[At the bottom of this page is a link to a schematic you might be interested in seeing.]

There is a fair amount of mystique surrounding the "Sonic Maximizer^®" products produced by BBE, of Huntington Beach, CA.  The online demos of the Sonic Maximizer^® seemed reasonably impressive to me at first.  After some critical listening, I couldn't really tell if there was some "magic" at work or simple equalization.  I listened ad nauseum and concluded this sounded like a 3bx... a very old product produced by a company called "dbx" (more about that, later).  In the future I will add more information regarding technical details of the Sonic Maximizer^®, but for now I will give my $0.02 on what I know thus far.

There is a PDF file of the 482i Sonic Maximizer^® available from the BBE website.  This document also includes a schematic for that unit.  Now before you jump out of your chair and download it, hang on.  The schematic merely shows some passive components connected to some "wonder chip", and little else.  The documentation does not seem to explain exactly what the circuit does.  Again, we get back to vague descriptions of the sound alterations produced with little regard for what is actually going on in a technical sense.  That is good marketing but bad for some techie that wants to know what is really going on.

Here's the real poop as I see it right now.  This device is not some super-duper DSP with a zillion bytes of code to modify sound.  It is in fact, a fairly low-tech analog filter arrangement with a somewhat novel twist.  The circuit is basically a state-variable filter with each of the three possible outputs summed by an opamp.  The low-pass output provides an adjustable bass-boost via the "LO-CONTOUR" potentiometer located on the front panel.  That is about all that it appears to do.  The "sizzle" is provided by what would be the high-pass output of the state-variable filter.  The audio input is sampled by a peak detector circuit which is in turn, applied to the control port of a VCA.  There is a front panel potentiometer called "PROCESS" which adjusts the amount of high-pass VCA-emphasized signal presented to the output summing opamp.  As the input signal level increases, the amount of high-pass filter output is further increased by the peak detector-VCA chain.  The amount of additional, boosted high-pass signal is what the "PROCESS" potentiometer adjusts.  The bandpass output of the filter is presented to the summing opamp at a fixed level.  I assume this is the bulk of the audio signal.

Sure, there are some inherent phase shifts introduced by the filter, but I was rather disappointed in the apparent lack of "magic" within the box.  The marketing hype suggested some really way-out approach to sound enhancement.  On the surface of looking at technical documentation, I don't see much magic.  I feel compelled to point out that I do not own a 482i and have never used one.  My only exposure to the unit is from the demos on the BBE website.  I could easily have missed the boat on what this unit does.  But my experience tells me otherwise.  Hey, I use zip cord for speaker cable because I do not buy into the "magic" of exotic speaker cables.  Maybe there is something to that, but I simply cannot afford audio equipment of sufficient quality, that makes the choice of speaker cable significant.  A short length of 14-gage zip cord works fine for me.

TECHNICAL POOP

The heart of the 482i is a "wonder chip" that is manufactured by NJR (New Japan Radio).  I suppose the chip was designed by BBE engineers and is fabricated by NJR.  The device is known as the NJM2153 and the data sheet is available on the NJR website.  Between the NJR data sheet and the schematic provided by BBE for the 482i, I concocted the schematic below.  Basically, I took the chip "guts" as documented on the NJR website and married the BBE documentation to it, primarily for component values.  The end result is a schematic of one channel of the 482i with the chip "guts" spelled out.  I am guessing that this circuit could be built for a few dollars per channel using off-the-shelf components.  If one uses the NJR chip, there is a licensing arrangement one must enter into before NJR will sell you chips.  I would presume there would be some cash outlay involved but that is unconfirmed at this time.

The BBE website alludes to their having a number of patents related to this technology.  I did a search for patents and initially found nothing related.  But a more exhaustive search revealed patents 5,510,752 and 5,736,897.  Contrary to BBE documentation, these are the real "Sonic Maximizer" patents.  I will continue looking for others.  These patents are in effect until 2015 so duplication for profit is not encouraged!  Still, worth a look anyway.

Other patents related to the "Sonic Maximizer" and worth looking at are:

    3,714,462           3,789,143            4,097,767            4,403,199

These were invented by David Blackmer and were the technology behind "dbx" products.  My suggestions about "dbx" and THAT was spot on.  The BBE patents even cite THAT chips used in the prototype circuit disclosed in the patent.  How's that for serendipity?!

More information will be added as I delve deeper into this subject matter.  At $200 a pop for a unit, that translates into a very spiffy margin for BBE.  If in the future there were a modular synth module available, would you be interested?  If there are no legal issues, I could see myself rolling a synth-based unit with additional capabilities!  E-mail me if you have interest.  I probably will not pursue this unless there is significant outside interest.  Stay tuned.

3BX?

What is a "3bx"?  A long time ago a company called "dbx" marketed a consumer product called "3bx".  It was a three-band, dynamic range modification device.  The input audio was divided into three discrete bands.  Each band could have the audio's dynamic range expanded, compressed, or left alone (at a variable rate).  Since its action was dynamic - based on the source material, one could modify the dynamics of the sound rather nicely.  I lusted after that unit.  A friend of mine bought one and I was quite impressed with its capability.  It sounded a lot like a Sonic Maximizer^® of today, in the audible effect produced.  I still own a dbx model 119A, which might be referred to as a "1BX".  It's effect was subtle but, in my opinion, very worthwhile.  The survivor of the original dbx company offers a number of audio processing devices available most everywhere.  But the original was amazing for its time and worked well for dynamic range alterations of vinyl records transferred to reel-to-reel tape.  Few are offered on E-Bay... dammit!

I suggest that dynamic range enhancement not be overlooked for synth applications.  THAT Corporation offers improved specification chips used for dynamic range alteration.  They are nice people to deal with and at one time, included some of the original design team of dbx.  Very cool stuff.

More stuff will be added in the future if somebody (anybody) tells me they want to know more.

BBE 482i Functional Schematic as a PDF file  (right click and "Save As")

E-mail me at: Tom@Radio-Flier.com