IBL Piano Black

I'd email Naim with the S/nos.

Sadly no serial number on them...

They must look good in piano black. I'm sure that was an option on the SBL / NBL / DBL too as an extra cost above the normal finishes back in the day.

James

They do look very smart - much nicer, I think, than the standard black ash finish on speakers of those days

I bet - a quick google found this very old thread which may be of interest 

https://forums.naimaudio.com/to...bl---still-available

James

Thank you for that - I hadn't come across that one.

The Piano black finish was done as a special (at considerable extra cost) by a specialist paint firm local to Salisbury.  Any regular veneer finished pair could be used, as the paint just went on top. FWIW, general sound preference was usually for the regular veneer, although I do recall some fab sounding DBLs in piano black.  

Pics?

Thank you. That's interesting.  I can't really see how the finish can make a difference over the veneer and whatever finish was put on top of that...

At a guess the high build of the piano black finish acts to some extent to further damp the cabinet and hence the sound may be slightly different.

Possible, I suppose, but seems rather unlikely - I would imagine that there are so many other variables - particularly the room - that I would imagine it would be very hard to ascribe anything to the paint or whatever they use.  Presumably there is a paint (or finish of some sort) on the wood veneers, and certainly on the black ash.

Beachcomber posted:

Sadly no serial number on them...

I take it there are Naim badges though...

If we are talking about real piano black lacquer and not just shiny black lacquer, your IBLs are several kilograms heavier than the standard finished ones. Piano lacquer is applied in several layers and not just a thin film sprayed on top of the veneer. If I remember things right, Verity Audio mentioned something like 6 kilograms lacquer for the Fidelio. Anything near that will change the damping of the cabinet by a large amount.

If it is French polish (which is what I had understood they were) I very much doubt there would be anything like 6 kilos - I have done a reasonable amount of French polishing in my time, and while you are right that there are many layers, they are very thin indeed, and these speakers are not very large.  I would estimate that it would take no more than 300, possibly 500 ml of French Polish to do them.  Given that much of that volume is alcohol, the added weight should be no more than 1 or 200 grams, if that.

Apparently it was not French polish - but was, as some have said, done at a car-spraying specialist, so I guess some kind of cellulose paint.

Gloss finishes are more reflective, both optically AND acoustically. I suspect that there could be subtle changes to the sonics. I have custom sprayed a few high end speakers for clients, including Isobariks and some people have commented on the change. Especially relevant if the speaker has sat in a lounge room for a while being avidly listened to before being recoloured. I have also veneered loudspeaker cabinets, and clients have noted changes. But this also entailed making the cabinet walls thicker.

Bear in mind these exercises also involved popping drivers out, and sometimes upgrades to the cabinet bracing and driver mounting. So not just the lacquering at play here

Also, as Richard Dane has said, "considerable cost". So they have to sound better after being re-done! Here in Aus I have organized some really great cabinetry for clients. The custom lacquering and veneering was often driven by matching the rest of the décor, and for these sorts of exercises, money really wasn't a consideration