They match very well in your room and especially with your fire place. 
…and some might say… 
What’s so bad about Naim Speakers??..they dont produce them anymore thats bad 
4 Likes
Indeed they do - the issue is that they look so cool, so refined.
3 Likes
Before we got the SBLs, I could get my wife’s blessing for B&W loudspeakers based on their looks. I had to buy the SBLs without agreement, which I did. My wife made an issue about it, until they were positioned and the music was switched on. Seamless against the wall and the uncontrolled bloated bass was gone. Since then, no issue anymore and they look very good too. High build quality. Next step, DBLs 
3 Likes
Hi
Actually for a week I did listen to them through the bin bags and they still sounded good haha.
Berni
1 Like
Actually in all seriousness, if the plastic is thin enough it can be quite difficult to discern a difference between bags on and off - a useful tip for playing hifi outdoors with a risk of rain…
1 Like
In my youth it was standard procedure to but a bin bag over your speakers for parties. It had little or no effect on sound quality.
2 Likes
This reminds me of someone I used to know back in those just post student days. He could have inspired that T shirt “ instant ars’ole just add alcohol”. He managed to get drunk enough at one party that he threw up on the turntable but for some reason he lifted the lid first. We could only assume he mistook it for a toilet but he denied any memory of the incident afterwards.
It wasn’t my party or house thankfully.
3 Likes
A further paean in favour of the SBLs:
For the past few weeks I have been working my way through 150 jazz albums gifted to me by a friend. Whilst doing this I fit in a few favourites, which this time included Bursting Out, the Jethro Tull live album. This has my favourite version of ‘Thick as a Brick’. I have listened to this thousands of times. Well, I have never heard it better. It is easy to write that the SBLs are fast & phase coherent, but what does this mean musically? In this case it means that each musician is clearly laid out so that you can here what and how they are playing. It does this WITHOUT making the result sound like a musical autopsy, which is what I found with the Schitt Ygdrasil. It was fun and just drew you into what was happening.
Is there are downside to this? Perhaps. There is not a lot of bloom going on, while this may not be accurate it can be satisfying, even if it can also mask other musical information.
3 Likes
Having started …
In the past month I had the pleasure of listening to the new Sonus faber Lumina IIIs at home for an extended period. These could be said to be the polar opposite of the SBLs, being ported non-boundary speakers. They had the advantage of being new speakers that were designed to take advantage of new manufacturing processes, new materials and advances in design techniques.
I should mention that my SBL drive units and XOs are new.
The Lumina’s imaging was somewhat better than the SBLs, particularly in terms of depth. However, I think this can be over-emphasised. Where the information is in the recording in a natural acoustic the SBLs are remarkably good remembering their room boundary setup, although they do tend to be rather more left to right than front to back.
Returning to bass bloom: I have loved that touch of bloom, it can really draw me in emotionally. I felt the Sfs went down that bit deeper with a touch more power. BUT, is that bloom actually in the recording or is it an artifact of the speaker/room interaction? My experience with the SBLs is that it is usually the latter. The SBLs wonderfully give you what the engineer laid down, and doing so reveals what the artist was playing AND removes the mask that the bloom can create. In this way I suppose the SBLs can be said to allow the listener to more readily get captured by the PRAT within a piece of music. The SBLs are fast, tuneful and insightful, but there is someting attractively beguiling in the Sf approach.
The areas that I felt the Sfs excelled in were the vocal & acoustic instrument reproduction, but this is NOT to say that the SBLs are slouches.
BOTH of these speaker worked well in my 12’ x 13’ smallish victorian living room, lots don’t.
I can readily understand someone choosing one over the other based upon their room, tastes and ancillary equipment.
4 Likes
On my last visit to the factory, which was about a year ago, just before the first lockdown, one of the ‘senior’ team told me that he still uses SBL’s at home as he never really felt the need or desire to change them. As an long term owner of iBL’s I can relate to that, and if I ever consider changing them, I would want to demo SBL’s before listening to any of the other alternatives.
8 Likes
Hi…I did change to SBL’s from IBL’s, a fuller sound, more accepting of Cd as a source, but maybe losing something and I cannot allow myself to get rid of the IBL’s
5 Likes
I still have my DBL’s aafter 23 years - no desire to change.
8 Likes
On other forums I’ve read that the SBLs are harsh and clunky. I certainly didn’t get that impression from the SL2, so my question is, is the SBL tweeter an older generation? What about the mid/bass driver?
The Naim-built mid/bass driver on later SBLs is essentially the same as that found on the SL2s.
The tweeter is the Scanspeak D1008 (No Ferrofluid version), whereas the SL2 used the D2010 (also, no ferrofluid).
SL2s are anything but “harsh & clunky”. They’re good enough that I eventually let my Quad-serviced Quad ESLs and my early gold label Rogers LS3/5as go, as the SL2s were just as good as either in some areas, and streets ahead in others.
The brand ambassador of a very well known high-end US speaker company once came into the room at a show where I just happened to be playing a recording of his. He remarked that he couldn’t recall hearing it ever sounding so good, then went on to profess his admiration for the SL2s. He paid the slightly back-handed compliment that only Naim would be crazy enough to build a speaker like the SL2. He was right too, the SL2 was a pure engineering project, with everything dedicated to performance and with little regard for cost. Wonderful speakers. Thank you Roy.
11 Likes
Why did Naim stop producing them, or making them evolve?
(Supposing Naim stopped production before the merge with Focal)
Thank you Richard. I agree the SL2s are definitely streets ahead of any other speaker I’ve heard in speed and coherency. Would you say the SBLs have a similar tonal balance. I just didn’t understand why users had given feedback of a harsh sound from the SBL. perhaps it was an older variant.
They didn’t sell well, and Naim likely lost money on every pair, in spite of what was considered by many to be a high selling price.
3 Likes