New Klipsch Klipschorn AK7 & La Scala AL6 will be active DSP Crossover

Personally, I haven’t heard anything good coming from these latest designs on the AK7 or the AL6 using DSP. People are oohing and aahing about this new DSP and so far, I haven’t heard anything coming out of it that doesn’t sound sterile, flat, dull and lifeless and I absolutely love the Heritage lines and have a few myself. It’s difficult to get honest reviews these days because enthusiasts are so consumed by marketing hype and the technology involved, talking about the theoretical advantages of an active DSP.  In the end, does it sound any better? I don’t know if this DSP is killing the sound or what, but so far, this new AL6 speaker doesn’t sound better than the previous AL5. I’m not necessarily negating that active crossovers can't have their advantages, but for enthusiasts to just jump on the band wagon is a bit much to swallow.  

There is a thread on A/K about this very discussion. 

https://audiokarma.org/forums/index.php?threads/eq-and-dsp-added-to-rated-frequency-response.1088236/

Phase, time alignment is an issue with Khorns, I replaced stock baffle  with free standing Volti tractrix horn and tweeter on custom baffles, this provides much better phase, meaning imaging, sound staging much improved, tonal balance  also much improved.  

@rankaudio wrote:

Personally, I haven’t heard anything good coming from these latest designs on the AK7 or the AL6 using DSP. 

Are you referring to actual experience of auditioning their latest iterations via DSP and tri-amping - that is, actively configured (bypassing the passive crossover) where the DSP acts as a digital crossover? Myself I haven’t heard their new line of Heritage speakers, neither passively or actively configured, so I can’t comment on their sound. However for others to be commenting on the their sound or at least its imagined potential there has to be a ground of experience or a context that’s in line with what Klipsch is actually doing here. 

People are oohing and aahing about this new DSP and so far, I haven’t heard anything coming out of it that doesn’t sound sterile, flat, dull and lifeless and I absolutely love the Heritage lines and have a few myself.

Again, what’s the context of DSP usage here and the way it was implemented? From what I can understand Klipsch with their new line of speakers, in their active configuration, is using an outboard DSP with preset filter values (incl. delay) to act as a digital crossover only and thereby bypassing the passive crossover, so no Digital Room Correction (an option, perhaps?). The latter aspect is a common feature of DSP’s that’s often applied on top of an existing and passively configured speaker setup, and quite a few (incl. myself, to an extend) find that the DRC process, more or less extensive, takes away the "juice" of the sound of makes it become the way you describe.

In another context a DSP can be used in bundled, active speakers of varying quality acting as a digital crossover, which means amps and sometimes DAC’s are included in the overall package. Commenting on their sound entailes much more than the imprinting of the DSP section alone, and which is - arguably - the lesser sonic contribution in the bigger scheme of things. 

What Klipsch is doing is taking an existing speaker - say, the La Scala’s - with built-in passive crossover, but with extra speaker terminals to by-pass the passive XO for active configuration with outboard DSP, and amplifiers (3 of them, in stereo) of your own choosing. So, this way the passive XO is taken out of the equation and replaced instead with an outboard DSP (acting as digital XO with delays) that sends its preset filter values to extra and dedicated amp channels to feed each respective driver section. 

I’m fairly well versed in outboard actively configured speakers with high quality DSP’s that act as digital crossovers only (so sans DRC) and high quality outboard amps as well. In each and every of those setup instances I’ve never encountered the "dull, lifeless etc." sonic descriptions of yours as a marker of their sound. They can sound fully "analogue," lively, colorful, dynamic, tonally accurate, highly resolved etc. depending on one’s skills in implementation and choice of components.

It’s difficult to get honest reviews these days because enthusiasts are so consumed by marketing hype and the technology involved, talking about the theoretical advantages of an active DSP.  In the end, does it sound any better? I don’t know if this DSP is killing the sound or what, but so far, this new AL6 speaker doesn’t sound better than the previous AL5. I’m not necessarily negating that active crossovers can’t have their advantages, but for enthusiasts to just jump on the band wagon is a bit much to swallow.

Again, I’d be interested to learn if you’ve listened to both the passive and actively configured variant of the new La Scala’s, and your more detailed findings here. If nothing else simply out of curiousity. 

With regard to enthusiasts "jumping on the bandwagon," my experience is that the field of outboard actively configured speakers at least is so uncovered in media that it hardly has any bias to speak of. On the contrary it’s more the need for an unveiling of sorts and making the area more widely known among audiophiles. The DSP itself, notably its different uses and different contexts, is not all that encompasses and decides the outcome of the sound, and certainly not in a singular, negative direction.