Active 500 & 250

Posted by: chfs911 on 31 August 2003

I thought I would try using my SNAXO with my old 250 and my new 500. Driving SBLs. I must admit it works rather well. Less clinical than a passive 500 and so much better than active 250s!

One speaker is driven by the 500 and the other by the 250. Not ideal but at least you get the benefit of the 500s frequency range.

I will need to save for a while to get second 500 but meantime the combination is quite good.

The passive SBL crossovers seem to be a bit of a limiting factor on the passive 500 setup. Has anyone else found this?
Posted on: 31 August 2003 by Ron Toolsie
I think that you are relying too much having one very well driven speaker to compensate for one that is rather less so..... sort of like using your dominant eye only for stereo vision. Eventually when the thrills the very-well-driven speaker will die out you may be left with the obvious discontinuities staring you in the ears. I've been down that rocky road myself with active 500/300/135. With the tweets driven by the 500s the DBLs sounded so profoundly in tune across a good deal of the frequency spectrum, but the LF was out of step and seemed to be plodding along at a few bmp less tempo.A little bit of heaven and a little bit of hell... Getting rid of the Snaxo/SC/300/135s and using a single 500 with a (borrowed)passive x/o proved to be the most balanced approach. Better in all ways? No.. but its weaknesses are scattered closer together and the end result is more seamless.

Casting my untrained eye at the DBLs passive x/o seemed to indicate that they are well-made, but out of less-than-premium-grade parts. Ferrite cored inductor coils for instance....At $2000 a pair I sort of expected a higher perceived value, although in the listening testes it seems to do the job very well. How much better it would get with putting in maybe $50s worth of premium componentry I have no idea-in this instance I have to adopt the Mick Parry school of after-market modification.

How about a comment from our resident speaker expert, James, about component choice in x/o design? Problem is equal value mH coils with ferrite cores have a lower DC resistance than air-cored ones, so a simple part swap will most likely untip the tonal balance.

Ron
Dum spiro audio
Dum audio vivo


Posted on: 31 August 2003 by Chris Bell
Your 500 needs several months to break-in before it will be on-tune. That edge you're hearing is the sound of a new 500.

My guess is once your 500 has broken in, the single amp will be better than the 250/500 combo. If you intend to stick with this combo, consider the new Snaxo which allows you to isolate stereo amps to a single frequency.

Chris Bell
Posted on: 01 September 2003 by Mr_Sukebe
I'm curious about the results of a comparison of an equivalently priced set of power amps for both active and passive usage on the same pair of speakers.

For example, 3x active Nap 250s into an Isobaric vs 1x 500 passive.

Apologies if they're not matched on price, but I assume you can guess what I'm trying to get at.
Posted on: 01 September 2003 by chfs911
Well I guess I will have to revert back to the passive 500 soon as I have to pay the bills Smile and the 250s will find new homes.

Certainly noticed a big difference swapping back to the active 250s after 2 weeks of passive 500. My initial thoughts were I don't think much of the 500 compare to my active setup. But give it time to warm up and there is no comparison.

The 500 driven speaker is doing all the work but the 250 adds something to the mix. All be it less detailed. The difference in bandwidth between the 250 and 500 is very apparent when changing the balance controls.

As for updating speakers preamp etc etc. I will have to wait until my wife has had her holiday in Cannes and Monaco Smile