S800

As you particularly ask me, I will say a few things.

I first auditioned the S800 at Naim, then at home and finally purchased this system - and rather enjoy it, so it should be obvious that I rather like it and it delivers what I want.

As to appeasing the mind on why a combined driver can work, it is similar to how panel speakers also do something rather special when there is one driver covering a large bandwidth. You remove all phase anomalies - that is the main thing it does. Whenever you have a crossover you have to have a phase anomaly at the crossover point where  you filter the drive unit's response. You can hear it, we are used to hearing it in HiFi speakers so it actually, at first, sounds 'wrong' when it it isn't there - this was my first reaction, there was no 'mid' and 'treble' anymore, a bit like the shock many have when hearing the old Quad Electrostatics for the first time - so obviously correct at what they do right - just rather band-limited as far as the bass is concerned. So S800, to me, is similar to a good panel speaker, but will a fulsome and accurate articulate bass performance.

Things like percussion on drums - all sizes, and on plucked notes will reveal a clarity not usually reproduced. To me this is all the harmonics arriving in phase - I like it!

As to the particular Active operation - well a little bit of Acoustic Physics will tell you that most of the power is required to drive to lower frequencies via the larger higher mass drive units, so a bit more available there is not a bad thing. You can parallel-up the S800 drive units and run them together, so one mode of S800 Active is with two NAP500. Adding the third one for bass means that less current is required for the same musical level and hence lower distortion and more in-hand power available. It was a moot point for me, as I already had 3x500 for a previous 3-way Active system - and I was not going to sell a 500 and possibly decide to re-purchase it again in future, so I used all three.

As Naim no longer make them this is all getting academic though.

DB.

The Listener posted:

.... as it does fly in the face of all previous logic to combine them into one unit ...

I don't think there was any LOGIC against it.

It was just, previously, difficult/impossible to make a driver to cover the wider frequency range.

I have not heard the Ovators, but I expect that the wide and nearly uniform dispersion (angular coverage) of the BMR would also add to their musical appeal.  When a speaker "beams" at some mid and higher frequencies, the frequency response of the direct and reverberent sound differ.  This is an artifact of loudspeaker reproduction, which requires accommodation by the listener.  Presumably the Ovator BMR would minimize this beaming behavior.

Charlie

Ovators are not immune from this, but I can listen off-axis and enjoy better than I remember with some other designs. I think the dispersion pattern is a bit more linear and not different as you tend to get from two different drive unit designs and placements.
There is still a sweet spot (in my room about 1m wide) to get the full image depth and clarity.

Many thanks DB. You are always very helpful and informative. I think I will have to audition them while I still can.

Just to make it clear I have no knowledge of speaker design but was curious to why their design was so. And what you say make sense of it now.

Cheers

TL

You are a lucky man if you are just about to purchase S800's. I had a recent introduction to them on the end of a Statement system the other night. Their predecessors were DBL's - I also use DBL's, and up until the other night thought they were impossible to beat. From the very first note on S800's I knew the DBL's now had a successor. I'd go as far as saying that they actually made DBL's sound rather puny - if that's at all possible? Believe everything you hear about them, they have the transparency of a good panel speaker with the K-A.s bass of the best speaker ever made. Certainly as close to a real performance in a domestic environment as I've ever been. Simply flawless and a very memorable evening.