Had mine for a couple off weeks now and must say i am enjoying them massively.
Great deep bass that can shake the plates in the cabinet with the added bonus of great vocals, a massive upgrade to my SBL’s that i did think would be in my system for life.
Running active from 2 x 250’s for now and even though i dont thing adding a 3rd amp will make much difference in my system/room / listening volume,mi am still looking at adding the 3rd amp.
One question is with the bmr snaxo, would splitting the 250’s into mono (easy to do as its only one wire) and then running all,the 6 outputs rather than just 3 make any difference?
As unless the snaxo just splits the outlet to the top connections from the bottom ones, rather than have separate rails to each then i dont see any point in doing it
The BMR SNAXO is the floaty-type which is an added bonus for us Active users - it is a wonderful way to go.
The Ovator (all of them) is 2-way with BMR and then separate Bass outputs so all the gain is that the power-handling goes-up and your Amp is driving double the impedance, so you operate the Amp more of the time in the more linear area of operation so there are gains - but the main gain is just Activating.
I always used three Amps, because I had three available coming from Active Isobariks.
Otherwise if starting now I’d use the best possible (I could afford) two Amps Active - then try a third Amp after that.
In my case the NAP 500DR is wonderful - and If I had the money the S1 Monoblocks, but ‘roughing it’ with the 500 is wonderful. The NAP300 was pretty wonderful too - but you do hear all the upgrades in the hierarchy with Naim so listen to what you can afford. Mine was a long-term path over many years of enjoying every improvement made.
The usual case that has to be discussed is merits of Passive with better Amp vs Active with next in range down Amp - there are no easy answers as the better amp brings more clarity and control (usually) but the Active does immediacy and removal of the loudspeaker as a box better. Both is best - but more boxes and expense pushed Active to those who have got used to what they do and find it tough swapping-back to Passive again.
DB.
You can only try - Naim with earlier speakers used to recommend that approach, but with later speakers and Reference Series Amps decided they got better results in other aspects of music presentation with the better L-R matching you get by imposing the same distortion at the same time L and R.
DB.
I was just thinking that if the snaxo splits into 6 different rails then running all 6 or 4 for me at the moment till i get an extra amp would be better than the 2 i run now using my 250’s.
It would be connected up like running 2 nap 300’s
Have you found what was wrong with the SBL’s?
My SBLs can shake the room like my Ovators, and their high can almost be as smooth as the Ovators.
Maybe retorque the SBLs too?
The main differences I found between Ovators and SBLs are 1) size, 2) position in a room.
Well my sbl’s can not even get close to matching the bass weight of the s600 and looking at the size difference i dont expect them too, i would love them to have that weight and did think about adding a sub to help them out, but in the end the 600 came up and i tried them and that was it.
Its hard to say what condition they are in as they are quite old these days, but mk2 and running a serviced snaxo, so i guess they are ok as they sound fine.
I’m running 600’s with a single 300dr and they’re the best speakers that I’ve owned by a long way.
Thanks for the last paragraph Darkebear.
I’m currently running single 300dr and am considering a single 500dr. For similar money I could probably go 2 x 300dr plus floaty snaxo and cables etc. But I’ve always set my sights on a 500 at some point in my hifi journey, but doubt that I could justify ever doubling or trebling up on 500s.
I guess that a single 500 will be the pinical of my journey.
Guess the only way to decided is to demo both.
I was converted to active years ago with my sbl’s and running the S600 active was a very nice and easy upgrade
For what it may be worth, the Active S600 is into a different league of replay to the Passive version as good as the latter is. The Ovator family of speakers seem to thrive on Activation and their speed and immediacy seem to lend themselves towards the Active strengths so it is a good fit for them.
To be clear, I used to run Active Isobariks before my S600 and vastly preferred them also to Passive operation so all speakers get a lift IMO - as the Isobariks are a very different Speaker with its own strengths.
The Ovator SNAXO is also the only one designed specially for these speakers and is the best Naim made in that it contains the suspended internal sub-chassis not available on the other versions - and that does made a difference as I demoed the prototype SNAXO without that before my Production SNAXO arrived. Naim have as a company since made business decisions away from Active operation which are reasonable in terms of business but do still support Active.
Not to say there is not also a large difference between 300 and 500 Amps so certainly a 500 Passive would be different from 2x300 - possibly 2x300DR may be better Active than 1x500 (non-DR) Passive - and 2x 500DR is amazing.
…they are all good options. 
DB.
Well i am very happy to run mine on my 2 olive 250’ s, but that will be changing this month as upgrading to 2 x 300 amps. Might keep one 250 to try it on 3 amps or i would rather wire one up if i can from my 52 to run my old sbl’s in the family room ?
They really like the 300 better than the 250 I found so you should really notice a nice improvement.
They work fine with the 250 but the 300 sounds like it was designed for it.
DB.
Yes looking forward to the upgrade
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