The Naim story is remarkable. Julian Vereker founded Naim Audio Visual in 1969, with a sound-to-light unit which he hired out to film production companies. He became disappointed with the sound of professional recording equipment after recording live performances of friends. This lead him to design his own power amplifier. Thus was born Naim Audio of today.

The first Naim power amp was sold in 1971. Julian built a number for friends and acquaintances, creating quite a buzz in the process. In 1973 however, he was asked to quote for supplying loudspeakers to one of Britain's first commercial radio stations, Capital Radio. Combining a slimmed-down version of his power amp with his speakers, and built to IBA specifications, the new monitor won the contract for him and Naim Audio Ltd. was incorporated in July 1973.

In 1974 the company moved from the basement of a Salisbury house to a shop in the middle of the city. That same year Julian met Ivor Tiefenbrun of Linn, with whom he discovered he had much in common. Both had grown up in a world that privileged loudspeakers over the sources that fed them. 

The accepted wisdom of the time was that all turntables did was revolve at a precise speed with no rumble, while amplifiers were, in the words of Quad's Peter Walker, simply 'a piece of wire with gain'. Ivor and Julian duly spent the mid seventies attempting to debunk these myths. Their new system hierarchy model argued that the source was all-important. They turned the way hi-fi enthusiasts looked at system building upside down.

In 1980 the company moved to Southampton Road, Salisbury and launched a raft of new products, including the new entry-level NAC42 preamp, NAP110 power amp, HI-CAP and SNAPS power supplies, plus a revised NAC32.5 preamp, NAP250 and NAXO active crossovers soon filled the order books. Exports started kicking off, with over twenty six countries including the USA, Canada and Japan hungry for Naim kit. The upshot was the Queen's Award for Export Achievement in 1985, and the factory being extended to 20,000 square feet.

Naim had always been a sharply focussed brand with the emphasis on rhythm and dynamics, but the trouble was that sections of the UK hi-fi press tried to pigeonhole the brand. Flat earthers, as they were called, were into Linn turntables and Naim electronics, and to hell with anything else. It came as a great surprise to many then that Naim announced the ARO tonearm and FL1 electrostatic loudspeaker, thus treading on Linn's toes. Suddenly the old Linn-Naim symbiosis dissolved and the two went their separate ways.

In 1989 the company stunned the hi-fi world by announcing plans for a CD player - the CDS was a heroic sounding silver disc spinner with the power and involvement of the best analogue. The new NAC52 proved a worthy flagship preamplifier, and the subsequent DBL loudspeakers were particularly able in all-Naim systems. Meanwhile Naim revamped the delightful but totally impractical NAIT integrated amp as the NAIT 2, offering a tantalising taste of the high end at a budget price.

Throughout the nineties Naim continued to hone their product range, moving away from their 
seventies hair-shirt approach to blend  system-friendly features with the company's traditional no-compromise attitude to sound. 

Tragically though, earlier this year news came that Naim's founder Julian Vereker MBE had died. It has saddened many, from ardent Naim devotees to casual observers of Britain's hi-fi industry. Under Julian's able stewardship Naim Audio went from being a hobby horse to a great British manufacturing company making charismatic products. Today Naim employs over ninety staff and sells to eighty specialist hi-fi shops in the UK alone - testament to Julian's genius, and the enduring talents of his company's employees.