SHOP NEWS

Naim Ovator S600
[ 18th January 2010 ]

The Ovator S600 Speakers are now in the shop ready to audition.

The Ovator S-600's balanced mode radiator (BMR) constitutes its most visible technological advance, yet its performance is equally the result of painstaking refinement in numerous elements of design, construction, and material selection.

For example, there is so much more to the musical reproduction of bass than low frequency extension, so the Ovator S-600 LF driver is designed not simply to play bass, but to do so with faultless musical accuracy. It incorporates a multitude of electro-acoustic details aimed at minimising distortion and compression, and the result is extended bass with peerless timing, dynamics, and pitch accuracy. One vital element in the design of a high performance bass driver is its chassis. Great rigidity and an open structure are vital but potentially conflicting requirements, so the Ovator S-600's pressure die-cast bass driver chassis incorporates a triangulated framework, borne of finite-element analysis, that ensures both rigidity and unimpeded air passage.

The Ovator S-600 crossover network is housed within the plinth and divides the audio signal between bass drivers and BMR with fourth order acoustic slopes at 380Hz. Each component selection is the result of intense technical analysis and listening, and the component arrangement is fundamentally informed by the layout and earthing techniques developed for Naim power amplifiers. A crossover module suspension system and individual component decoupling ensures any chance of microphony is minimised. Conversion to either bi-amp or tri-amp active drive is easily achieved through removal of the crossover module.

Just as much as it is BMR technology, it is the fine detail and the sum of the parts – the result of decades of speaker experience and development – that makes the Ovator S-600 so remarkable.

The Ovator S-600 is the result of a three-year development programme and represents both a remarkable new expression of proven Naim speaker engineering and a technological advance that, quite literally, recasts the accepted ground rules of electro-acoustics.

Constructed on the rigid foundation of a pressure die-cast aluminium plinth, the Ovator S-600 comprises a visually stunning leaf-spring decoupled enclosure fitted with two custom-designed rigid paper cone bass drivers. Located above the bass drivers, within a nested and leaf-sprung aluminium enclosure, is a uniquely advanced balanced mode radiator. The balanced mode radiator (BMR) reproduces all six octaves from the 380Hz crossover point to well above audibility with a flat frequency response, minimal distortion and consistently wide dispersion.

Encasing all of this, the Ovator S-600's striking, curved-panel enclosure is an outstanding example of contemporary aesthetic industrial design. Its form is striking yet subtle and with four real wood veneer finishes available it integrates effortlessly into domestic settings of any style.

Music heard through the Ovator S-600 is a revelation. The uncoloured, detailed and natural coherence of the balanced mode radiator combines with the rhythmic clarity and accuracy of the twin bass driver system endlessly to reveal previously unheard musical details and insight. Stereo imagery and recorded ambience is portrayed with scale and depth that remains consistent across the listening room, and with the Ovator S-600 an entire music collection becomes new again. The speaker is the point at which recorded music leaves the virtual world of electronics and is made real. With the Ovator S-600, the reality is a musical experience unlike any heard before.

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