Today, I'm using a Naxo/Hicap to drive my active Isobariks. I may have the opportunity to trade my Hicap (2 years old )for used Supercap (also 2 years old) plus around 1,000 GBP. The Naxo does not have the Burndy cable option and therefore can not fully utilze a Supercap. The Snaxo on the other hand is designed for a Supercap and reading from comments on the forum, it (the Supercap)greatly improves the performance of the active crossover. My question - what effect will a Supercap have on the Naxo? Is it a worthwhile investment or just a waste of money? Would it be wise to buy the Supercap now and used it with the Naxo and later trade the Naxo for a Snaxo (tuned for isobarik of course)? Any comments?

Anders

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My question - what effect will a Supercap have on the Naxo? Is it a worthwhile investment or just a waste of money? Would it be wise to buy the Supercap now and used it with the Naxo and later trade the Naxo for a Snaxo (tuned for isobarik of course)? Any comments?

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Go for it!

Even using the Snaic-5 power output on a Supercap will give results far in advance of a Hicap. I have for instance tried a 42.5 and a Snaxo with both a hicap/snaic5 and a Supercap/Snaic5 and in each instance the Supercap gives a far more coherent, less bandwidth limited and a more articulate result. The hicap by comparison sounds muffled and smeared. The further addition of a Burndy to the Supercap/Snaxo allows even additional gains, but not to the same extent as just moving from the Hicap to the Supercap.
Besides second hand supercaps are quite a rare commodity and it may be eons before you will be presented with such an enticing opportunity.

Also remember that the Snaxo (if you ever do move up to one) does not come with a Burndy cable. If you wish to fully exploit its potential with the Supercap that would require an additional not-insignificant expense (circa $500 here in the US).

I can also categorically state that a Prefix//Supercap is a very large leap over the Prefix/Hicap, although the Prefix is using only 1/7 of the supercaps regulated outputs.

Ron
Dum spiro audio
Dum audio vivo

http://homepages.go.com/~rontoolsie/index1.html

[This message was edited by Ron Toolsie on SUNDAY 07 January 2001 at 16:07.]

question for you - if the jump to Burndy is relatively small, do you think a black SNAIC might be better than a Grey Burndy?

cheers, Martin

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question for you - if the jump to Burndy is relatively small, do you think a black SNAIC might be better than a Grey Burndy?

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An interesting question.... I have gray snaics, black snaics, a gray snaxo Burndy and a black snaxo Burndy. Maybe one evening next week I will listen to the Supercap/Black snaic vs the Supercap/gray Burndy on the Snaxo.

The jump from the Supercap/snaic to a supercap/Burndy powerning a Snaxo may be 'relatively' small as compared to the hicap vs the supercap, but in absolute terms it is fairly significant. Bear in mind I did this comparison a few years ago when only gray snaics and gray Burndys were available.

Keep your eyes on this spot.

Ron
Dum spiro audio
Dum audio vivo

http://homepages.go.com/~rontoolsie/index1.html

The grey Burndy is significantly better then a single black SNAIC--Espically in a three way system. The Super-NAXO is optimized to use the Supercap to its full potential while a single SNAIC is only using a small portion of that potential.

More is better....

Chris Bell

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The grey Burndy is significantly better then a single black SNAIC--Espically in a three way system. The Super-NAXO is optimized to use the Supercap to its full potential while a single SNAIC is only using a small portion of that potential.

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This is very true.. using a Snaic between a supercap and snaxo 3-6 accesses just a single pair of regulated voltage rails. Using the Burndy (be it black or gray) access fully 6 individual and independently regulated pairs of voltage rails. It is like each band of each channel having its own hicap. In practice the final results are not six times better, but still significant. Like I mentioned above, I'll try the snaic vs burndy comparison chez moi in the next few days make a follow up posting to this thread.

Ron
Dum spiro audio
Dum audio vivo

http://homepages.go.com/~rontoolsie/index1.html