RICHARD DANE

I'm finding a comfortable chair, this should be good...

Hold on to your seat. This should be interesting!

I am intrigued to know what Richard has to say too ! But expect the answer to be....personal preference 

what a coincidence, I was about to start a thread about these legendary SL2 speakers.

what is it about them....?

Lights, out, popcorn in hand, waiting for the fun to start

Why ask Richard only ?

Why not getting in all opinions ?

why dont you

Mr Dane runs SL2 speakers I believe.... 

You're not seriously expecting Richard to say anything controversial, are you?

I'm not sure exactly what his current relationship with Naim is, but clearly he has a close one which it would be insensitive of any of us forum members to jeopardise...

...so don't hold your breath for anything but a diplomatic response Steve 

Ask the forum in general on the other hand... and you're likely to be told in no uncertain terms what your peers think of Ovators !

This reminds me of a post, some years back, addressed specifically to Frank Abela and asking about some piece of equipment or another. This was followed by a thread with, in my view, the best title ever on the Forum 'Frank Abela - what's the weather like?'

Quite why Richard's opinion is more important than anyone else's is a mystery to me. He's a top man, but as far as I know he doesn't possess golden ears. 

well, he was the export sales manager @ Naim, and may not have golden ears, but nobody does quite literally 

What he does have is the experience of listening to a more Naim stuff than most of the people on this forum, so people (including me) to listen to what he advises.

But then HH, people listen to what you say very carefully too

Sure hope you guys didn't call in sick on Friday.

Well here's a thread tittle that has got my attention...

Yes, I use SL2s on the main Naim system.  I think they're a fabulous speaker, quite self effacing, not a show-off, easy to accommodate, tricky to learn how to set-up at their best but most rewarding when you get it right.  In many ways it's a superb example of very clever engineering, executed without accountancy restraint - RG and his team just got on with the job of making the best speaker they could for its size and footprint and the cost was totted up afterwards.  

The SL2 has exceptional coherence and integration between drive units right across the frequency spectrum.  I remember comparing  my SL2s against my early pair of Rogers Gold label LS3/5as and in overall tone and midrange performance they were remarkably similar and yet the SL2s were undoubtedly far superior in all other areas.  That's when I really understood just how special the SL2s can be.  So yes, I guess I like them very much.

As for the Ovators, I spent a few weeks with an early pair of S400s, taking them on the road with me to various Bentley events.  I used them with a CDX2 and an original Supernait.  After I had started to get a handle on their preferred setup and positioning and once they had begun to properly break-in, I really enjoyed their performance.  I didn't compare directly against the SL2s, but I'm sure I would be quite happy with a pair of S400s at home.

The S600s I never spent enough time with or in my own system.  I heard them at the factory in various guises and at a couple of shows.  Whenever I heard them they were still undergoing final tweaking so it may be that I have never heard a pair of proper production S600s.  I couldn't give any meaningful opinion on these.

The S800s, I have only heard very briefly and it's impossible for me to give any opinion here, sorry.

HH is right, last time I looked I didn't have golden ears so just like anyone else on here, take my opinion with a pinch of salt. 

My name is NOT Richard

I first heard a pair of SL2s at a HiFi show in Bristol when the SL2s were launched. Naim did their best. They had their top source and amp system feeding them but obviously limited by the constraints of the Presidential Suit of the Marriot Hotel. Just what those constraints are I don't really know. Oh, yes, there were about 30 people in the room for each audition.

Disappointing would be an understatement. Bass-light would be an understatement. I seriously wondered whether Naim would ever sell a single pair. When Nigel posted his infamous "My Jaw hit the Floor" thread, I assumed it was a joke.

I still do.

+1 I loved my SL2s when I had a pair five years ago or so. Wonderfully articulate and musical when set up correctly.

KR

Peter

Never heard anything sound very good from any manufacturer at that show. I assume its just the hotel building. I heard a pair of DBLs sounding disappointing there too as Jason G will remember....And yet DBLs in most other places I've heard them sound amazing!!! I think it's a hotel room thing 

KR

Peter

The 10th floor suite in the Bristol Marriott apparently used to sound pretty good when the show was first held there.  And then one year, they remodelled the floor and it no longer seemed to work anything like as well.  Naim persevered - to their credit, where others have ducked out with static displays, they have never been afraid to try to get a good sound at a show, even when the results have fallen way short of the ideal for one reason or another.  

In recent years a further refurb to the 10th floor made things even worse, so I'm told...

Don, you're not wrong.  I've heard SL2s sound atrocious on more occasions than I'd like.  Flat and bass-light was often how they came across in the early days.  The problem was down to everyone having to learn how to make them work.  The sprung base and tweeter arm caught out just about everyone at some point.  That was what prompted me to try to find an easier method to set up SL2s consistently well - it took many hours of building them up, breaking them down, seeing what worked and what didn't, and the result is the guide in the FAQ.

But there were some other issues too in the early days; the interface plates were absolutely critical, this included the torquing of the bolts and also how they sat within the wooden carcass of the speaker.  The speaker cabinet came under some scrutiny too.  I recall there was a pair of Rosewood SL2s that looked stunning but just didn't quite sound as good as they should.  Doug took them home and soon brought them back complaining that they were flat and unengaging.  They were stripped down, drivers checked, drivers changed, rebuilt many time over, but the result was always the same.  A real head-scratcher.  I remember deciding that we had to get to the bottom of why they weren't quite conjuring up the magic that we all knew by now should have been coming from a well set-up pair of SL2s.  So I got them together with a pair of SL2s that I knew worked well and sounded great and I spent an afternoon comparing them.  Then piece by piece I began to swap parts between them.  I didn't have to go too far. The first thing I did was to swap the top boxes.  All of a sudden the magic appeared.  Wow! Switching back and forth showed that it was definitely the top boxes that were the problem. So we changed over the driver - that must be it, surely?  But no, swapping mid/bass drivers made no difference.  So it was the actual wooden top box itself that was causing the problem.  To the casual eye it looked fine although there was some suspicion cast at the glue in one internal joint.  IIRC they were sent to the cabinet manufacturer for reference.  We all looked more closely at the inside of the top boxes after that...

Hi Peter,

Possibly. But I have heard them elsewhere and still not been impressed. But I do recognise that many, many people on this forum do like them.

Cheers

Don

Really? I don't remember that one!

Yup. I love my SL-2s. I still like the S-400, never really got on with the S-600 and was amazed when I heard S-800s we installed fresh out of the box in an active 500 system...in a room which could have housed my entire ground floor and made NBLs look puny.

The SL-2 works for me because it is a big speaker which takes little space, is more room friendly than typical high performance speakers and does some things better than any other speaker I have heard so far.

My sole concern is that SL-2 grilles are no more. There are none left at Naim and they are made of the same material in the same way as the old SBL grilles, but they're even more difficult to make. So they're bound to deteriorate over time and need replacing. One can only hope that someone will be able to make a replacement but I doubt it somehow. 

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

I love these SL2 threads. I can see the speakers value rising quicker than old Porsches!

Thank you Richard for such a detailed and interesting post. It provides a real insight to SL2s and an indication as to why perceptions might vary, quite widely.

I have been trying to select a suitable adjective. "Temperamental" doesn't seem quite right, but at the moment I can't quite put my finger on the right word. A bit like a specialised sports car that is truly excellent if it can be fine-tuned before the race, but production tollerances are too sensitive for the domestic market and even the above-average garage mechanic can't always guarantee a proper service and tune-up - It needs the Formula-One Team such as yourself or Peter plus a lot of TLC to get it right !

Comments on the forum about S600 and S800 (but not so much S400) speakers suggest this sensitivity in setup and room-dependency is not entirely a thing of the past.

Perhaps Peter and his Formula-one Team has gained valuable experience in this respect that he is willing to share ?

I have been trying to select a suitable adjective. "Temperamental" doesn't seem quite right, but at the moment I can't quite put my finger on the right word. 

Idiosyncratic was more what I had in mind..........

I disagree with this. Yes, they're not plonk and play, but few speakers, well - few good speakers - are! They are a little more fiddly than some because they have multiple boxes, but in the main I have found that a little common sense, some attention to detail and following the main well-established rules is sufficient to bring about a creditable result. It doesn't take a mythical Formula-1 team to get good results from SL-2s, just some diligence.

Regards,
Frank.
All opinions are my own and do not reflect the opinion of any organisations I work for, except where this is stated explicitly.

And your opinion on the Ovators Peter?