Naim Releases Solstice – A World Class Turntable, Phono Stage & Power Supply!
A New Dawn For Music
Naim Audio has proudly designed and handcrafted music systems in the historic English city of Salisbury for almost 50 years. Just outside the city lies the World Heritage site of Stonehenge, its Neolithic standing stones perfectly framing the movements of the sun. We didn’t need to look far for naming inspiration for this very Special Edition, nor did we need to deviate from our own heritage: although Solstice is our first turntable, we have been venerating vinyl since the genesis of Naim in the late 1960s.
If you love the organic authenticity of vinyl, you can now finally enjoy it with the musical purity and passion only a Naim system can deliver – welcome to a new dawn for music.
Solstice Special Edition
Limited to just 500 units, this Special Edition includes the Solstice turntable, a next-generation version of the iconic Naim Aro tonearm, an Equinox MC cartridge, Solstice Series Phono Stage, Power Supply and bespoke accessories set. The Solstice turntable combines core Naim design philosophies, such as multiple levels of mechanical decoupling, with a celebration of beautiful materials. It features a magnetic bearing supporting a high-mass, highly polished aluminium platter, with a unique, self-calibrating motor drive system, meticulously delivering the Naim sound.
The Special Edition package also includes a commemorative book, plus the Naim Records True Stereo album – a curated collection of superb-quality True Stereo recordings, newly remastered for vinyl.
A timeless Naim design
Naim products aim to be both timeless and contemporary. Our designs eschew unnecessary visual adornment that do not serve performance goals. Solstice Special Edition design is functionally coherent, encourages use, sharp – almost brutalist – and wears its innovative materials and design solutions with pride.
A legacy that lives on
Our founder, Julian Vereker often considered a Naim-designed turntable. Tragically, he never realised his plans before his untimely death in 2000. However, his legacy lives on with this project and the team behind Solstice Special Edition.
Legendary Naim Technical Director, Roy George, came out of retirement to work on the Solstice Special Edition project, explains: “I still often think about Julian, and how he would have regarded the products we have designed since he died.” “I believe he would have very much approved of the engineering solutions and final performance of the Solstice Special Edition.”
From then to now
Even after the arrival of CD in the 1980s, Naim continued to champion vinyl, producing the iconic ARO tone arm in 1989. Aro has always set a benchmark in terms of delivering incredibly natural, organic and lifelike musical performances. It design allows the cartridge to extract enormous amounts of the information from the grooves of a vinyl record, but with an incredible sense of flow and correctness to the resulting sound.
High quality materials for improved performance
Updating Aro for Solstice Special Edition involved retaining the original’s design principles and excellence, but boosting performance further still by using improved materials – including tungsten and carbon-fibre – and adding an all-new, no compromise bias, arm height and azimuth adjustments.
New Aro may be stiffer still, but its approach is more flexible: it retains the familiar three-point fixing – maximising the integrity of the critical interface with the Equinox cartridge – but also has two-point, slotted fixings for alternative cartridges. There’s even finally a lift-lower device.
Engineered with Swiss-watch precision
The Equinox cartridge’s Moving Coil (MC) inner assembly sits in a solid aluminium housing machined from a single billet. A raked silver polished chamfer passes over the black cartridge edges, simultaneously communicating the unseen facets of the diamond stylus and giving a nod to heritage Naim ‘chrome bumper’ designs.
Equinox is an MC cartridge with a microline stylus shape – closer to the original cutting lathe head to enable the retrieval of accurate high-frequency information. To maximise stability and energy transfer, the stylus, cantilever and motor components are securely clamped to the cartridge body, which itself is attached to the headshell with a three-point fixing.
Phono Stage NVC TT
With the goal of making a glorious-sounding phono stage that was also easy and flexible to use, we referenced previous designs such as SuperLine, but also the pinnacle of Naim engineering: our Statement amplifier. The Solstice Series Phono Stage is the first to feature the Discrete Regulators developed for that flagship.
Unique know-how
Led by our Technical Director (Electronics), Steve Sells, Naim’s expert engineers designed simple but elegant circuits, fed by our acclaimed high-performance DR tech, which provides the smooth, stable power supply that’s vital for next-level performance. Our production technicians then take premium components and fanatically measure, select and match them for ultimate accuracy.
For greater flexibility, fly-by-wire input switching, loading and gain were included. Fly-by-wire allows the controls to be conveniently located on the rear panel and the internal circuits ideally placed for optimal performance.
Power Supply NPX TT
The Solstice Series Power Supply is a bespoke design that powers both the turntable and the phono stage. For the ultimate performance, these two different power supplies are completely isolated, with no risk of interference.
Raising the game (and lowering unwanted noise) even further, the turntable power supply – like the Solstice Phono Stage – features Naim DR technology, providing the cleanest possible power. It’s also a smart power supply, which can detect the turntable has stopped and go into a 0.5W power sleep mode for standby.