Synergistic Research Black Box -

@ folkfreak

Thanks a lot again for your kind input.

I am still wondering how can small passive box could make much difference.

My listening space is open with high vault.

Thus this one may not work.

I am going to take more time before trying that one.

The Black Box is sensitive to placement and
vibration control.  I have brass fishing cones
pushed through the spikes and rosewood blocks
on top of the edge of the unit that is closest
to the wall.  I can hear a difference in the sound
resulting from the smallest adjustment of
proximity to the wall.  For me the Black Box is
indispensable.

@shkong78 it's simply a sympathetic resonance device tuned to bass frequencies -- the ART bass stations are one single small cup and I presume the BB contains many such cups tuned to different frequencies

As @sgordon1 notes the BB is sensitive to mounting and location (personally I never liked the long spikes SR use on this and the ART modules, far too easy to bend and actually rather dangerous) -- I wouldn't be surprised if decoupling also works really well (I love what that does to my FEQs and one day will try it on my Atmosphere as well)

Net net my experience is that this thing does work, it does have an impact but like all bass tuning you need to try it and be careful in how you use it. That's why SR offer the 30 day guarantee and return

I tried the BB for three months (mostly in the box). I use 32 SR HFTs and tried the BB with and without the Atmosphere XL4.

The BB made the sound more warm in the low end; but; unfortunately, it cut off the highs at about 8Khz. The highs just vanished. This was seconded by several friends and a cable manufacturer. Just lopped off the highs. Very dissapointing as my dealer said only 10% are returned.  I placed it behind, in-line, in front, on the sides several locations, on the rear wall, all over.  It's effects were most prominent in front the speakers and in the middle of the room.  

The SR HFTs replaced a slew of absorption panels and nearly eliminated slap echo in a too reverberant room. I will be using them in my new home’s custom $165,000 listening room. The designer said that I could gain 100% more spacious sound with a quad diffusers at $30,000. I’m going to try my SR HFTs instead plus I don’t have the extra funds, don’t want two walls with 17" deep diffusers if I can help it.

The Synergistic products I own work just as described, which I find comforting