ken's active sbl system

Posted by: ken c on 16 April 2001

hi,

just a short update on my active system. i installed it last wednesday. it is obviously not yet fully warmed up but there is a very powerful aspect of the system that is beginning to surface already - and quite emphatically -- INTIMACY. lots of it. vocals, especially female -- are becoming very seductive. very seductive indeed. and that clarity. not the cold "20 ft between players" type, but clarity which makes for a very coherent and musical effect. all very positive.

slight negative -- system is now even more revealing, and ruthlessly so. so some of my cd's are now not worth playing at all -- too many rough edges. however, the majority are vastly better. another negative -- on some records, bass is a bit overblown/overpowering -- i am not too bothered about this right now -- i expect the balance will be better when the system is fully warmed up.

and in any case, my cd2 will soon make way for cdsii -- that should clean things up even more -- and i know the rest of the system will thank me for the better signal...

whoever recommended june tabor's "anthology", i thank you. i have played this several times before, passive -- on the active system now -- its totally transformed. astonishing!!!

i will give it 5 or more days and post another report, if there is interest.

meantime...

enjoy...

ken

Posted on: 06 May 2001 by Thomas K
BTW: It doesn't say "HDCD" on the cover - just make sure the number is correct.

Thomas

Posted on: 06 May 2001 by ken c
martin:

many thanks for taking the time to offer your advice. yeh, i must admit i am taking the airlocks-to-naim changeover as a no-brainer; i take your point. your alternative suggestion is better -- install supercap and then swap the plugs -- the system will be much more sensitive then, and it will be easier to determine whether the difference is to my liking.

on "theory" alone, the naim plugs ought to be better -- there should be no impedance mismatches at the speaker and amp ends. with gold airlocks --there clearly is -- this MAY cause reflections along the speaker cable "transmission line" -- blurring the sound -- and this blurring may be what i am now hearing as lack of slam in this now more critical system. dunno.

but theory aside -- what did you find when you did this?? sounds like the changeover wasnt to your lisking from what you say in:

quote:
from bitter experience (e.g. Naim->airlok plugs at same time as Ekos rebuild) I would have to advise you to make these two changes separately.

what happened??

i will let you guys know how i get on anyway.

thomas: thanks for the extra info on the "time out" disc

enjoy...

ken

Posted on: 06 May 2001 by Martin Payne
Ken,

perhaps you'll remember I described this before, but the increase in general projection & clarity and bass speed/tightness was a big surprise to me.

I would expect your slam to improve with the Naim plugs.

Naim stuff is just all designed to work together. Occaisionally I have found non-Naim stuff to work in some specific circumstances.

For instance, the Cable Talk Studio-2 works better with a CD2 instead of the standard Naim 'Lilac'. The CDX is much better with the standard lead.

cheers, Martin

Posted on: 06 May 2001 by ken c
martin: yes, i remember now. for some reason, i had misunderstood your posting to mean you regretted the move back to std naim plugs... but fortunately this is not the case.

i have quite a couple of warm up cycles ahead of me -- the supercap when its delivered; and then a bit later on, the cdsii... i would extrapolate from the cdx that the cdsii works better with the std signal cable.

many thanks martin...

enjoy...

ken

Posted on: 10 May 2001 by ken c
ladies and gentleman: something quite significant (and curious) to report. last night i had to unplug my system from mains (easy with hydra, as its on one plug only) due to the quite severe thunderstorm (and flooding!!!)

when i plugged the system in this morning -- i sort of left the system alone (on radio input) as i expected the sound to be err.. not so good. but i could sense something had changed --- and, curiously, for the better -- far better i might add. to put it briefly -- there is now a lot more "weight" to the sound. in addition, its also more fluid, if that is not a contradiction in terms.

Playing the St Germain cd this evening just confirmed what i first heard earlier. Wow!!!

this is the opposite of what i expected -- i thought the system was going to sound rubbishy for at least 1 day as it fully warmed up again. how wrong, how very very wrong.

anyone care to explain???

enjoy...

ken

Posted on: 10 May 2001 by Steve B
Ken,

I often used to notice that my system sounded better after a spell of wet weather. Perhaps the wet ground creates a better earth?

Steve B

Posted on: 10 May 2001 by Martin Payne
Ken,

powering down after about a month has been suggested a number of times as a burn-in tweak for the CDS.

Can't remember if anyone else has found it valuable with any other component, or with warm-up rather than burn-in.

cheers, Martin

Posted on: 10 May 2001 by ken c
steve:

quote:
I often used to notice that my system sounded better after a spell of wet weather. Perhaps the wet ground creates a better earth?

... meaning the positive better earth influence is much stronger than the negative "not yet warm enough" effect. i will look out for this. i do have a rather embarassing "earth spike" of sorts into the garden -- just a wire connected to a pipe. failing to drive the pipe into the ground vertically -- i simply laid it horizontally under 6 inches of ground and left it there -- with a promise to "do it properly" some other time. well, hasnt happened yet.

martin p:

quote:
powering down after about a month has been suggested a number of times as a burn-in tweak for the CDS.

so presumably this effect may not be restricted to the mighty CDSII???


enjoy...

ken

Posted on: 10 May 2001 by Tim Jones
Ken -

Your dealer is infidelity, n'est-ce pas?

Did you by any chance buy your CD2 second-hand from them?

Just wondering...

Tim J

Posted on: 11 May 2001 by ken c
quote:
Your dealer is infidelity, n'est-ce pas?

not yet. i will choose between infidelity and audiofile.

quote:
Did you by any chance buy your CD2 second-hand from them?

no, i bought my cd2 new from grahams.

enjoy...

ken

Posted on: 11 May 2001 by Steve Hall
my gawd.

Just settling in my active upgrade for my CDX/102/Napsc/HiCap/Snaxo/HiCap/2x180's/SBL system, and my gawd everything I had hoped for an more, and its been on for only 3 hours.

Im suffering a little from RF, which I've searched the forum for and found some very handy posts - will tackle those idea's tomorrow.

Marcus on page one of this long post described SBL's in Active mode - Marcus your description is so spot on!

Posted on: 11 May 2001 by ken c
i am glad you are enjoying the active effect as much as i did -- if not more. its early days yet -- i think real gobsmacking magic will start hitting you at about day 14 onwards.

i als think your system is "better balanced" (with the cdx) rather than mine -- with my cd2 providing main source. therefore in your case, i expect the effect will probably be more pronounced. on analogue with a suitably dressed lp12 -- its spiritual.

the cdsii is on the plans for me -- i am just waiting for everything to settle down so i worry about one variable at a time.

meantime, enjoy...

ken

Posted on: 16 May 2001 by ken c
i would like to thank the gentlemen who responded to me when i was inquiring about creative audio sometime ago.

i have now purchased an x-dem supercap for my snaxo and the e-mail order transaction was handled extremely efficiently. prior to that, he responded to my numerous inquiries promptly, accurately and with good humour.

and prior to delivery, he got the unit checked thoroughly, via listening and measurements (david confirmed all was to spec -- he even sent the meauserement results to me -- i hadnt asked for them!!).

to minimise damage in transit, the supercap was double packed, its box was packed inside another bigger box -- in fact a NAP500 box!!! some subtle hint, i guess.

all the necessary cables were there.

inside the box, in addition to naim's instructions -- were their own additional instructions, based on what i told them about my system. it is quite easy to connect a supercap to a snaxo, but these additional instructions meant i could do it in less than 1 minute flat, if that!!! now this is what i call excellent service!!! i haven't even met these guys at creative! i have spoken to david only once to give him my credir card details.

i installed the supercap on 11 may, so it not yet fully warmed up, but since its introduction -- my system sounds even more awesome. i will report in a little more detail later. i just wanted to get this little plug for creative audio over and done with first.

ah, so there are some really good dealers out there...

enjoy...

ken

Posted on: 24 May 2001 by ken c
today, all of a sudden, around 1600 hrs, my system took another turn for the better. its a bit hard to describe what actually. all i can say is that for the first time since the active changeover -- i have been forced to become much more aware of the whole performance than some isolated aspect of it. i like that sort of change.

i am crosssing my fingers that this isn't some sort of trick that my mains supply is playing on me -- unlikely since i normally notice mains effects very late at night. will double check tomorrow. anxious moments...

enjoy

ken

Posted on: 24 May 2001 by Chris Bell
Ken,

Are you using a black burndy with the Snaxo?

Chris Bell

Posted on: 24 May 2001 by ken c
quote:
Are you using a black burndy with the Snaxo?

yes, i am. this was "thrown in" when i bought the 2000 vintage x-dem supercap -- effectively meant a reasonable discount on the supercap itself, sort of like...

enjoy

ken

Posted on: 26 May 2001 by ken c
as you know, i have visited a couple of dealers in order to select the one who will get my cdsii business. i did the last visit today (audiofile). while there i got my naca5's reterminated with naim speaker plugs. steve kindly let me listen to a cdsii/nac82/1xhicap/NAP500 driving a pair of nautilus 804's(i think?) while he was sorting out my speaker cables. it is not really fair to comment on this system as i did not really specify any system to listen to. they are aware of what system i use at home though.

but the visit was very useful indeed because (a) i am now legit on naim speaker plugs -- will definitely report on the impact of this change later, and (b) i now know where i will be placing my order for the cdsii.

enjoy

ken

Posted on: 11 June 2001 by ken c
hi, just a quick status note.

its 2 months since i installed the active system, one month since i upgraded snaxos p/s to supercap, and 2 weeks since changeover from airlocks to naim plugs.

you will recall i was slighly concerned about lack of real kick-ass slam in my system? well, i kinda sense its coming back, gradually.

now, this could be a result of the natural warmup process, or a consequence of my changeover to naim speaker plugs, or some psychological trick. i.e. me just coming to terms to the sound quality that is evolving in my listening room?

enjoy

ken

[This message was edited by ken c on MONDAY 11 June 2001 at 21:23.]