Video of SAM in action !!

[f1eng]

Interesting. Clearly SAM lowers the cut off point of the speaker in the bass with the only way it could, increasing cone movement below the acoustic cutoff point.
I wonder how loud something with a tiny unit (like the LS50) can go with bass correction like that before they have to start rolling off the effect to avoid damage?
Ought to bring my LS 50s downstairs, do a SAM config and try them I suppose.

I'd be interested to hear your view of the LS50s. There's a nice chap on the What Hifi forum who runs LS50s with a Dev 120 and really rates the SAM effect, but he does get some boominess with deep electronic bass -- which may be a room problem.

SAM claims to offer speaker protection, so I'd have thought the big issue would be LF distortion: how much harder can you drive a small cone without break-up?

My only SAM experience was a short listen to the B&W 805Ds with and without SAM. I thought the SAM effect was dramatic and entirely positive.

Matt

I have intended to try the LS50s in my main room, but am still listening to my main speakers for now and my amps will have to go back to have the SD card slots fixed (or something else if that isn't it).
The main problem is my listening room is about 5m x 10m which is a bit big for the LS50. I had them in here for a while when I first got them. They really are knockout speakers, IMHO, massively better than one may expect for the price. At least I have space to position them so they minimise the excitation of room modes.
Cone breakup is a resonance and happens at any power level at the appropriate frequencies, usually on large cones used a bit too high in frequency. The limit of bass power on such a small unit will normally be cone travel.