I hadn’t. Thanks for the suggestion. I will take a look. I see there are some on eBay. I’ve no idea what a fair price would be. I suppose it does take us back to the title of the thread…life after SBLs!
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Nice to see, that I am not alone.
Today o had such a good time with SBL … I do have a spare 250 and hiCap. If there will be a Snaxo around some day, I can give it a try :o)
Which snaxo should I take? Thought about the one in the olive shoebox.
My question is can you modify the room? I would be inclined to start by putting 18mm frc, (fibre reinforced cement), sheeting on the back wall and floor. Add decent in wall insulation whilst you are at it, if there isn’t any already. Then face the back wall with Soundchek, (a gyprock sheet), and on the floor simply carpet over. In sunny Perth this whole exercise would cost $4-5k, or diy around $2k AUD. Just google to get the product names for your country.
Upstairs rooms with stud walls are difficult for most speakers. Adding some treatment will help any of the options you are considering.
I believe the Classic style SNAXO 2-4-2 (for 2 way speakers like SBL’s) is the most recent XO.
Yup SNAXO 242 is the latest one for the SBL. A nice step up in performance too from the earlier Olive SNAXO 2-4 and also means you don’t have to closely match power amps.
I get where you’re coming from Steve. I did have some similar thoughts. I have not pursued since I think her indoors would hit the roof!
Just to add, in case you missed it, i tried beefing up the stud wall, i ended up with the standard stud wall with insulation in it, then i built an extra stud wall, not attached to the existing stud wall, then put acoustic insulation in this and finally twin layers off acoustic high density board, and finally had this plastered.
Guess what, it helped but not by much and certainly didn’t go anywhere near what it was once like on a proper solid wall, it was at this point i gave in.
As said you can keep on pilling money into trying to get them to work, but believe me, the only real way is a solid wall, and a proper real wall at that.
I am lucky as i can do work like this, but it still took time and money, and didn’t work out, the only benefit is, i now have a nice wall that helps insulate the noise from the other room.
Sub or new speakers, is i feel your only way
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Hi
I’ve been on a similar quest with a room that presents similar problems. The SBLs are positioned around 30cm from the front wall but under the slope of the ceiling. Far from the gospel ideal for these speakers. My room is probably just a a bit too narrow and the ceiling too low to ever be ideal.
I was initially concerned that the SBLs were harsh sounding. My dealer explained that the plasterboard walls absorb low frequencies, weakening the bass and thereby giving prominence to the treble.
I spent two weeks auditioning a range of speakers around £4,000-£5,000 and while they were all good the SBLs were obviously better or the auditioned speaker was just better in a few respects. None were obviously £4,000 better. Which I thought a fantastic testament to Naim’s design work on the SBL. The only candidate I loved was the Harbeth HL5 but a very different speaker compared to the SBL.
In the end I built myself some new passive crossovers and treated the room.
The crossovers, with high quality components, transformed the sound. A wide soundstage with much better depth and separation. Much greater realism, most easily heard in drums where everything just sounds more solid and the drum kit’s inner details are better revealed. Voices also have much greater solidity and sound more human. Given the similarities between the SBL and SL2 my personal theory is that the differences are largely down to a more refined crossover in the SL2.
I also treated the room with home made sound absorbers and Viacoustic DC2’s at the first reflection points and behind the speakers. This addressed many of the problems I had experienced, the room just felt bigger. The sound was much better balanced across the frequency range and the tendency of complex music to get somewhat cacophonic when things really got going was greatly reduced.
I see you have been strongly recommended speakers costing well over £7,000 and I concluded that was the sort of starting price to unequivocally better the SBLs but remember that with speakers you are listening to the room as much as the speakers and so a home audition is vital.
I haven’t changed the tweeters on my SBLs yet, that also seems to be a frequent recommendation.
Thanks. I’d not picked up you’d also been down that route. I know that is not going to be my route for other reasons, and I see some of the subsequent posts which could be challenging (if I go with acoustic baffles to treat the room, I’m also in a lot of trouble!) so yes, I think sub or speakers and most likely speakers, but I might try and borrow a sub or subs to see.
Hi
I did similar. Heard a pair of Sibbles courtesy of Andy Tooley in the marvellous Audio Images in Sheffield.
They were just what I’d been looking for to replace my Arivas.
I had also listened to quite expensive speakers (inc. Harbeth) and found that none of them reproduced music as well as Naim speakers.
Then a pair of SL2s came up and I bought them instead.
Are you sure that the passive xovers you built were responsible for all those changes. Or did you change anything else at the same time?
How did you design and make the xovers? @Richard.Dane - I hope discussing homemade crossovers is within the rules…?
Are you a electrical designer by trade?
Can you show us a picture of them?
BTW, I think there are a few differences between SL2s and SBLs apart from xovers and the size - e.g. is the tweeter completely suspended in the SBLs? (I forget.) Is there a metal base plate on the SBLs that includes leaf springs? Is the interlinked box system different, and the pips?
Hi jimdog
I don’t think we’re allowed to discuss DIY mods here but have a search on the pink forum lots of info there.
I’m not an engineer but they’re fairly easy to assemble, though a good soldering iron is needed. They can also be used active if needed. I did swap the Naim ones back in for a time and the improvement is very obvious.
My SBLs are nearly 30 years old and the electrolytic capacitors degrade with age. The ferrite cored coils used in lots of speakers are not necessarily the best. The SBLs just get better and better as one improves the amplification, they were clearly designed to be used active, the original passive crossover was very much the bottom of the range, built to a price.
You are of course correct the SL2 has a number of refinements which no doubt help improve the sound.
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Just a thought, how about getting a 52 rather than going active? Pre is king in Naim world and it might just do the trick.
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Not true. A brick wall with plasterboard is absolutely fine and bass response is superb with SL2s in my experience.
It is true, any gap will start to cause a issue, the bigger the gap the bigger the issue.
Air is not solid, if what you are suggesting is true, then they wouldn’t need a solid wall to work properly and my solid wall in the next room behind the stud wall should be fine.
They need a solid wall to work properly and like i said, a proper solid wall is best, modern houses are thrown up, and most have low density block work, very light with lots off air in them, then a gap, most quite large, because the block work is so crap and the board needs to be upright, all not helping, an older house, like what i have, with brick or dense block construction inside and cement and skim plaster, is what i mean by a proper wall and was how it was done when the speakers were designed.
Thats a good point Dunc, i had not thought about low density blocks and their suitability.
I work in the construction industry, and have done for 37 years. In that time its changed massively, basically everything got lighter and its all about quicker build.
Blocks used to be very heavy and one at a time, now its more like how many you can carry and still see where you are going, you can cut them with a saw, they are that soft, full off air as its help the U valve ( insulation), but as we have all experienced modern houses that are not detached, you can hear next door much more than an older house, due to how poor the products that are used they days, the sounds just goes through them much easier, rather than the older dense products we once used.
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I had a similar “journey” with my SBLs. The SBLs have lived on after every upgrade over 20 years I did, which is a credit how good they are. After hearing a few other systems I decided that it was time to review the options to get the best out of my system and in addition I always felt they lacked bass. The lack of bass is partly SBLs are not a bass heavy speaker and, in my case, plasterboard walls.
I have an active system and, for me, active is more about musicality. True the bass is better, although more about definition than weight.
I looked for both passive and active speakers. I kept coming back to an active set-up although this narrows the speaker choice considerably. After much research and few auditions, it all clicked into place when I heard Kudos 606s - to sum up my kids said “these are the ones, since they make me want to dance!”. The 606s are like a grown up version of the SBLs - more rounded and full, but still keeping similar qualities of pace, energy and directness. And the bass is great!
The SBLs…of course I kept. They are now in my Naim home cinema set-up together with a streamer in the basement. Where the SBLs found their best place - yes, as you would guess, against a solid wall!
Hope this helps!
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Hmmm, don’t think that sound insulation is great in Victorian terraces or interwar semis either — at least not in my experience…
In our previous semi, I “witnessed” every single argument that led to our then neighbours’divorce… And after buying our current semi, our neighbour’s piano practice we could hear rather clearly as well. So before moving in we did some sound insulation — a fairly reasonable DIY job. Much better than before, but certainly not perfect…
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Sound insulation is very different, but what i was trying to say is the old way used much denser blocks and even bricks, than they do now
And I was trying to say — in my experience, regardless of construction material, party walls in the UK are sh*** (apologise for my French), as they allow you to “participate” in far too much of your neighbour’s life… Obviously, there might be the odd exception with truly solid walls, but that’s certainly not the case for the great majority of people… And I guess I am also saying that “glorifying” the past involves far too often putting on beer goggles…