@erik_squires +1,
DSP vs New Cables ??
For two channel listening DSP can be a bit unnerving for the die hard listener who wants pure sound. However, of late, the Technology has improved and DSP impact to address room issues can be really quite nice. You will very likely notice an impact. When you get new cables you may notice something but it may not be dramatic enough to impress you vs DSP.
Home theater DSP much easier if you have a good processor or receiver. And this can have a meaningful impact and cables may have a lesser impact.
So my executive decision of the day is to defer buying new cables (was planning to spend 3K for some interconnects, transparent or silteck). So I'll revisit dsp for home theater. Two channel Will require new stuff and I'm a bit Leary to introduced more stuff along the signal path but I hear it's not that bad and won't really restrict the path, hard to tell.
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Stepping back from the OP’s question of specifically DSP, I think there’s more to this. The issue really is that most listeners (queue the "not me" trolls) are most sensitive to frequency response variations. In this sense cables are on the low end of items that can cause these variations. Speakers, room placement, tone controls, DSP, room treatment or lack of. All of these have the potential for very large variations in frequency response. How bad? Well I once measured a subwoofer with over 20 dB peaks and dips in the in-room response. That’s a factor of something like 20x more power at some notes!! I see a lot of evidence of listeners being tricked by ragged mid/tweeter responses into believing they are hearing more detail, who don't realize what they are hearing is just a different tonal spectrum. I also know some listeners can go to an audio show in terrible sounding rooms and seemingly ignore the room’s acoustics. So this rule isn’t always true, but I do feel, strongly, if you are training your brain’s neural net to hear speaker cables but not the room your perception is now heavily unbalanced. |
you just cannot generalize. to me dsp would be an alternative to room treatments for 2 channel, not cables. consider maybe a product such as GIK treatments as an alternative to dsp for 2 channel. https://www.gikacoustics.com/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIhuDZoNCP-wIVdR19Ch2Pcg5rEAAYASAAEgKWD_D_BwE the question would mostly be whether your issue is more in the bass or slap echo. dsp will not fix slap echo very much, it can smooth the bass. dsp is the poor step child to the proper room set-up. dsp will dumb down your 2 channel signal and take away life from the music to some degree. some cables might reduce brightness from slap echo, but then it would also be costing you musical information and top end extension. maybe if we saw pictures of your room then we could be more helpful. personally i have a very extensively treated purpose built 2 channel room with a pure analog signal path, then a totally separate home theater with 9.3.6 speakers and a Trinnov Dolby Atmos dsp processer. my Home Theater has no room treatments as it’s in my house and my wife is against them. my 2 channel room is is in my barn and i can and do do anything i like. cables for my Home Theater room are quite basic, my 2 channel room has more exotic cables for the signal path.. |
I’m not sure I understand the question. I have always kept my HT separate from my two channel system. My two channel system always takes priority over the Home theater. The impact of a small change (improvement) is always much greater in my two channel than in HT. After all most of your attention is on the screen… so while the some sound is really important in making the whole thing believable, nuances are not. I would always spend $3K on my two channel system before fiddling with my HT… unless grossly deficient in some way. AND… DSP is not getting anywhere near my two channel system dag nabit… you young whipper snappers. Well depending on what you mean by DSP… I stream with a high end streamer and DAC.
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I personally hate full range DSP in two channel. When I’ve tried in the past from solutions between MiniDSP & Dirac to the higher end Legacy Wavelet, DSP always seemed to affect the amount of breath, decay, and air and made the sound much more sterile. What I do appreciate is DSP in biwire or subwoofer integration situations, where DSP can be applied to 300Hz and below. I find this is the most useful application and rely on room treatments to handle the remainder of high frequency absorbption and diffusion. Of course I use bass traps to absorb unwanted bass frequencies as well. |
