positive_energy
pfm Member
You can buy a pair of SBLs for £500 !
Avondale: Naim SBL- New High Grade Passive Crossover ..coming very soon ..
- Thread starter positive_energy
- Start date
rontoolsie
pfm Member
The 400-500UKP charge for some highly specced crossovers may not be as unreasonable as it sounds. IME going to highly rated passive components (and not even the most expensive) ones commands a premium price in just the raw parts. The tape wound inductors I ended up using were $130 each some six years ago. The midrange capacitors $300 PER SIDE. The tweeter caps $150 PER SIDE. And these were OEM costs. So, the parts cost for these crossovers alone were probably higher than those of many respected power amps out there, which cost a lot more than what these crossovers eventually sold for.
It may initially seem disingenous for someone to buy a set of used SBLs for 500UKP or less, and then ending up spending as much (or more) in uprated crossovers. But believe you me, I much preferred my speakers passive with high spec crossovers than active with a Snaxo362 and a Supercap. And another four power amps. And another two pairs of speaker cables. Shit, the Burndy alone to hook up the SC to the Snaxo is over $600 USD.
I have never had any dealings with Avondale, but in the decade plus that I have followed their product line, they have always seemed to be very reasonably priced with very satisified end users. It is unreasonable to expect someone who makes their living designing and building that gear to sell it for the cost of raw parts and a little extra beer money. They would quickly go out of business and not be available to support any existing customer base.
Les, you simply have to try toroid inductors for the bass section. These have a vastly lower DCR than tape wound (by a factor of 100x or so), yet do not have saturation and hysterisis problems of conventional ferrite cored ones. Probem is there are about only two places these are available from, Jenssen and Duelund. And they aint cheap. But getting rid of only 0.25 ohms DCR in the tape wound units in favour of these gave enormous sonic benefits in terms or how quickly notes start and stop and textures of LF performance.
It may initially seem disingenous for someone to buy a set of used SBLs for 500UKP or less, and then ending up spending as much (or more) in uprated crossovers. But believe you me, I much preferred my speakers passive with high spec crossovers than active with a Snaxo362 and a Supercap. And another four power amps. And another two pairs of speaker cables. Shit, the Burndy alone to hook up the SC to the Snaxo is over $600 USD.
I have never had any dealings with Avondale, but in the decade plus that I have followed their product line, they have always seemed to be very reasonably priced with very satisified end users. It is unreasonable to expect someone who makes their living designing and building that gear to sell it for the cost of raw parts and a little extra beer money. They would quickly go out of business and not be available to support any existing customer base.
Les, you simply have to try toroid inductors for the bass section. These have a vastly lower DCR than tape wound (by a factor of 100x or so), yet do not have saturation and hysterisis problems of conventional ferrite cored ones. Probem is there are about only two places these are available from, Jenssen and Duelund. And they aint cheap. But getting rid of only 0.25 ohms DCR in the tape wound units in favour of these gave enormous sonic benefits in terms or how quickly notes start and stop and textures of LF performance.
James
Lord of the Erg\o/s
This seems to support my view that a properly designed passive XO sounds better than a generic active XO. It would be far more telling if you had a custom designed active XO, which I think will eclipse the custom passive XO by some margin.
James
Thanks for that Ron and I have to say you have it bang-to-rights so there's no need to try to justify what these things are likely to cost in components.
It occurred to me some time ago that just to build a crossover with an 'also-ran' performance would prove fruitless - hence the many months of midnight oil burning on the present crossover. Folks acquainted with our projects will know that unless we can produce something substantially better than the original, that project will not see the light of day.
Toroidal inductors.? There again, you've hit the nail squarely on the head for that's exactly what I've specified and monster ones they are too......
bob atherton
pfm Member
I for one am rather excited about giving these XO’s a try. Having once been active with my IBL’s using two Naim 250’s and now passive with one Avondale S100, I am preferring the passive system, just. There are things that going active did that I might be missing from the IBL’s at the moment. That said there is an integration and flow of the music that the S100 is giving that the 250’s or 135’s never did. The cost of one S100 compared to two 250’s, SNAXO, Hicap and two more lengths on NACA5 makes the choice a no-brainer IMHO.
As far as I know the way that Les works out his prices is cost price plus a very modest profit margin to keep the business ticking over. If that makes these new XO’s expensive, then that’s what they cost. VFM is another matter and IMHO that can only be determined when the XO’s are tried out and the system performance compared to, say, adding a better power supply.
I heartily thank Les for going to such effort to design and build these XO’s. I will be doing some testing of them on my IBL’s and that gives me something to look forward to in the New Year.
As far as I know the way that Les works out his prices is cost price plus a very modest profit margin to keep the business ticking over. If that makes these new XO’s expensive, then that’s what they cost. VFM is another matter and IMHO that can only be determined when the XO’s are tried out and the system performance compared to, say, adding a better power supply.
I heartily thank Les for going to such effort to design and build these XO’s. I will be doing some testing of them on my IBL’s and that gives me something to look forward to in the New Year.
YNWOAN
100% Analogue
If they haven't already been ordered - couldn't one dispense with a circuit board and just hardwire the lot together?
Are they a new design, as Rob suggests, or are they the same circuit but with much improved components (which would seem to make more sense to me)? If they are a different circuit, aren't they bound to sound quite different?
I guess, with the increased components size, they won't fit on the back of the speakers so an enclosure cost will also have had to be factored into the price. Naim just used vacuum formed ABS with the X-over circuit board hot glued in place; a proper case is likely to be quite a bit more expensive (on further thought, I guess they could both be placed in one case as Audio42 do with theirs).
Are they a new design, as Rob suggests, or are they the same circuit but with much improved components (which would seem to make more sense to me)? If they are a different circuit, aren't they bound to sound quite different?
I guess, with the increased components size, they won't fit on the back of the speakers so an enclosure cost will also have had to be factored into the price. Naim just used vacuum formed ABS with the X-over circuit board hot glued in place; a proper case is likely to be quite a bit more expensive (on further thought, I guess they could both be placed in one case as Audio42 do with theirs).
bob atherton
pfm Member
I don't know if it will work myself. Maybe if Les could get hold of a circuit diagram for SBL and IBL PXO that would give the information required.
I do know that people have been using the SL2 PXO on both SBL's and IBL's if the posters reports are to be believed, they are at least as good if not better than the original PXO's. It could be because the components are newer of course.
Bob McC
Living the life of Riley
IBL, SBL, SL2 PXOs interchangeable according to the horse's mouth in the other place.
darrylfunk
Banned
quite strange really though , all different drivers and box sizes and acoustic loading yet same crossovers ?
james - your views !?!
james - your views !?!
bob atherton
pfm Member
I know they use exactly the same tweeter, but I guess that is only part of the story?
James
Lord of the Erg\o/s
Unless the little mid-woofer has a near identical acoustic response and electrical characteristics as the 8" mid-woofer, the resulting acoustic crossover will be different. I'm willing to bet that those two drivers will measure very differently. Furthermore, the little midwoofer will have lower sensitivity than its bigger brother - which means the HF will be considerably louder than the LF if the SBL PXO is used with the IBL.
Having examined the topology of the SBL PXO, it looks pretty much a textbook affair to me - and explains why I find Naim loudspeakers to be comparatively poor in tonality. I don't know if Les is replicating the existing PXO with better componentry or redesigning the PXO from scratch using acoustic measurements. The former is a bit like fitting flasher wheels and stickier tyres onto a car with poor handling. You might improve things a little, but you're unlikely to turn a faster time around a track. The latter is more akin to making fundamental changes to the chassis, suspension geometry, shock absorbers and weight distribution. Not only will the car feel easier to drive and control; you should turn a significantly faster laptime.
James
James
Lord of the Erg\o/s
Interchangeable, I understand. Optimised, I'm willing to bet they are not. Don't the SL2 use a different tweeter (2010) to the SBL (2008)?
It must be disappointing to think that all the careful signal handling by Naim electronics upstream is so easily (and willingly) compromised by a one-size-fits-all crossover.
James
positive_energy
pfm Member
Although t may work Naim do not recommend using the SL2 x-over on the SBLS.
Yep - and I now own that pair of SBL's with the modded xovers, they sound very good indeed on the end of my 260z
rontoolsie
pfm Member
There are some advantages for different speakers in a product line to share drivers and crossovers-all of which reduce to economy of scale. In many ways the NAP power amps (bar the 500) were pretty much the same output boards but with differing power supplies. For example an olive 250 was pretty much an olive 180 with added regulator boards. A 140 was a 110 with a filter caps for each channel instead of one shared between them. This predictable approach to a progressively more sophisticated product line obviously works.
But unlike power amps, the different cabinets of speakers create very specific requirements for an optimised crossover even if the drivers are identical- regardless of whether they are passive or active. To expect a crossover to function well in Kans AND in SBLs or Credos is to greatly oversimplify matters. It is true that the Snaxos do offer limited flexibility through the cermet trim pots, but can only crudely compensate for different requirements.
For example I found out that the D2008 tweeter had a progressive rolloff starting about 10k that made it sound lacking in a little 'air'. I am not sure if this was native to the tweeter or due to the its sprung leaf suspension, although the cause really doesn't matter. Simply gooseing up the tweeter output across the high pass band does nothing to compensate for the fact that 12k will *always* be significantly down in level compared to say 3.5k. What was needed was a deliberately tilted transfer function to mirror the tweeters non-linear response. This is much easier to do with passive components than actively (unless you do it in the digital domain, which the Snaxo to be sure does not).
I see that the Ovator 600 Snaxo is a new product rather than just a DBL one with different trim pot settings- which is a good thing. Maybe it is more tailored to the 600s requirements than the original Snaxo362 was to the DBLs.
But unlike power amps, the different cabinets of speakers create very specific requirements for an optimised crossover even if the drivers are identical- regardless of whether they are passive or active. To expect a crossover to function well in Kans AND in SBLs or Credos is to greatly oversimplify matters. It is true that the Snaxos do offer limited flexibility through the cermet trim pots, but can only crudely compensate for different requirements.
For example I found out that the D2008 tweeter had a progressive rolloff starting about 10k that made it sound lacking in a little 'air'. I am not sure if this was native to the tweeter or due to the its sprung leaf suspension, although the cause really doesn't matter. Simply gooseing up the tweeter output across the high pass band does nothing to compensate for the fact that 12k will *always* be significantly down in level compared to say 3.5k. What was needed was a deliberately tilted transfer function to mirror the tweeters non-linear response. This is much easier to do with passive components than actively (unless you do it in the digital domain, which the Snaxo to be sure does not).
I see that the Ovator 600 Snaxo is a new product rather than just a DBL one with different trim pot settings- which is a good thing. Maybe it is more tailored to the 600s requirements than the original Snaxo362 was to the DBLs.