BBE Sonic Maximizer

Dean guitar pla

Does anybody use one for cleaning up sound in an acoustically challenged environment? I have a 482 that I use occasionally

madmax

I did for awhile but took it off line for audiophile reasons. (one less component in the signal path). It really does help with some poor quality recordings.

SLOCOOKN

Dean guitar pla wrote:

Does anybody use one for cleaning up sound in an acoustically challenged environment? I have a 482 that I use occasionally

Despite the "AUDIOPHILE" in me I have used BBE for 12 years now in every set up I have had. My father- in-law uses on I bought him in his Ibanez bass set up!

Dean guitar pla

I use only gold plated heavy gauge Monster cables for all my RCA connections to help insure good transit. The BBE or whatever sound enhancement unit I use is run through the monitor anyway and is only used when I choose to use it. I consider myself an amatuer audiophile but anything that can be used to make up for deficiences in the listening environment can only enhance one's listening pleasure. If it does not sound good, you start to question the equipment instead of realizing that it is the environment many cases. It's all about the music to me and I like to extract every bit for replication.

I honestly dislike the flat response of complete audiophile rigs w/ little or no provision for tone control. I realize we (or most of us) have tone controls in the preamp or elsewear but the BBE seems to shape the field in a accurate manner like a good equalizer (OH NO I SAID THAT BAD WORD LOL), especially dual 3rd octave types are fantastic for cleaning up a crap sounding environment. Lots of audiophiles turn their noses up to the thought of an EQ type component but remember this... they were used extensively in the original recording process. A killer rig will come very close to replicating that original live recorded sound but unless you have an acoustically perfect environment, some frequencies will become dulled or even emphasised. I make freely the use of tone control or enhancement. The listening characteristics of heavy metal versus Baroque organ exemplify this. The original recorded levels of a given recording vary and the final mix in it's original form may disagree w/ your hearing (or if listening at extreme levels, may result in some component of your speaker system grenading from an unexpected transient peak. Nobody's cochlea is perefect, we all have burnt frequencies in our hearing range. Hence, one man's system differs in sound slightly to another. So if it takes a bit of frequency adjustment to get it so it can be enjoyed, then cool

madmax

Dean guitar pla wrote:

If it does not sound good, you start to question the equipment instead of realizing that it is the environment many cases.

There are many ways to look at audiophile rigs. If the room is bad the room needs to be fixed. If the frequency spectrum is not what you want to hear you can tune that in. If the equipment is in question it can be replaced.

This is the audiophile mentality and it has merits. For example, fixing one thing in the room can increase your listening enjoyment a lot more than fixing that one thing with an EQ. The reason for this is that if you have a resonance at 385 hz (just an example) which gets fixed by matching with an EQ you can make a particular song sound good. Other songs will require slight tweaking because the resonance will react in seemingly different ways depending on what else is going on. Fixing the real reason for the resonance fixes it once and for all. I guess in the end the idea is to fix the problem rather than adjust to get around it and you will end up with a more seamless system. Of course source material varies. At some point you have to figure out whether you want the rest of your music degraded slightly or make certain music sound better than it did. Hard decisions, all of them.

This isn't for everyone. As a matter of fact most people start one place and end up somewhere else. Lets face it, the more you listen the more the slightest little things bug you. Today you move the equalizer knob and at some point you just fix the problem if it is still bothering you.

madmax

SLOCOOKN

The BBE processor is NOT an EQ of any kind! It doesn't increase or decrease any freq. The BBE Works to align the high and low freqs in correct time alignment.

madmax

Yea, I know. He said the evil "EQ" word though.

SLOCOOKN

madmax wrote:

Yea, I know. He said the evil "EQ" word though.

Ouch.....:) Just a little bitter at times, because some people have preconceived notions about other electronic items inline with there system feel that they are of no value. Or they distort the sound. I just feel bad for them in this case.

I love my BBE, and I pity the fool who doesn't know any better.:p

Dean guitar pla

Hey madmax! I hear your point but the girlfriend would start freaking out if I moved our furniture around or installed sound deadening everywhere LOL

She also hates when I buy equipment "where do you think you are going to put THAT!!!"

I also know the BBE is not an eq per se, sorry if that is what it translated as. It still affect low and high frequency curves, at least by ear and the heard effect is much like an eq'd effect

I certaintly don't want to start a sound war now

I leave it to you pros for now while I absorb every bit of your combined knowledge and start investigating sonic heaven again. I miss it but I am sure my girlfriend will hate it. I can hear it now, "but you already have a nice stereo" "why do you keep changing this around and buying all this crazy equipment" "Betweens the guitars, amps and stereos, blah blah blah..."

Just another day in my World

SLOCOOKN

Dean guitar pla wrote:

Hey madmax! I hear your point but the girlfriend would start freaking out if I moved our furniture around or installed sound deadening everywhere LOL

She also hates when I buy equipment "where do you think you are going to put THAT!!!"

I also know the BBE is not an eq per se, sorry if that is what it translated as. It still affect low and high frequency curves, at least by ear and the heard effect is much like an eq'd effect

I certaintly don't want to start a sound war now

I leave it to you pros for now while I absorb every bit of your combined knowledge and start investigating sonic heaven again. I miss it but I am sure my girlfriend will hate it. I can hear it now, "but you already have a nice stereo" "why do you keep changing this around and buying all this crazy equipment" "Betweens the guitars, amps and stereos, blah blah blah..."

Just another day in my World

Sounds like you need to change out the girlfriend for a less noisy model! ...........lololololo:eek:

F1nut

So, Bose speakers are competent, vinyl is better than CD and now this,

I honestly dislike the flat response of complete audiophile rigs w/ little or no provision for tone control. I realize we (or most of us) have tone controls in the preamp or elsewear...

You have some interesting views on sound reproduction.

BTW, good pre amps do not have tone controls.

Dean guitar pla

My current preamp has none but my vintage Dynaco PAT-4A that runs the Fisher SA1000 does

My perception of audio is based on what I can afford, have tried and found acceptable through trial an error. I agree there is an infinite amount of better equipment out there but you have to start from somewhere right?