Naim, Focal and Bentley team up

Bentley

BusiSoft AV, Australian distributor for both brands along with a bunch of others, tell us that UK hifi electronics firm Naim and French hifi speaker firm Focal have collaborated with the luxury car-maker Bentley on some nice co-branded audio products.

Naim is a long-standing high-end UK firm known for its quality high fidelity amplifiers. Back in 2008 it was engaged by Bentley to produce in-car audio systems. And, no, we’re not going to relate Bentley’s history. That ought to be known to all. We had the opportunity to visit Focal’s facilities in France earlier this year – see here and here – only a few weeks before the world froze.

The collaboration is now working back the other way, with a new Naim and a new Focal product with Bentley branding just released.

Focal for Bentley Radiance headphones

The Focal for Bentley Radiance are high-end closed-back headphones with distinctive Bentley branding and copper finish detailing. They use Focal’s aluminium/magnesium alloy “M”-shaped dome drivers in a closed shell to provide excellent isolation from outside noise. They seem to be most closely related to Focal’s Elegia headphones, although with at least one slight performance difference (101dB sensitivity rather than 105dB).

Bentley

Quality abounds, it seems. They’re rated at just 0.1% distortion at 100dB sound pressure level at 1kHz. That’s an insignificant level of distortion. The impedance of 35 ohms should make them easy-to-drive headphones, whether from low-output portable devices or high-end headphone amplifiers. The rated frequency response is from 5 hertz to 23,000 hertz. They are provided with a “faux leather” hard carry case.

Naim Mu-so for Bentley Special Edition sound system

Earlier this year we reviewed the Naim Mu-so Qb. That’s the (very much) smaller version of the Naim Mu-so music streaming combo hi-fi system. The Bentley Special Edition version of the Mu-so adds a range of Bentley stylistic design touches. Again, these include copper-coloured highlights and accents, but also a woven speaker grille and a body finished with a sustainable African hardwood known as Ayous.

The unit incorporates six 75-watt amplifiers. It supports multiroom audio along with uPnP, TIDAL, Spotify Connect, Apple AirPlay 2, Chromecast, Qobuz and Internet radio. You can plug in stuff the old-fashioned way too, if you like.

And, hey, you can use it as an alarm clock.

Availability

The Naim Mu-so for Bentley Special Edition is available from authorised retailers and from Bentley car stores, plus online from Addicted to Audio here for $3,700. Availability is likewise for the Focal for Bentley Radiance headphones, including here, with a price of $1,999.