New speakers SAM ready

[GuillaumeB]

I have had a week or so now with SAM'ed Blades. I note some people here are finding negatives with SAM, particularly with bigger speakers. However, I am a happy large speaker SAM user, so far I am finding many positives and improvements with SAM. It is still early days and I haven't had enough serious listening time to feel able to post definitive findings, but so far positive. I’ll post more in due course…. I Just thought this was worth a mention for any larger speaker folk who are waiting in the queue, SAM for you may turn out to be well worth the wait.

As some of you already know I'm running in a pair of Sasha 2s. I've been experimenting quite a bit with SAM and am very gradually coming to the realisation that I prefer it with SAM switched off. I say very gradually since I could not decide which I preferred at first.

There is something a bit more natural and organic with SAM switched off. With SAM activated, yes the bass goes a little deeper and fuller and also the soundstage deepens a little. With some music (with lots of bass!) this excites my room a little and I can hear the room resonance modes making themselves felt (despite some of the acoustic treatments). But with other material such as classical music, I'm not so sure if I prefer the effect.

It's almost as though I prefer the delicacy of the tonal texture without SAM. The bass almost sounds more textured/layered without it. The first thing I noticed when going from Sophia to Sasha was that bass, so much more complexity! A bit like going from a nice wine to something with real depth and subtlety, something that you want to savour slowly.

The best thing is that I can turn it on and off because with some music (and depending on my mood) SAM definitely sounds awesome!

This got me thinking about different optimised DSP filters, such as the ones used by the dCS Vivaldi. Wouldn't it be great to have different settings? We could have one with a warmer sound for e.g. I mentioned this once to Absolute Sounds the distributor. I think it's a rather good idea!

Guillaume