elkman70 posted:

Was passive better. Please say yes.

Well elkman70, all I have to say:

"Your money may be long, but life is short!"

By Allante93!

Enjoy Your Music, The Why!

Naim Audio, FAQ:

What Is An Active System?

"This is, of course, more expensive than any passive system arrangement but we are convinced - as are many satisfied customers - that the results justify the additional expenditure. Active systems {typically} sound more precise, clear and controlled than passive systems. The result is music that sounds more like music and less like a hi-fi system. In part this is because active systems inherently produce less distortion than passive systems. [Sorry, for being technical but it's a fact!] "

Allante93!

PS. I have never heard Active Naim, but well Acquainted with:

LP 12/ Ghenki >Aktiv Bingo Card>LK 280>Briks

Just Saying, Smiley Face! 

You can read the full report elsewhere, but here's the important bit about activating T-707s (from a less than ideal listening session with 2 speakers either side of the 707s, but that was consistent between passive and active so consistent in the comparison):

In passive form, the Janis Ian track was a pleasure to listen to.  The room was joining in to an extent but it was easy to hear that and ignore it to get to what was going on directly from the speakers.  The track is fairly funky by JI standards, which is to say its a not very funky track by funky standards, but there's some decent electric bass lines along the way.  The track starts quietly then adds extra instruments and complexity along the way.  The music was joined up and enjoyable in passive form, bass tuneful, imaging is good but not exceptional (but hey, look at the way they were set up on this occasion, that's no surprise), vocals nicely rendered - this is a very good pair of speakers in action.  We listen to the whole track, then go back and listen to the first 90 seconds or so to try and get the beginning of the track stuck in the memory.

Conversion to active takes a couple of minutes.  Understanding the magnitude of the difference it brings is a matter of seconds, then, as the track plays that understanding develops and deepens.  The active conversion brings much of what I'm used to hearing in equivalent changes in Linn active systems.  Its that clarity thing, the edges of notes are better defined, instruments start and stop with more conviction, the bass lines are crisper, tunes are easier to follow, the reverb on a guitar goes on that much longer but doesn't crash into the other instruments, there's a space between and around each instrument that wasn't there before.  Ian's vocals are better rendered, they've taken a step forward from the mix - there's subtelty in there that wasn't there before.  But all this is still joined up as a single musical message.  Back to that first few seconds of going active, and the thing that I really wasn't expecting but was quite a stunning change - the Ian track has a number of quiet elements right at the beginning of the track and that quietness was soooo much quieter than before.  With passive, I wasn't really concious of any background noise and hash in those quiet elements, but with active, the lack of that noise is very apparent (I'm sure there's still some there, but its notably less obvious).

I wish I'd made a note of this track - I've been trawling through the Janis Ian tracks on Tidal, but its a long list and I haven't found it yet!

We then listened to the Georgio track and the way these active 707s can power through this piece of Daft Punk inventiveness is very impressive.  The intro clearly reveals the sounds of the 3 different mics used to record it, and the chatter in the background is easy to follow.  But the real test of this track is about 3/4 of the way through when the very complex bass lines play at tremendous speed and the majority of systems just can't do this bit very well - they end up playing monotone thumps rather than several complex and tuneful notes.  The active 707s do a great job on this not only maintaining the tune but revealling a really growly edge to the guitar, far better than some more expensive systems.  And playing loud doesn't phase them at all.

So, for me, an easy conclusion to reach.  But here's the sting in the tail, that will be of interest particularly to Naim system owners.  The passive system was using a single NAP 300DR with Naim's expensive SuperLumina speaker cables.  The active system used 2 of the "lesser" NAP 250DR power amps and the far more reasonably priced AudioQuest Rocket speaker cables.  Game set and match to active!  Get that SNAXO on the production line Naim!

Great write up.

Thanks for the write up, very informative.

I am going to try and get along to the Audiobarn bash because I particularly want the hear the 606s and of course want to hear Naim active Kudos. I also hope they do the 300DR passive vs the 250DR active trick.

Do you know if the 606s are in final production form yet or are they still pre-production?

nigelb posted:

Thanks for the write up, very informative.

I am going to try and get along to the Audiobarn bash because I particularly want the hear the 606s and of course want to hear Naim active Kudos. I also hope they do the 300DR passive vs the 250DR active trick.

Do you know if the 606s are in final production form yet or are they still pre-production?

Sorry, I forgot to ask if they had the final production drivers or not.   Its been a long week and it didn't pop into my head to get the update. I do know they're still the only ones in existence though.

sunbeamgls posted:

nigelb posted:

Thanks for the write up, very informative.

I am going to try and get along to the Audiobarn bash because I particularly want the hear the 606s and of course want to hear Naim active Kudos. I also hope they do the 300DR passive vs the 250DR active trick.

Do you know if the 606s are in final production form yet or are they still pre-production?

Sorry, I forgot to ask if they had the final production drivers or not.   Its been a long week and it didn't pop into my head to get the update. I do know they're still the only ones in existence though.

OK, thanks. I will enquire if I go to the Audiobarn thing and update the forum.

One last question, did they have 606s at your demo and if so did you hear them?

Yes, they were playing some Deadmau5 on the end of the passive 300DR when I walked in the room. I thought the 707s were playing...

sunbeamgls posted:

Yes, they were playing some Deadmau5 on the end of the passive 300DR when I walked in the room. I thought the 707s were playing...

Cheers.

Intriguing!

Thanks for the comprehensive report Mr Sunbeam. It seems that I'll need another 500, a SNAXO, a SC; some more SL speaker cable and interconnects, plus some more Fraim. £35k ish.

Damn!

John.

Please enlighten me! What do I need to run the 707 in active mode?

Do I need a another NAP300 (and PS) and a Snaxo? (That makes three!!).

Mine 707 have played for 60 hours now and they are excellent, the best I have heard!

A friend of mine came over yesterday. He owns Wilson Sasha and electonics from ASR and he thought my system sounds better than his..

oldneil posted:

Please enlighten me! What do I need to run the 707 in active mode?

Do I need a another NAP300 (and PS) and a Snaxo? (That makes three!!).

Mine 707 have played for 60 hours now and they are excellent, the best I have heard!

A friend of mine came over yesterday. He owns Wilson Sasha and electonics from ASR and he thought my system sounds better than his..

'Need' isn't really the word!

You could add another 300DR, a SNAXO and PS.  Or you could trade in the 300 and use a couple of 250DRs, plus SNAXO and PS.

Then add a pair of interconnects and a pair of speaker cables to match your existing ones.

^  actually, 2 pairs of interconnects

Would a full loom SL be better?

?

oldneil posted:

Would a full loom SL be better?

 

?

I don't know, compaison was not done. Or are you saying that the Rocket cable might be better than the SL?

The dilemmas are terrible aren't they��

Is the "Kudos" snaxo  based on the "floaty" snaxo or the non-suspended variant?

Willy.

The SNAXO for the Kudos 707 is housed in a HiCap sized box so I am guessing non-floaty, but others may know the facts.

nigelb posted:

The SNAXO for the Kudos 707 is housed in a HiCap sized box so I am guessing non-floaty, but others may know the facts.

Don't believe being half sized is an issue as the bmr snaxo is in a half sized box, as is the Superline and both are "floaty".

Willy.

Willy posted:

Is the "Kudos" snaxo  based on the "floaty" snaxo or the non-suspended variant?

Willy.

Well, this is an Active Fan Thread, so lets get a press members take.

Allante - the 707 is a 2-way design, but has 3 drivers.  The mid-bass drivers are in a (close to) isobaric arrangement and are both fed by the same signal.  Hence only 2x 250DR to drive them in the Acoustica demo last week.  606 is also 2-way with 3 drivers and (close to) isobaric mid-bass, 808 is 3-way with 4 drivers where the bass is isobaric.

sunbeamgls posted:

Allante - the 707 is a 2-way design, but has 3 drivers.  The mid-bass drivers are in a (close to) isobaric arrangement and are both fed by the same signal.  Hence only 2x 250DR to drive them in the Acoustica demo last week.  606 is also 2-way with 3 drivers and (close to) isobaric mid-bass, 808 is 3-way with 4 drivers where the bass is isobaric.

Sunbeam, are there any 3 way Speaker that adapts to the Snaxo 362/Tri-Amped?

Technical specifications

The Titan 808 is available now priced at £21,250 per pair (including VAT).

Press Member:

"Thirdly, I have heard S1Pre through dibble snaxo -- it is awesome. dibble snaxo is not the limiting factor. End of. 

Fourthly, I upgraded my supercap feeding dibble snaxo to supercap DR. Well worth doing. I did this after the S1Pre, and gawd only knows what it would sound like now with S1Pre. Dibble snaxo + supercapdr + 6x135 + dibbles is one of the finest active system ever made. And thats with boggo mains cable and naca5......"

Jon"

Allante93!

PS. Dibbles, Nibles, and Briks!!!!

DBLs, NBLs, and Isobariks!!!!

I appreciate that the "floaty" snaxo was designed for the Ovators, a two way speaker, and given that it's crossover frequency is likely lower than most two way speakers it perhaps wasn't easy to adapt to other traditional two ways. With no other active speakers in the Naim/Focal stable then there wasn't the business case for the R&D to develop further "floaty" snaxo variants.

In the development of crossovers for the Kudos x0x range of speakers, surely the "floaty" chassis would be a better starting point? If I'd just dropped £21k+ on a pair of 808s I'd want the best possible crossover even if it cost (in relative terms) just a little bit more.

Regards,

Willy.

Willy posted:

I appreciate that the "floaty" snaxo was designed for the Ovators, a two way speaker, and given that it's crossover frequency is likely lower than most two way speakers it perhaps wasn't easy to adapt to other traditional two ways. With no other active speakers in the Naim/Focal stable then there wasn't the business case for the R&D to develop further "floaty" snaxo variants.

In the development of crossovers for the Kudos x0x range of speakers, surely the "floaty" chassis would be a better starting point? If I'd just dropped £21k+ on a pair of 808s I'd want the best possible crossover even if it cost (in relative terms) just a little bit more.

Regards,

Willy.

If I recall, the Ovators 800s, is also a 2.5 way Design.

I'm not sure, but I think DB utilized all 3 of his 500s, coming from 552 Active Briks.

He tried to explain to me, that his Ovators was actually a two way Speaker, with the Option of power the Woofer Directly, with an third Amp.

This is what confuses me, I'm thinking:

BMR Floaty Snaxo 262, designed by Naim, for their Reference Speaker!

Where one could use 2 Amps initially, and after his/her bank account has replenished, Upgrade to DB's Scenario:

NAP 500 DR ~ HIGH Frequencies

NAP 500 DR ~ MID Frequencies

 NAP 500 DR ~ on Da Woofer!

But a BMR Floaty Snaxo 262, not 362!

Perhaps Sunbeam, can Enlighten Us!

Please!!!!

I don't know about the Ovator nor Isobarik scenarios.

For Kudos:

T-606 will need 2x stereo amps (SNAXO, if any, not yet announced)

T-707 will need 2x stereo amps and will use 4x channels of a 362

T-808 will need 3x stereo amps and will use 6x channels of the same 362 as the T-707

FYI Allante, my active 20.26 use 3x stereo amps but no SNAXO, just in case you wanted to add those to the list  

All Ovators are two-way designs with pairs of bass units to cover the lower band of frequencies.

So there are two identical outputs available on the 'floaty' BMR snaxo that can either both drive two separate Power Amps to each drive separately the bass drive units individually  - or only use one of the two available Snaxo outputs into a single Power Amp and drive both bass drive units together - connecting the two bass speaker terminals at the speaker-end.

In either case the separate BMR 'high-pass' output drives the BMR.

So you can have a two Amp or three Amp solution for Active Ovators, but the Ovator is still a two way design - not 2.5 or such, which totally confuses what is happening or how they work.

As to what I did and do - I 'happened' to have three NAP500 amps which I needed for a genuine three-way Active Isobarik speakers I used to run for 25 years until I moved to Ovators. It made no sense to sell at a loss the NAP500 so I just used it - and it also allows more power and linearity so was a better solution anyway. But if I'd only had two NAP500 then I'd have happily ran them Active that way instead. It also saves on a set of SL speaker leads and SL DIN-XLR.

The BMR snaxo is a two-way (high-pass & low-pass) design - with additional specific 'tweaks' (shaping filters) to suit the Ovators, so they are not meant for other speakers.

But it would not be that difficult to omit the 'tweaks' and allow the basic two-way floaty snaxo design to be populated with the new two-way filter poles to define the needed break-points for another design of speaker.

The floaty Snaxo is well worth it - as the once head of Naim said 'it is light-years better' than the standard non-floaty one.

But there may be other 'factors' that mean the non-floaty standard Snaxo has to be what is used, as the team are perhaps trained-up to set these up for bespoke speakers. But I'd think if Naim really wanted to do it, the floaty one can be done for a two way speaker.

DB.