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In the regular listening seat, the Black Hole with my Aries Cerat Gladius speakers had a mild effect but relative to the no-signal drone was too insignificant to personally bother with. Remember though that having experimented with plenty of setup, ancillary and speaker variables—and dealing with only half a rear wall which is admittedly unusual—the bass response of my Cypriot 3-ways with sealed Fostex 12er fits my space and layout really quite perfectly. The potent triple woofers of Franck Tchang's Tango meanwhile had been a bit too much. Even Sven Boenicke's petite B10 with their dual 10ers loaded into a small sealed enclosure energize this space very differently. That's because their opposing woofers aim sideways to trigger an immediate early reflection; and because one of those woofers sits quite close to the floor to create boundary reinforcement.


These very handsome Swiss thus require more care over precise speaker distance (sidewall and front wall) plus exact seat position to tame what in my room and in certain bands can otherwise become trigger-happy bass boom. Even though this occurs in front rather than behind me, this would be my perfect show 'n' tell scenario for the Black Hole. Out with the Aries Cerat and FirstWatt J2, in with the Boenicke and ModWright KWA-100SE. (Like the original Gallo Reference 3.0's super-compact woofer canister, the compact sealed woofer loading of the B10 loves power. Here the 180+ watts of the ModWright dominate the J2.)

Rerun. Once again I had excellent results on my corner desk whose seat suffers known pressure-zone effects. As though pierced by a needle, the usual pressurization had clearly been deflated. My ears felt freer and more open if that makes sense. Boom notes had evened out. As a consequence the bands above them were cleaner. But in my standard seat without nearby back wall? Here the benefits were very minor again. This meant no audible linearization of the upper bass where certain hot notes remained as hot as before. The only thing I really noted occurred below about 60Hz. Now power beats—say on Mercan Dede's 800—hit hard without echoes. Think missile hits sans debris or dust. Cleaner stops. I'd hoped to describe more far reaching effects where it matters most. Alas my middle-of-the-room Ikea rocker which sits roughly halfway on the 12-meter stretch between front and rear wall must have conspired against the Black Hole. Its ability to suck me in had been compromised. I was too far removed from a really problematic boundary.
 

Conclusion. With a comprehensive expensive passive treatment installation from Rives Audio, you'd pay to linearize a room's response regardless of your position within it. Clayton Shaw's Black Hole has more localized effects. To harness them as intended would seem to rely on rear-wall issues which are primarily a function of proximity. In my former Swiss rental I sat close to a window-less narrow rear wall. There I was quite literally boxed in. So I know full well the audibility of such a boundary. I eventually placed four passive traps behind me - two designated corner traps, two designated first-reflection sidewall traps to cover the entire wall.

That did the business. Yet attempting to put these British cloth-covered foam panels and cylinders to good use in the present space failed miserably. Employed as intended (corner traps in the front-wall corners, first-reflection absorbers on the side walls midway between speakers and listener) overdamped the space. This killed off all excitement and harmonic finesse. Only when these four absorbers had left the building (into the garage) did the room open up again and breathe.


My current setup (a living room becoming a narrower passage towards a kitchen plus second-storey staircase) removes the back wall. The most sensible available sub position was behind the seat along one passage side wall. But this must have been insufficient to generate true peak readings for more effective anti-phase signal. I deliberately played punchy bass-heavy music at loud levels while my hand tracked the active woofer. Blowing hard at the microphone netted an immediate reaction to confirm that everything was working properly. Yet music beats did not reflect as equivalent woofer tremors. You can't 'hear' the Black Hole in isolation. It only works when music plays. Even sitting right next to it you only hear music, no sub. Out of curiosity—and because lack of audible benefits had me unsure the sub was actually on—I did the tactile test. And I was perplexed. I felt essentially steady-state signal. Its amplitude was of course dependent on low-pass and sub attenuator settings. But no matter what combination of settings I tried, I never got the expected individual tremors that would mirror the audible beats.


My personal experience with the Black Hole thus only warrants a very conditional recommendation. That's based on projecting my 'off-site' results to more conventional layouts. While I couldn't make the anti-sub work in the listening seat, it worked well in the kitchen, bathroom and at the work desk. I'm thus convinced that the Black Hole would have worked wonders in my earlier space above. But even then I doubt it should be considered a complete acoustic treatment solution. It's less a bass linearizer and more a partial depressurizer. That's admirable and useful but doesn't skin the whole cat. For the full meow you'd also want passive treatments or surgical DSP-based correction.


Nelson Pass reported insufficient interest in the original Phantom Acoustic Shadow. "I'm very happy for Clayton to use the same basic idea" is what he told me in an email. Will Spatial's Black Hole meet with more demand? That should depend on whether more audiophiles have caught up acknowledging the role their room plays. Fat chance? Don't blame Clayton for trying!
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