Naim Store: The Future of High-End Dealerships?

The Focal powered by Naim Store: The Future of High-End Dealerships?

The Imperative

High end audio faces an imperative: to expand its market before traditional customers age out, young prospects opt for ultimate convenience over superior sonics, and well-heeled, middle-aged professionals succumb to the more discreet aesthetics and intuitive usability of CI. (For those unfamiliar with that last acronym, it stands for “Custom Installation.” CI is a massive field in which the bulk of high-end manufacturers play no role.)

Every producer in our industry is aware of the imperative to expand the customer base. Most are addressing it in the form of new products aimed at attracting new customers. Thus, we see even uber-high-end purveyors like Goldmund offering headphone amps and compact integrateds. Yet while moving into new product categories is clearly a necessary step, is it sufficient?

In particular, is the traditional audio dealer—dimly-lit, dark-hued, bursting with intimidating gear stacked on industrial-looking racks—where Millennials and affluent families really want to go to drop a sizable portion of their discretionary funds? Perhaps not. The younger crowd is accustomed to Best Buy, where they can find Sonos, or Bose shop. And, as already noted, those middle-aged couples building their dream home are highly susceptible to the comfy environs that CI dealers offer. Maybe, then, in addition to a broader product range, high-end expansion also requires a rethink of the traditional dealer.

The Focal powered by Naim Store: The Future of High-End Dealerships?

That’s certainly the premise behind recent moves by the VerVent Audio Group, owner of English electronics manufacturer Naim and French speaker builder Focal. VerVent is working with its worldwide dealer network to create new, dedicated places to showcase and sell Naim and Focal products. The new spaces are called “Focal powered by Naim” stores, and, though they may be located within or adjacent to existing dealers, they are very different from those traditional outlets.

To create a store, VerVent shares the cost and workload with a partner dealer. Specifically, VerVent dictates elements (color scheme, graphics, etc) that define the store’s “look and feel.” The company also generates an initial store layout, optimized for the available space, and proposes an initial equipment configuration. Both are subject to the dealer’s revision and approval. Finally, VerVent provides financial assistance for both constructing the store and populating it with demo gear. The end result is owned, staffed and operated by the dealer. Once the new store is up and running, the relationship between the manufacturer and the dealer reverts to normal.

The benefits of this approach are easy to glean. Because the look of these stores is centrally controlled, Naim and Focal maintain a consistent, recognizable visual presence worldwide. At the same time, the stores cement in the customer’s mind the close relationship between Naim and Focal. Finally, unlike other schemes being tried by some high-end manufacturers, such as direct or online sales, the VerVent approach ensures that it is never in competition with its dealers. Most significantly, this model gives both VerVent and participating dealers an opportunity to create an entirely new environment attuned to the tastes of a broader audience.

Given their mission, it’s unsurprising that VerVent has very specific ideas about the nature of these stores. They are brightly lit—via natural light where possible. Their color scheme is neutral, chosen to appeal to all genders and generations. Equipment is mostly out of the way; indeed, in some rooms, it’s completely invisible. Yet there are other rooms designed with traditional audiophiles in mind.

Of course, it helps to have a suite of audio components that support the space’s goals. In Naim and Focal, VerVent felt it had the ideal product set. Naim’s gear has always been compact, user-friendly, and discretely stylish. That formula works well even for non-audiophiles. Further, Naim has always incorporated “lifestyle” features like multi-room and multi-zone support, and their products have enough of a wow factor—check out those over-sized volume controls that light up as your hand approaches—to delight nerds of all ages.

As for Focal, its speakers are more graceful than most, and the range is surprisingly wide. Besides traditional speakers at various size and price points, the company also offers a full line of headphones and an equally comprehensive array of “stud depth” in-wall units. With products appropriate for Millennials, audiophiles and the CI crowd, plus a blueprint for spaces designed to be welcoming to all three, VerVent felt ready to launch a series of stores around the world.

The Focal powered by Naim Store: The Future of High-End Dealerships?

The experiment began in 2019, when the company launched the first two Focal powered by Naim stores in Seoul, South Korea and Lyon, France. The next year, it expanded to the Czech Republic, mainland China and Australia. Sales have been encouraging. So much so that this year stores have already opened in Sydney and Berlin, with more coming to Frankfurt, Cannes, Melbourne and Miami. The just-opened Houston outlet is the first in the U.S. Its grand opening on May 26 gave stateside observers their first opportunity to experience VerVent’s concept in person.

 

The Store

Houston’s Focal powered by Naim store is located in a residential district right next to Houston Audio, a long-standing Focal and Naim dealership that also carries McIntosh, Sonus faber, T+A, VPI, Klipsch, and others. Aside from an abundance of charmingly-flamboyant touches—life-sized superhero statues and pinball machines, anyone?—Houston Audio fits the mold of a typical audio dealer. Its rooms are out-sized, enabling each to showcase not only multiple systems but a selection of electronics and speaker options within a given setup. None of the rooms has a window. The color scheme and decorations all impart a vibe that’s overtly masculine.

Walking from Houston Audio to the new store via a long, interior hallway is like walking into a new universe. That connecting hall is about all the two spaces have in common. In contrast to Houston Audio, the Focal powered by Naim store has real-world sized rooms, each of which mostly sticks to a single system with just a couple of electronics and speaker options. Further, there’s no potentially-confusing mish-mash of brands and respective styles. Rather, there are only the clean, modern lines of Naim and Focal products. All this results in an intimidation factor of zero.

The new store is also much brighter than Houston Audio, and it’s furnished in a luxurious yet contemporary style that beckons patrons to sit and relax a spell. Music, though central to each room, is also in a way incidental; you could easily envision these being multi-purpose spaces. That’s the point; after all, that’s how it will be at home.

Houston Audio—and now Focal powered by Naim Houston—owner Jeff Pate told me that he wouldn’t have gone for the partnership if he hadn’t felt the design would have broad appeal. Nor would he have done it, he said, if CI elements and a “headphone bar” for Millennials hadn’t been part of the concept. But VerVent had provided for everything Jeff wanted.

The two most impressive rooms were, in a way, extreme opposites of each other. A home theater room had a huge screen in front, a nice sofa—and absolutely nothing else visible. Yet there were a bevy of Naim electronics behind the scenes, and Focal speakers populating nearly every wall.

The Focal powered by Naim Store: The Future of High-End Dealerships?

At the other end of the spectrum was the “Grande Utopia Room,” featuring, you guessed it, a pair of Focal’s towering flagship speaker. No way to hide those bad boys! Nor would this room’s target customers want to. They were driven by Naim’s equally-dramatic, three-tower Statement electronics, which were in turn sourced by a two-chassis Naim streamer. The whole shebang cost over half a million bucks, yet sonically the system never came off as showy. Rather, its sound was relaxed and natural. Know what I did? I sat and listened for a spell.

 

The Introduction

No one was expecting to see any new products at this event, but Naim surprised everyone. Making its U.S. debut was a new product that, fittingly, encapsulates the focus of these stores—and by extension the entire company. The new model is the Naim Uniti Atom Headphone Edition. Naim’s regular Uniti Atom is a well-established, compact integrated amp/streamer that sells for $3290. For the same price, the Headphone Edition chucks that unit’s 40Wpc stereo power-amp module in favor of a beefed up, mostly Class A headphone amp module and a similarly upgraded preamp section.

With a built-in streamer and DAC, a variety of digital inputs and even an analog input, as well as multiple headphone ports and both balanced and single-ended line outputs, the new Naim can serve as either an unusually-versatile headphone amp or a source/DAC/linestage driving your choice of power amp and speakers. The choice between the regular Uniti Atom and the Headphone Edition is simply a matter of the user’s listening priorities.

I auditioned the new device via its built-in streamer and four Focal headphones ranging in price from $1000 to $4000. This was an easy and pleasant exercise, since I carried it out in the sunny headphone bar. I was particularly taken by the Stellia cans ($3000) as driven by the new amp. Speed, transparency, detail and perfectly-balanced bass were among this combination’s noteworthy attributes. I promptly requested review pieces.

A Focal-Naim representative told me that, internationally, the Atom HE is already going like gangbusters. In fact, the product is seriously backordered, so if you’d like one there might be a wait. That’s not surprising, given the HE’s versatility, sound quality and price. But it’s also a positive sign that a product designed specifically for Millennials is hitting its mark. Further, Naim says that many of those HEs were sold in Focal powered by Naim stores—another positive indicator that the formula is working.

 

Conclusion

With Focal powered by Naim, VerVent is making a bold bet that if they build it—“it” being stores dedicated to a pair of brands and designed to appeal to anyone who cares about sound—then they will come. The stores are the first point-of-sale attempt I’m aware of to bring in markets currently shut out of the high end. The formula seems sound, and the first U.S. instance is unquestionably compelling. No doubt the industry will be watching closely to see how VerVent’s venture fares.

Tags: FOCAL NAIM

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