active sbl's bass...

Actually, Ken, you and I both know that there should be at least one thread a month in praise of active SBLs (when will the others ever learn). A couple of days ago I hooked my Snaxo up to a Supercap – it just gets better and better! And this is using a Snaic 5 only (Burndy yet to come).

Whether SBLs do bass or not depends on so many other things (upstream). I don’t get it when people criticize SBLs for “delivering bass only if it’s on the recording” – I always thought that was what good hifi is about. As far as I know, their frequency response does indeed drop somewhat at the bottom end, but it’s never worried me. When SBLs start pumping it, it just leaves you wondering whether someone’s hidden bigger speakers in the room.

Thomas

Added supercap to snaxo too and upgraded CD3.5 to CDS1... Bass sounds great!

Jun

Just a question for the 'active sbl' club.

With the system I own,

CDX/XPX/102/HiCap/Snaxo/Hicap/140x2/SBL

it has been my intention to upgrade depending on s/h availability either with 2x250 or the preamp section first. If I did the latter it seems sensible to try to work my way towards a 52 so I wondered about acquiring a supercap as a 'halfway' stage (hope you are following this.

If so would you add the Supercap to the 102 or the Snaxo-any ideas which would make the biggest difference? If I added it to the SNAXO i could presumably put the second Hcap on the 102-is this worthwile? Anyone tried it?

Bruce

I hope to be getting another pair of 135's soon so as to go active. I will move my Supercap from Prefix to power the crossover and go back to Hi-Cap. I will be getting Burndy. So, what am I going to get by going active? Getting excited!!

BTW I've maxed the front end (CDS2/52/LP12 etc)and it's all on Fraim.

Steve

Whizz,

What I meant was that you can walk into someone’s room, hear a system with SBLs, and whether or not you hear loads of bass has nothing to do with the SBLs. I find, for example, that a CDX/82/Hi combination has a nice tonal balance, and CDX/82/Super has some oomph to it, whereas CDX/52/Super sounds somewhat bass-light (in my system, in any case) – the 52 is just so much more precise, you get less muddle at the lower end. However, I believe that CDX plus XPS (or CDSII, of course) would tip the balance in the right direction again (I hope to be doing that soon).

What I very much like about active is the way it seems to shrink the size of instruments somewhat (or perhaps what I’m hearing is better separation). When I upgraded from IXO to SNAXO, it got even better and I felt that it was much easier to ‘visualize’ the snare drum standing there, the dimensions were right.

I’ve never heard IBLs. Going active doesn’t necessarily add bass quantity – in fact, the bass may actually become leaner, taught-sounding. However, if you went active with your IBLs you could tweak the Xover to a certain degree to quench your thirst for bass (it’s not like a standard Japanese tone control, though). I believe you get more ‘music’ (boogie factor) from a source or a speaker upgrade, but good active is: OK, baby, you show me … It makes that sleek dress a bit tighter, but it won’t turn a plumpish girl into Heidi Klum.

Bruce,

I found adding a Super to the pre-amp (then an 82) resulted in more bass than adding a Super to the Snaxo. Couldn't say much about other factors right now.

Thomas

[This message was edited by Thomas K on THURSDAY 15 November 2001 at 13:34.]