26-Jul-2014, 18:58
I did have a chance to try SAM with my Cremona M speakers. I configured one of the remote buttons to switch SAM on and off for easier comparison, but soon drove myself to utter confusion by toggling SAM mid track: I simply could not hear any difference! I decided to adopt a more leisurely testing approach, and meanwhile had a crazy idea of contacting Sonus Faber (Cremona's manufacturer) for their opinion on SAM, half hoping for the reply. But I did receive one, which I'm quoting below in its entirety, because it may be of interest to many. Their reply is on the politically correct side, but while it does not completely dismiss SAM, you can clearly feel the skepticism:
"Dear Alex,
of course in theory the SAM is a great thing because it allows the amplifier to provide a signal which is tailored on the specific speaker characteristics. But this can only be done in digital domain and this also means that the signal is processed multiple times which is something that might be worrying.
Please also consider that the SAM signal provably emphasizes some frequencies (so it doesn't only work on the time domain which is a good thing in theory) slightly changing the real nature of your Cremona sound.
That said, we would like to make you notice that you are no more listening to the real Sonus faber tone and that the SAM processing can easily adjust something but can also downgrade the signal purity resulting, at the end in a “unnatural” reproduction."
At first, I found this reply somewhat disappointing: not only was it too general (which I presume was to be expected), but the statement regarding the changed nature of Sonus Faber tone was very far from reality: as I said, the difference between SAM on and off was subtle at best. But today I tested again with Jazz (before it was only with Classical). It was a track starting with prominent bass, and I immediately heard a negative SAM artifact: it created some deep bass echo (well below the tone of the instrument) with a slight delay. This delay tells me it's not a room resonance issue, but rather something in SAM's interaction with the speaker.
I think I'll be disabling SAM. But I'm also planning to share my observation with Devialet.
Any one else who tried SAM with Cremonas?
"Dear Alex,
of course in theory the SAM is a great thing because it allows the amplifier to provide a signal which is tailored on the specific speaker characteristics. But this can only be done in digital domain and this also means that the signal is processed multiple times which is something that might be worrying.
Please also consider that the SAM signal provably emphasizes some frequencies (so it doesn't only work on the time domain which is a good thing in theory) slightly changing the real nature of your Cremona sound.
That said, we would like to make you notice that you are no more listening to the real Sonus faber tone and that the SAM processing can easily adjust something but can also downgrade the signal purity resulting, at the end in a “unnatural” reproduction."
At first, I found this reply somewhat disappointing: not only was it too general (which I presume was to be expected), but the statement regarding the changed nature of Sonus Faber tone was very far from reality: as I said, the difference between SAM on and off was subtle at best. But today I tested again with Jazz (before it was only with Classical). It was a track starting with prominent bass, and I immediately heard a negative SAM artifact: it created some deep bass echo (well below the tone of the instrument) with a slight delay. This delay tells me it's not a room resonance issue, but rather something in SAM's interaction with the speaker.
I think I'll be disabling SAM. But I'm also planning to share my observation with Devialet.
Any one else who tried SAM with Cremonas?
JRiver MC20 --> Devialet 250 Expert Pro --> KEF Blades II
