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Sonic Maximizer, is it worth it?

#3
The Sonic Maximizer is a dynamic high frequency boost or expander. The more highs you have, the more it boosts them. It can create up to 26 dB of high end boost (this is huge) so you have to be very careful not to clip your chain or to get brittle and harsh sounding. There is so much HF boost that they had to include a bass boost as well to even out the sound. Meh IMHO.
 
#7
I use one. I think it depends on your amp/setup. I found it made my hartke lh1000 a little brighter and added a bit of bite for cutting through the mix. I've tried to go without it and I just like how it sounds when it is on so there it stays in my rack. They are pretty damn cheap used. You can always pick one up and flip it if you don't like what it does to your sound.

That being said if I could afford the amp I wanted, the maximizer would be the first thing to go.
 
#8
If you have a decent bass rig, probably not. It will, in some instances, benefit a marginal system. I use one to add a little life to our monitor system. I wouldn't pay any more than $40 for any rackmount model in excellent / near-mint condition.

Riis
 
#9
JimmyM said:
I find them totally useless.
Click to expand...

Ditto.

They are silly.

But... you can ad these, at $450 a pair, to increase audio quality - if you are feeling the need.

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#15
Inertialsky said:
Useless? not quite. They help your tone cut through the mix live. If you want to add some extra dynamic punch BBE sonic maximizer is pretty useful. I used to use a rack mount but now I've scaled down to a Sonic Stomp pedal and it sounds great.
Click to expand...
My bass does fine without it, and the the sounds it gets are not what I'd call my ideal. Not against your use of it, though.
 
#16
A sound engineer explained it to me this way many years ago. Don't quote me on this one.

"Different sound frequencies travel at slightly different speeds (differences in wavelengths) The BBE helps to process the sound in such a way that all the frequencies hit you at the same time. "

I was thinking sound travels pretty fast on it's own, but I wasn't going to question the guy.

It's not required but it is a useful tool sometimes. I stopped using it for several years because I didn't think I needed it - Amp sounded fine without it. Started using one again a few months ago and couldn't be happier. Many guys describe the sound as if it were "lifting a blanket off your speaker cabinet"
 
#17
JimiLL said:
So can anyone actually tell me what it does? Besides boost lows and highs at a wide quotient?
Click to expand...

It has two fixed crossover points (lows - mids - highs) and delays assigned to two of the bands...can't recall which nor do I remember the delay values. According to BBE, the optimal delay settings are a constant despite variances in acoustical environments. IOW, what works well at the Pondo Bar & Grille will work just as well in a 500 seat venue. As others have mentioned and to my ears, the Process and Low Contour pretty much let you balance out the top-end and low-end, respectively. The front panel controls should read: 1, 2, 3, 4...no more than 4.

Riis
 
#20
But if the speeds of different frequencies are a constant, let's say for example that 10khz travels at 5 feet a second and 50hz travels at 2 feet per second (obviously not true but simplifying for ease of explanation)...the listener 5 feet away will get the highs after 5 seconds and the lows after 12 1/2 seconds, but the listener 10 ft away will get the highs after 10 seconds and the lows after 25 seconds. So while the speeds are constant, the distance the listener is from the source is not.

So my question is how do it know?
 

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