ATC SCM7s worth a try.
I bought mine from the London Rd crew. They may well lend you a pair.
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Stephen,
Don’t beat yourself up “the person that never made a mistake never tried anything new”.
I have a sub but is for AV use only now and works well - is this something for you?
Integrating the sub for music always left more niggles than improvements for me, so you are not alone.
Granted - that’s the catch. What bass there is is surprisingly deep and of excellent quality though. If you ‘get’ what the IBL’s are all about then it’s something you just accept and live with for the sake of all the other benefits. If you can’t accept it then obviously you needed to look elsewhere. SBL’s or DBL’s perhaps. I’ve never heard the DBL’s, not many dealers had pairs on dem! I’ve heard SBL’s several times and was left unimpressed save for one oaccasion when they were running active (CB 250’s) and with LP12/Arro/Troika.
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I’ve never liked the sound of a subwoofer or even two in a 2 channel system. The timing is off and one can clearly hear it. Naim is the king of timing so that’s why I think our community notices this more than audiophiles invested in other brands. I would much rather choose a speaker that has a bass output I am content with rather than adding a subwoofer.
It’s baffles me how so many audiophiles still don’t value timing as that’s paramount in say DAC technologies and also why so many people still love records so much. A subwoofer has a filter and thus a delay. Heck even a speaker crossover mucks up timing but active is out of my reach. Cost and space to accommodate the additional snaxo SUPERCAP etc.
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Ovator S400 ?
G
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I do feel slightly bad about this because I was one of those who were enthusiastic about the nSub option and it was me who located it at the dealer. When I had nSats many years ago I was never happy with them until I got the sub. It integrated perfectly and gave none of the problems mentioned by others above. It was just like having a large pair of speakers with bass that is clear and tight, and most definitely not like a car subwoofer.
I had mine on the back wall. I was probably lucky because that was the first and only place we tried it when Norman and Ian installed it. Getting the sub integrated usually takes a bit of time and effort and it’s naive to think you can just plonk it down, and perhaps a little foolish to dismiss it so readily when you cannot be bothered to put in the effort.
There is an underlying question here about how to be happy with what you’ve got. We went from a situation where the nSats were the best speakers in the world to one where Ovator 400s, 600s and the nSub were being considered. It would be interesting to get to the root of what that is all about. How can the Sats be so perfect yet unsatisfactory at the same time?
Without the sub, I’ve found the Sats to be chesty and congested with a rather unnatural sound. To me, there are far better alternatives. There are, I feel, a few decisions to be made. Can you be bothered to tune the sub to work properly, as it can? If not, get rid of it. Are the Sats really as good as you say they are? If they are so good, why are you thinking of changing them? If they are, keep them, if they are not, get rid of them. There are plenty of better speakers out there.
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Now that is a very interesting question. It applies to many things in human life, from choice of partner to car, but hifi is a bit different in that with many other things there are other factors that can change (including ourselves when it comes to relationships), but we often assess the sound of a system as bringing perfect balance of sound (well, as near as we feel is achievable, at least within a then realistic budget): could it be our ears changing? Or we simply hear something better bringing something that we didn’t know was possible? Or is it reading hifi press or forums such as this? There must be a psychology PhD in there somewhere!
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Well, i’m certainly not considering ditching my m-SATs just yet. They are the most fun little speakers i have ever owned, so much so that they do put a smile on my face every time i hear them. How can so much sound come out of such small speakers? They are incredible in that sense, but do lack that last octave with certain genres of music.
I think i might have to play around with the sub’s positioning, at the moment i have it in-between the n-SATs about 5 inches from a solid rear wall. The frequency is set at 60Hertz and gain is 65 to 70, depending on which input is used. To be fair i haven’t really experiment with moving the sub closer to my listening position which some here have advised. My room is pretty good from an acoustic sense, meaning that it’s quite solid and unusually shaped.
Just to add: trying different Ethernet cables can improve things in some areas and some times not, in the bass department. When i turn the sub off though, there isn’t that much missing overall or i don’t really notice it gone, then a touch more engagement return to the listening experience, though a touck lighter and thinner.
I’d try dropping this back until you can hardly hear it.
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Interesting points. Speaking personally I’ve always been attracted to what one might call ‘marmite’ speakers - Kans, IBL’s, nSats and now Klipsch Forte III’s. They all have something vital in common for me. They communicate the essence and emotion of the music exceptionally well, and significantly better than more ‘normal’ alternatives. The downside of them all is that they are unbalanced designs - made to excel in some areas at the expense of others. Some people much prefer a more balanced design - but not for me. Of course if you have very deep pockets then you can have your cake and eat it!
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That’s a very good point Mike_S. When i first added n-SUB i had the gain at 60 but when i put my ear to the sub i couldn’t hear it so felt there was no point in having it on, hence why i upped the gain, then things started to go a little down hill. Is it really mean’t to be that subtle?
You should never be able to ‘hear’ the sub as a separate thing to the music. But muting with the remote you should be able it hear what it does without hearing the sub itself. Try putting it to one side of the speakers. Having it in between is not generally a good idea.
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Yes, I’m my experience the gain should be just audible.
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I’ve not tried the nSub but I’ve lived with several others. I could never set the gain satisfactorily despite many weeks of experimentation. Either the sub was obvious, ie. too loud, or it made absolutely no difference at all.
To my ears a sub never makes a small pair of speakers sound big. It just sounds like a small pair of speakers with some bass added to them. Larger speakers sound completely different in the way the bass integrates- it is part of the overall sound not just an add-on. It is an entirely different experience.
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That is most certainly doable without creating a lot of fuss i think. I must admit here that i have often thought maybe the sub will integrate better with it being nearer to the listening position? This maybe my project for today but i will compromise in another way by having to locate my TV in between the speakers to move sub to one side. Mmm…maybe i could hang the TV on the wall instead. You have urged me to experiment. All i have to do now is to try to convince Mrs Tate, not easy but maybe doable…
Yes that is pretty much what i have found here myself. Hence why i think i should ditch it and just carry on with the n-SATs as they are, but, and there is always a but…
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Yes that pretty much sums it up for me too. I find a lot of balanced modern speakers a little boring. Either to much bass, soft in the treble or a recessed mid-range. I’m more the in your face with a forward presentation speaker guy, but with a tight and fast as lightning bass speaker person. Sealed box designs mainly.
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You might need to up your amps…… 
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Yes maybe a NAC252 and NAP250DR. It’s certainly on the table for negotiation
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As you have it at home, there’s nothing to lose and everything to gain in attempting to get it positioned and setup as optimally as possible. Not sure where you live, but there might be the opportunity to engage someone (Naim dealer I suppose) to assist you with this. It’s not just the physical location but the direction it faces, what’s it’s sat on, plus the settings that can be tweaked. Perhaps there’s a good guide online. Definitely the one detail as Mike mentioned above is the volume /gain setting should be adjusted lower than you’d anticipate.
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