I am looking for some help with going active with my Ovators .Are there any active users out there still.
Thanks
Do you have the active bases fitted to the speakers or do you have passive base with crossovers?
Also you will need the snaxo for the S600 as a normal snaxo can’t be converted as there completely different.
Ok ,i have a BMR snaxo lined up. But i dont have the the active base ,which i dont think i will be able to get (in the hands of dealer and Naim at mo).
But im happy to overcome this with a bit of lateral thinking 
.
Im not an active newby ,having an active Isobarik setup in house .
My question is about the Snaxo settings .
Does it have pots on BMR side and Bass side or does it gravitate around one side or another.ie fixed bass adjustable BMR etc .
Also is the transformation substantial , for example i find passive Isobariks unlistenable but active sublime .
The passive S-600 are definately more lean sounding than my preference .
I ran s600 active and they like power, so the better the amp will bring better results.
I believe they got voiced with 3 x 300 amps back in the day, i never got to that level.
I would say the active basses are just about impossible to get these days, and you will have to rip apart your basses etc to make work.
The bmr snaxo is just like the normal snaxo, but set up for the ovators, plus with the brass suspension, they have bmr, bass 1 and bass 2 pots on them if i remember right and you can run them with either one or two amps or go all in with 3
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I asked via my dealer and Naim have no active base units
The BMR Snaxo should come with pre-set positions for the S600 if it is an S600 Snaxo - there is also an S800 Snaxo which is different which I swapped my S600 one for when I changed from Active S600 to S800.
I found the Naim pre-set marking did not need to be changed and worked well, so if they have been altered return to those and run them that way to begin. Both Bass units set the same level (they are identical) and the BMR is then tweaked if you need to do so and it is very obvious when it is off and easy to tweak as just one pot - but put it at the default position to begin.
The Base units have three sets of terminals - as you would expect - and no Passive crossover. Essentially the three outputs from the Passive crossover now go to the three sets of Active inputs in the stands. Make sure you identify the BRM one and only connect BMR feed to it an you will be fine.
Naim will not - probably - want me discussing any modification to stands to make a custom Active one if you can’t get the right part from them, but they are your speakers and it is a matter of adding (carefully) the extra holes for the needed connectors and not being concerned about resale value of the Speakers.
Active S600 are in a different league from Passive ones - I went from Active Isobariks to those and it was as if my system came to life. They do need very firm reinforced or solid floor under them as they put more bass energy into the stand than the Briks - believe it or not!
See if Naim can support you with either obtaining the Active stand or advice on wiring if you are up for doing that yourself. Not sure the existing internal speaker feed wires will reach where the Active terminals are so you will have to decide if you want to re-wire to the drive units to keep from adding more connections.
Let us know how you progress! 
DB.
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Thanks DB, yes my comment regarding lateral thinking re base plate i think covers it ,i know whats required and can sort that . If i have to extend the cables i will get my dealer to help with that ,but hope to not have to .
I would agree with the live sound comment . They are definately not pipe and slippers (where the Isobariks could occasionally stray )
I understand they are a marmite speaker but im up for a challenge. Ive got free reign on the room they are in ,18ft x ft 25 suspended floor but will experment there too with building up .Ive got them 1.3m away from sides and 30cm from back wall .
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That sounds quite ideal! Good luck.
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If you have space then hopefully you should be able to get them to work as they should, then hopefully you will like what they do.
But i would say 2 x 300 amps as a minimum really, as i tried 2 x 250’s, then 3 x 250’s, before finally having 1 x 300dr and 2 x 250’s on the bass, still couldn’t get the control that i should have been atleast on the way to having, so gave up as 3 x 300dr’s was never going to happen just on space alone, let alone cost, etc.
Good luck
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I hear what you are saying regarding amplifiers. I will be pitching in at 2 250.2 and possibly 3 eventually. Untill i can assess whats going on and potential of the setup that will have to do .
These are the proper active base plates, although it wouldn’t be hard to adapt the passive base by removing the crossover pcd and adding extra sockets.
The two bass units run exactly the same frequency so these are two way speakers just run them in parallel and your good to go if you don’t have three power amps.
The same rules apply as with Keltiks and isobariks ( they sound a hell of a lot better with bi amped bass ).
From memory the cables for the speakers are not marked so it’s worth marking which cables go where when removing the passive crossover.
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Thankyou so much for the pictures . I have not ,and will not lay into them until the BMR snaxo is here,to allow me to continue using .But i really appreciate being able to see what i will be dealing with in advance and allow me to make plans .
Thanks David
Your very welcome, this picture gives you an idea how much the speakers are being held back by running passive.
The bass is Keltik like after these have been removed.
They should have been active only really and never sold passive.
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Thats a nice touch turning them into portable passive external xovers .
Reasuring that the improvement should be very noticable .
I run them active with a trio of 300s and have yet to find any other speaker to rival them. It will also be worth considering additional isolation, I use Gaia previously Townsend Bars, the latter were more effective in terms of isolation, but I do prefer the Gaia. Both of these made a considerable enhancement in my room.
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Gerry yours are my old zebranos .
David here.
This where things get obtuse,DB strengthens floor to max performance ,but you prefer on wobbly isolators .
With the Ovators having their own suspension system i will try the solid re inforced floor first . I have heard Gaia and the effect they had at demo .
I run my active s600 s with 4x135s with the wiring provided by my dealer. They were 2nd hand, along with the Snaxo, as I recall the dealer did not change the settings. But I could be wrong.
They sit on a flagstone floor in front of a stone wall, at a similar distance to yours.
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You do not need an absolutely solid floor - just to control the resonance of the floor under the Ovators.
You want to avoid ‘beats’ between the Ovator speaker bass resonance and the floor - so rigid enough to raise the floor resonance higher by stiffening it and definitely avid adding damping to floor or it will sound truly awful!
If the floor has a resonance close to and just above or below the speakers you will get the difference as a beat note and a ‘room resonance’ - but that is not what it really is in this case although it may interact with such.
So you need either a totally solid floor - or a very stiff rigid floor.
If the latter - tap the floor and it should make a sharp click and not a dull thud sound. If your floor gives a thud - that is what you will be getting amplified into the bass all the time!
If a sharp click - that is above the bass resonance and in fact the speakers sound very fast and sound good with that flooring.
I reinforced by glue and screw solid oak floor 90 degrees across my existing suspended floor - screw into joists and you get a very hard taught floor - it works well.
Do not add damping to suspended floors - people I know have added concrete into their suspended floor and got awful results far worse. So either proper solid or as I suggest above - just some suggestions.
DB.
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