More watts aren't necessarily better

[it-goes-to-eleven]

but isnt the SB the preamp now?  it controls volume and does the DAC work, I would say you like your SB better than your old preamp.

That is one way of looking at it. I wouldn't say the sb3 is the pre-amp, I'd say there is no pre-amp. Though I think we tend to hope that pre-amps pass source signals fairly transparently to the pre-amp..  And that isn't necessarily the case.  I do lose potential output volume, because the pre-amp can add gain beyond the source level.

I wanted to dig an old CD player out of storage to try that as a source, and see if it also sounds superior without the pre on my system.

[Jimna]

so then its a passive pre/DAC?   its still your middle man between the source and the amp, so its a pre be it passive after the DAC or not.    I do hear lots of guys echo your statements though.

[mfrench]

I suggested that I'd bring the test results when they were available:

from this post:
http://www.lencoheaven.net/forum/index.php?topic=1738.msg60519#msg60519

I've just run some simple measurements. Device unter test were a Saba oval fullrange driver and the 4" tweeter both mounted in the Reso front plate as open baffle. The microphone was positioned exactly in the sweet spot of the tweeter at a distance of 1 meter.

The red line shows FR of the tweeter mounted from the inside, the blue line shows the results when the tweeter was mounted from the outside.



You can easily see that there is a drop-off of 5 dB between 5 and 9 kHz with a maximum at 6 kHz. We can easily conclude that there is a huge difference. What I don't know: What is better? So, there is a muting of frequencies, but with the tweeter mounted from the outside.

A near field measurement of the tweeters shows a small drop-off between 5 and 9 kHz:



It makes a significant difference how the tweeters are mounted. But I can't say what is right or wrong.

Here are some very quick and dirty measurements with the microphone positioned off-axis at 30 and 60 degrees. Notice that these test are not reliable and should just give you an idea of the effect.



We can easily see that listening off-axis results in a significant drop-off at high frequencies. Well, this is not a surprise, we all know this effect.

Mike

[Church-Audio]

I suggested that I'd bring the test results when they were available:

from this post:
http://www.lencoheaven.net/forum/index.php?topic=1738.msg60519#msg60519

I've just run some simple measurements. Device unter test were a Saba oval fullrange driver and the 4" tweeter both mounted in the Reso front plate as open baffle. The microphone was positioned exactly in the sweet spot of the tweeter at a distance of 1 meter.

The red line shows FR of the tweeter mounted from the inside, the blue line shows the results when the tweeter was mounted from the outside.



You can easily see that there is a drop-off of 5 dB between 5 and 9 kHz with a maximum at 6 kHz. We can easily conclude that there is a huge difference. What I don't know: What is better? So, there is a muting of frequencies, but with the tweeter mounted from the outside.

A near field measurement of the tweeters shows a small drop-off between 5 and 9 kHz:



It makes a significant difference how the tweeters are mounted. But I can't say what is right or wrong.

Here are some very quick and dirty measurements with the microphone positioned off-axis at 30 and 60 degrees. Notice that these test are not reliable and should just give you an idea of the effect.



We can easily see that listening off-axis results in a significant drop-off at high frequencies. Well, this is not a surprise, we all know this effect.

Mike

The tests are meaningless with out knowing what the frequency response of the tweeter it self. And again if there was any change what so ever in mic placement the test means nothing.

[mfrench]

laughs.

[Church-Audio]

laughs.

The test used "1/3 octave" smoothing when you use smoothing you lose some of the fine detail from the test and only see huge anomalies and end up with an averaged waveform display.... So if you were to turn off the smoothing then you can see the effects of the baffle more clearly, In deep detail..... and it would not look as smooth and pretty as these tests do. When you are trying to see the difference between a baffle and no baffle YOU DO NOT USE smoothing Just a quick lesson on how to do a proper measurement.


Chris