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@kota1,

I have asked nicely for you to act like an adult. I don't know what you think that childish post does to improve your standing. I am not hear to play in your personal circus and jump through hoops for you. When you have some ownership position in this website I will reevaluate that. Till then.

The "op" has put out a few tests. Only one was a technical question about speaker design. However, if you would like to argue about imitating tubes. The op has a preamplifier that uses tubes, and an amplifier with an input stage that is tubes. The output of his amplifier is solid state. Its damping factor is about 10-20x what the damping factor would be of a tube amplifier and 20x that of the Sunfire in tube emulation mode. The OPs speakers are very low impedance. The Sunfire in tube mode would make a mess of the frequency response in a system the OP otherwise likes. That, in my books, is a terrible and poorly researched suggestion.  I know my limits and admit them.

@kota1 , I would have quit while you were behind. My S&P Index fund has done way better, as has my O&G fund, thought I am not sure that has much legs left and even my semiconductor fund is screaming again. But seriously, I don't know what you think you are accomplishing with these little cheap shots you keep taking. I never called into the light your lack of any knowledge of active speakers other than owning them until you decided to start this childish game. It is obviously that one of us knows speakers and one does not. Hint, it is not you.

My market is speakers for professional applications. Why would I know the latest and greatest way to spend 200K in consumer audio? It is not my market. I could just spend 10 minutes on the web and throw out some links, but that is hardly expertise.  The correct answer to a question like that is a lot of questions, and perhaps some analysis of what the customer has. That is what I did. I did not start throwing out, repeatedly I may add, something that simulated a tube amp, when the customer did not even have a tube output amp. So again, I will ask, lay off the cheap shots.

@kota1 ,

You seem to fancy yourself an unofficial moderator. You pull the same childish stunt with everyone. @donavabdear I doubt in any way felt called out, and neither did anyone else. I don’t feel called out by you, I feel you are simply immature and trying to show off. Nothing I have said is even a slight bit outlandish, but given your lack of knowledge and experience, it may seem that way. I gave you some material to study so you could participate in a more advanced discussion. I hope you have brushed up, but how about this, instead of further derailing @donavabdear ’s threads with your antics, you stick to the topic being discussed and only the topic and leave your need to bully me or whatever it is you think you are doing in your head.

The primary issue @donavabdear appears to have is a noisy signal chain (noisy tube pre-amp + high gain amp will cause that). That is what you find out when you listen and research and do not jump to conclusions.  @donavabdear , did you respond about how your subs were connected? That buzz sounded like what a single ended connection would suffer from.

The OP, @donavabdear lost some warmth, but gained detail and lost noise, and eliminated concern with tube life. @donavabdear , the first thing I would explore is a custom equalization curve. That seems well within the range of your Lyngdorf.  I would suggest starting with a 1db boost from about 50Hz up to 350Hz. You can try bumping that 1db level up and down a 1/4db at at a time and play with the end points, but more so on the 350Hz, pushing it up a bit at a time.  I am sure @kota1 can tell you why I picked those frequencies.

@donavabdear , apologies for not ignoring the man child. I will try better.

Had heard a lot about the PS power plants, but never dug very far into them so read a bit and talked to one of my EEs. The PS units are not true isolated regens so that may be why they don't solve it. Odds are good that the extension cord is getting you onto the same phase as your other equipment. Shouldn't matter, if you can, plug everything into a single phase. Easiest way to test is plug everything into a single power bar. Just don't turn it loud and you should be able to test.

@invalid , a page or so back, I posted what Stereophile measured for SNR, 90db on balanced, but that pre-amp has really high output and they may have measured that 90db at the full output level. At a normal level, it could be 10-20db lower. That would be audible. The unbalanced are even noisier.

@donavabdear ,

@thespeakerdude Great info on the P20s really appreciate it. Also the JL Audio 113 speaker buzz happens with no audio inputs at all. Thanks

Well that narrows it down really quick. Sounds like the subs are faulty. Found a few people complaining about buzzing JL subs (with no input) and the only solution was replacement. I think I mentioned that here or in a PM. Long extension cord is more resistance and inductance. Net effect would be similar to using the AC filters you did to eliminate the buzz. That is probably why both methods worked.

A question I have in that regard on my professional system is my mixing position, I do sit much closer to the front left, center, and right speakers as does most every mixer I've ever seen. So my question is the disconnect between the mixing position doing the original object based mix and the Dolby listening chart you have posted that shows an end listener sitting in the middle of the room? Thanks

No, DOLBY is well aware that a forward mix position would be more common in a mixing arrangement (especially multi-use), resulting in a more orthogonal layout than an equidistant layout. You still need to hit 85db + 20db headroom (minimum) at the listening position from all speakers, so if you have some distance to your rears, they better be capable of sufficient volume. Your processor will ensure equal arrival time. From experience, watch the side reflections from the rears if a lot farther away. It will affect tonal balance and the processor can only do so much.

The "theory" is that direct sound is dominant. If you change the listener position w.r.t. the speakers, than you also need to change the delay timings for the speaker which the processor does as well as the levels (and FR to some degree). So whether you mix with one speaker layout or another, unless you room is poor, if you are following the Dolby setup requirements, the sound should be very similar as frequency response, level and time of arrival will be the same in both instances. The variable is the room / speaker interaction, and in a mixing room that must be controlled.

@thespeakerdude I realize this but does it make sense to mix at one position and listen at another? Just thought that was an interesting thought, makes me think that so many things we do in sound has a coating of silly mythology in it.

@donavabdear You are correct, but let’s not call it time alignment, as that usually refers to a speaker correction algorithm. More accurate would be delay correction. Then throw in volume correction (and maybe frequency response correction). ATMOS to work properly must be calibrated to the listening (or mixing) position.

I would challenge you @kota1 to show an example of "cheerleading" into a rushed purchase other than your own posts.

You are speeding in that direction from what I see in your recent posts with your collaborator cheering you on, LOL.

I get the impression @donavabdear could write most of that book.

@donavabdear I assume you mean amplifier damping factor? I want to be sure we mean the same thing. For an amplifier, the damping factor is a defined figure referenced to a value of 8 ohms. Unfortunately, there is no requirement to publish it over frequency and it can increase for some amplifiers.

From a speaker point of view, a passive speaker, when tested, at least by main stream companies, is tested with a high damping factor amplifier, and even then, for accuracy, the signal is measured at the speaker so eliminate the amplifier from the measurement for frequency response. A high damping factor amplifier would also be used for distortion measurement.

For almost all solid state amps, the damping factor of the amplifier is so much higher than the internal impedance of the passive speaker due to the series impedance of the crossover and speaker driver, the the speaker, as a system, is relatively unaffected, at a gross level, by the amplifier. With most tube amplifiers, the damping factor is low enough, output impedance is high enough to have a significant system level impact on performance.

From an individual driver standpoint in a passive speaker, the impedance the driver sees changes as the frequency changes due to the series/parallel impedance of the crossover and that also changes with the crossover topology.

I am sure there are speaker cables with enough resistance to impact damping factor, but any normal speaker cable is going to have a very small overall impact on damping due to the series impedance of the speaker being large with a passive speaker.

When you connect a speaker directly to a driver, you eliminate the variable of the series impedance of the crossover. However, if you are using purely voltage drive, i.e. the output signal is just an amplified in voltage version of the input, then you still have the limitation of voice coil impedance limiting what people perceive as control of the driver. This is the limitation of connecting an internal or external traditional amplifier to a driver and using a line level crossover whether analog of digital.

That leads back to my discussion of why an advanced active speaker cannot be equalled, at least in linear motion of the transducer, by a passive version or a direct connected amp traditional voltage amplifier with electronic crossover, no matter whether inside or outside and no matter how expensive the amp. You are still working with the fundamentally limited voltage drive. Modern dynamic transducers are made to be as linear w.r.t. to voltage as possible. That is where much development has gone into w.r.t. motor structures (magnetics, magnetic components, voice coils, etc.). If you remove the restriction of pure voltage drive, and use combinations of voltage and current drive, then you can achieve more linear motion w.r.t. frequency. This can provide greater linearity over a wider operating range, and greater immunity to power compression. Current drive provides some inherent feedback (good!) that voltage drive just does not have and that is before getting into more sophisticated methods not to mention feed forward in the digital domain.

Rolling back to your second question. High damping factor ensures your speaker frequency response matches what the manufacturer publishes if they publish it. With most SS amps, the speaker driver and crossover impedance is so dominant that damping factor is meaningless w.r.t. "damping" the driver motion. There is no guarantee that the lower impedance is even the best dampening for the most linear motion. Think of a vibrating rod. Affix one end tightly, and it can keep vibrating. Hold one end lightly and it can keep vibrating. Hold it by the end with a mechanically absorbing material and energy is dissipated in that material and it quickly stops vibrating.

When we looked at WiFi modules, the cheapest were <$2.00 those were chip antenna based. The module we eventually settled on was still < $10 but allows an external antenna. Software extensions allow microsecond level synchronization between speakers. Latency is is sufficient for almost all applications and getting better. Acceptance is slow but growing. Live music applications will be slower to accept, the risk is high, but control functions will be the leading edge, then wired, then wireless where failure costs are contained. Leveraging mass adoption technology while maintaining private networks is hard to beat for cost, features and reliability.

My experience with microphones is it is all proprietary, low latency, was mostly analog if I am not mistaken. That price likely includes the microphone too?

Wireless transmitter/receivers have existed for speakers at <$1000/pair for a long time. All proprietary / low latency. Probably not audiophile quality. 

I think you can make almost any room sound good, but not if you have already picked the speakers. Some speakers will be near impossible in some rooms. It's the science of acoustics that makes that possible. The art part is appealing to likes and dislikes.

Is an artificially generated set of reflections from additional speakers any less real than the artificial reflections in a room from 2 main speakers?

The predominant preference is a flat on axis frequency response and a downwards sloping room response. Some of the art of acoustics and absolutely science is ensuring you can do both.

Pull back the curtain and it is not so much we prefer a downward sloping room response but that almost all mixing and mastering is done in rooms with downward sloping room response and somewhat flat on axis response hence it makes sense the home environment should match to sound "right". 

BTW, you know who has a GREAT chapter in their book on the topic? Both Earl Geddes and Tomlinson Holman.

There are probably few books on speakers and acoustics I have not read over the last 20 years and I would not be surprised if not over 500 papers. Much of audio, acoustics, and speakers is not about right answers but right directions.

@donavabdear ,

We are not talking about different things. Not sure how many pages you need to go back, but I addressed this. DSP is to fix minor issues once you have everything correct already. You cannot fix the room response with DSP without breaking the on-axis response and you want a flat on-axis response over critical frequencies and declining off axis response.

I have not been in enough recording/mixing/mastering studios to say that they are all a bit on the dead side with a rising bass response, but, by virtue of how they are designed, they tend to be and I have been in quite a few.

So what would happen if you were exposed to a studio that didn't sound that way? You would think it sounds bad. There is a lot of conditioning at play here.

From a psychoacoustics view, the on-axis response does need to be accurate to properly portray positioning .... at least if a recording was made simulating human hearing. Without conditioning, what is the correct room response? It would be almost impossible to determine as you would need unconditioned test subjects. At this point it does not matter, we are where we are. A studio sounds the way it does somewhat by convention and we want our listening spaces to somewhat match that convention.

The other variable is the ratio of direct and reflected sound that is used to match that convention for room response. That allows a lot of latitude for personal preference.

If you are "all that" give me links to what you have PUBLISHED in peer reviewed journals,

Sure, right after you give me links to all the peer reviewed articles you have published in your field.

Storyk is an AES Fellow. You can see his publications by typing his name here:

https://www.aes.org/e-lib/online/search.cfm?type=elib

You are still very new to the hobby. If you like this type of research check out ASR, you will find many adherents there. 

There are very few on the ASR forums, in my experience, that are highly experienced in acoustics and psychoacoustics. I have noticed the odd person posting of some experience. It is a very small and specialized field.

Before being flippant with people's names like John Storyk, you may want to do a little research to understand who he is. He is not just another "studio" designer, he is probably "the" studio designer. There are not that many known designers, Suffolk, Manzella, Berger, Pilchner/Schoustal, but many would say Storyk sits on top.

It is not a matter of whose curve it is, it is a matter of psychoacoustic properties and conditioning mixed with physical properties of the room and speakers. You could have the same speakers, with the same room curve, but a much different sound dependent on the room acoustics.

This is where you are getting into the weeds, if you want a "Storyk Curve", build one, NP. Where is the link to the Storyk paper published in a peer reviewed journal citing his research?

https://wsdg.com/

I spend enough time arguing with people who know what they are talking about @donavabdear . I don't have much time for those that don't.​​​​

@o_holter I just searched a measurement of the MA-1 amp and the figure they arrived at was 10.5 ohms output resistance. There are very few speakers that will not experience a huge change in their output frequency response with this amp. You have become accustomed to or just like this change to the sound so I would not expect anything else to sound at all similar without an equalizer.

@donavabdear there are two types of speakers that match best with tubes. Constant impedance speakers (Magnepan), and high impedance 16 ohm speakers of which there are not that many any more. There are boutique brands I am sure someone here is up on. What these speakers do is remove most of the character of the tube amp. Somehow that seems counterproductive. Similarly an active crossover with a tube amplifier would be remove most of the tube amp character as would a room correction system.

I could argue the elevated room response in the upper bass lower mid that is preferred would be a perceptual effect of tube distortion. Distortion is least masked at these frequencies due to increasing sensitivity of hearing but from tubes mainly pleasant so there can be a perceptual loudness bump.

@donavabdear ,

I am mainly standing on the shoulders of others answering that. That is deep into psychoacoustics. From a basics, 20-160Hz is 3 octaves, so perceptually nearly as wide as 160-1.2KHz, though we don’t hear well down at 20Hz, however, still 2.5 critical octaves of music. Also basics, who knows what your system was like without the sub tuned properly. So into the psychoacoustics:

The most recent research w.r.t. the importance of bass is around timings, i.e. getting into the beat of the music. If the bass is lacking, we literally cannot "get into it".

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1402039111

Interestingly enough, this "getting into the beat" even extends down to subsonic frequencies, https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01535-4

I can remember reading papers that surmised that the physical experience of bass, not just the audible experience probably helps us with the aforementioned timing and getting into the song.

That is not the whole question you asked though, you also asked why good bass makes the mid-range perceptually better. There are two (maybe 3) factors here. One is basic psychoacoustics; conditioning, adaption, and expectation. Is that 1 or 2? We have an expectation of how something should sound, and because of that, our hearing adapts to match our expectations, but it is imperfect. Our brain is trying to fill in the missing bass, but screwing up the midrange while doing it. That is when it is missing. When there is excessive bass, the bass is muddy, or there are peaks in the bass, again, our hearing adaptation tries to make the most of it, which can impact the mid-range perception, but add to that peaks in the upper bass that should not be there will mask mid-range sounds especially if coupled to higher distortion. This is especially true in the the mid/upper bass.

Finally, we get into music theory where a proper bass response forms a correct tonal balance / timbre which gives the perception that the mid-range is correct, and effectively it is when viewed as proper harmonic ratios with the bass ..... which is pretty much the same answer as the last paragraph, but taking a different view.

@donavabdear , from your description of musical, it sounds like your Genelec system now being musical is perceptually warmer?

@donavabdear would not those natural sounds have harmonic structure? If the bass is not correct, then the sound is not correct. I have a different emotional reaction to what sounds like real thunder versus something that sounds like "fake thunder". One makes me think of summer storms, and rain. The other makes me think of bad EDM.

Perhaps another bad analogy. Do you ever go watch cover bands. The ones that try to mimic the original, will always be judged against the original, and if you can't do a reasonable Angus Young guitar rift, you will never be a great AC\DC cover band. Your brain can't not compare the original to what you are hearing. Compare that to a cover band that tries to make songs their own and not replicate the original exactly. It is often easier to enjoy those because you are engaged in the music, not engaged in a continuous comparison.

Still waiting on your amazing wisdom about bass @kota1. 

Most of the diffusers on ETSY are diffuser shaped toys. ETSY is not where you get diffusers from. They need to be properly engineered for a wide enough bandwidth.

@kota1,

Read the room dude. The OP, "I took 6 years of of math and physics in college all pertaining to electronics and sound ", and he does sound for major motion pictures. You keep acting like he is some sort of neophyte, and while this may not be his areas of expertise, pointing him to ETSY is both insulting, pointless, and of negative value.

Diffusers, ones that work at least, are a major effort to build, and to work, they must have fairly substantial depth.

http://www.mh-audio.nl/Acoustics/DiffusorCalculator.asp

http://www.mh-audio.nl/Acoustics/diffusor.asp

It is not about just throwing something up on a wall either. You have to consider what frequencies you are going to diffuse over, and being too wide, but not wide enough can make things worse, not better.

https://www.subwoofer-builder.com/qrdude.htm

There are some good absorber calculators out there too for the DIY:  http://www.whealy.com/acoustics/PA_Calculator/index.html .

You have to know the resistivity of the material. There are some papers out there where you can gleam that info: http://www.ica2016.org.ar/ica2016proceedings/ica2016/ICA2016-0490.pdf

@o_holter 

This is where I found the measurement:

https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/measurements/atmasphere_ma1_mkii2/

This seems much different from what is on the website for the product, 2.3 ohms.

Frequency response with a dummy load in green. I think that is referring to the Ken Kantor circuit which simulates an 8 ohm two way but I would not have expected that dip at 4KHz. The magenta line is no load. The blue line is 8 ohms. There is a 7db difference. That requires an output resistance > 8 ohms.

Why did you start this thread?

You are an adult. You have 2 choices. Participate in a topic. Don't participate in a topic. Option 3, insulting others, complaining when a topic does not go where you want it to go, etc. is not an adult option.

Again, why would @donavabdear want to downgrade from the Genelecs to the Focals. Regurgitating marketing blurbs is not an argument. Neither is summing up amplifier power and saying "its 450 watts" without understanding what frequencies power peaks in music are always at. Volume will be limited by the bass driver. Effectively it is 200W or a little more.

@donavabdear , not sure I posted this: 
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1801421115

@donavabdear , about to run out the door, but the high end Focals, like some other speakers in that space, B&W comes to mind, have too much off axis energy at high frequencies and by today's standards poor directivity control. Unless they are in a heavily damped room, they will come across as bright. Same problem with Focal professional monitors like the aforementioned Solo/Trio6 Be from Focal.  The Focals probably could sound very good in the right room.

w.r.t. tearing out crossovers and DIYing, back to one of things I said early in this thread. To make a good active speaker, you still need to start with an acoustically good speaker. If using simple external active crossover, then you need to start with good low distortion drivers too.

@donavabdear , your headphones are not too analytical. The only thing they are is "too hyped". There is nothing particularly analytical about them. Frequency response has a lot of irregularities. Distortion is far from class leading. These are not the headphones you are looking for. I don't think any amplifier, tube or otherwise is going to fix them.

As a general statement, @donavabdear , no passive speaker and amplifier are made for each other. Some may claim that, but I think that would be a steaming pile of BS. If an amplifier is made for a particular speaker, then the corollary is that it is not made to work well with any other speaker. To use you term, mythology in audio.

There is the potential, and it would be more luck than anything, that the high output resistance of a tube amplifier may correct a frequency response error of a speaker, and there is a very good chance that the modified frequency response from the high resistance could delivery a pleasing result. There are many claims that the distortion of a tube amplifier is pleasant. Intersecting with your discussion point, distortion is most audible where the sensitivity of our hearing is rapidly increasing which would be moving from bass to mid-bass/upper bass. In corollary, if the sensitivity is rapidly decreasing, i.e. moving from upper mid-range to high frequencies, distortion is less audible. The antecedent to that is we are not very sensitive to distortion in the deep bass, so there is a bit more complexity. As our sensitivity w.r.t. frequency changes with volume, the audibility of distortion changes with volumes including at what frequencies it will be most audible.

Have to remember where I am going with this 😀   There is some experimental evidence that some distortion is more pleasing. The levels to achieve this seem to be large. Do tubes adequately provide this distortion? That is the claim. I do not know if it is true. Many tube preamps have low distortion and flat response. Maybe it is all a head fake?

@donavabdear ,

Even for us, where the speaker is connected directly to the amplifier, if it is a simple voltage drive amplifier, there is simply no discussion of amplifier matching, other than can it drive the load, and can it achieve the target output level and distortion level. It is not that hard to design an amplifier that adds no audible coloration to the output even for very low distortion drivers. The amplifier distortion is always << driver distortion.  We have thousands of hours in listening tests and we still listen to every design, every speaker, and compare to reference amplification. Only on more sophisticated amplifier-driver integrations, where we are not using pure voltage drive, is matching not only a consideration, but an integral part of the design process.

Notice in the press release, that the press release is from the Harman Luxury Audio group (4329P). It will be interested to see if any measurements come out. It is based on the 708P which is a good studio monitor if you don't push it too hard. Push it hard and it becomes nasty. It is one thing to say compression drivers play loud, which they can. It is another to prove your model does. From the pictures it looks like the same horn as the 708P. That is fine for a studio near-field setting, but may not be ideal in home environments. The vertical is all over the map. Seating height will be critical and watch those floor bounces.

The connectivity is excellent and would suit the modern audio consumer. Run it as part of a full system when you want, treat it like a Sonos the rest of the time. Should be interesting to see how popular it is.

@o_holter ,

You will notice that unless I am personally attacked, my comments apply to content. The 4329P (which you cannot buy yet), is based on the 708P, which I am very familiar with. There may be tweaks in the drivers, but the articles imply it is using the same driver compliment and it looks like the same horn. Spacing looks similar. My comments on the 708P, are informed. They are a good speaker, but they don't like to be pushed too hard. They have good horizontal dispersion, but poor vertical dispersion. In a typical studio, these will be used at closer distances than in a typical home, and ensuring proper seating height would be a given. The closer seating position negates both peak volume requirements and much of the poor off-axis vertical response (floor reflections mainly). The proper seating height will also negate issues with off axis vertical response.

In the appropriate residential installation, no doubt they would sound very good, but one should be aware of their flaws before blinding jumping in.

My apologies @o_holter, that you have been pulled into this childish exchange.

If you are going to rely on the room the way it is, get a speaker with a wave guide for the dispersion is controlled. The results will be superior. The Aida is recommended to be at least 6 feet from the front and side walls to fully use their "depth" gimmick. Sorry I meant control.

The most important aspect of an active speaker @kota1 is good acoustical design. You can do some cool things with DSP but there is only so much that can be fixed. The Bryson does not illustrate the aspects of good acoustic design for a modern speaker.

Do they call it the Model T because the acoustic design is from the last century? Double stacked tweeters and mids but bizarrely stacked with large spread between the lower mid and upper tweeter. Even on a 3 way in 2023 really no excuse for not using wave guides. Strikes me as an old tech speaker with some amps thrown in.

You wanted me to suggest a speaker @kota1 , if we stick to active I would suggest the Kii3 BXT with additional subs. In the home market it is at the leading edge of active speaker implementation. For @donavabdear it will offer better placement flexibility. Only $30K though for a pair but you could buy 2 sets. 

I would also listen to the Beolab 90 again staying active. Not for everyone but the wide / narrow modes illustrate more of what is possible in active speakers, giving both the accurate critical listening narrow mode and the "I love my ambience,", fake, but pleasurable wide mode. Price is just over $100K so in the range of what @donavabdear is looking for. Could be interesting main pair as the wide would be good for casual 2 channel, and the narrow for critical and would be better for ATMOS where you don't want fake ambience.

@donavabdear ,

It would probably help if you provided some more information:

• What brands does the dealer you must buy from carry. No point us suggesting stuff if not on their franchised list.
• Are you planning to do anything with your room in terms of treatments?
• How much time are you willing to invest in room correction, not just pushing a button, but playing with and adapting curves to your listening experience?
• When are you going to get those bloody subs fixed so they stop buzzing? 😎 -- sorry had to throw that one in.

That is a marketing video from an online retailer. No complete in their coverage nor free from bias. They have a broad line, but these appear to be some of the only active speakers that they carry.

Here we have a "blind" comparison between an M2 system and the Revel Salon2. Guess which one wins, handily:

The conclusion:  http://www.avsforum.com/forum/89-speakers/2907816-speaker-shootout-two-most-accurate-well-reviewed-speakers-ever-made-12.html#post54628832

The whole thing: https://www.avsforum.com/threads/speaker-shootout-two-of-the-most-accurate-and-well-reviewed-speakers-ever-made.2907816/#post54546472

@donavabdear ,

Are you going to be using these speakers as part of a larger multichannel setup or purely 2 channel?

I have had the opportunity to spend a lot of time with the MBL101, perhaps the "ultimate" omni-directional speaker (I think they have one higher). I admit, when I first started listening to it, I was like OMG, this is amazing. However, the more I listened, the more diverse the music, the more I felt OMG, everything sounds the same. It started to feel like a surround sound mode on a $1,000 AVR that you could not turn off, or perhaps some of those really awful ATMOS remixes that are out there. It started to sound fake.  Yes, real sound sources are often omnidirectional, but we are not listening to sources, we are listening recordings in space, that space not being our listening rooms.

We discussed previously in this thread speakers that have true cardioid patterns using acoustic methods or additional drivers. They can be placed right against a wall. This is not that. This is artificial ambience. That is not a bad thing or a good thing. Sometimes it will be good, sometimes it will be bad. Shame it does not have a remote to turn it off.  I think if this is part of a multichannel setup, and not just stereo, the inability to turn it off may not be good.

@kota1 I think has played a lot with upmixing of stereo to ATMOS?  On your setup @kota1 how flexible is that? I.e. how much control do you have over the ratio of power from the original two mains to the other channels which I assume is a simulated ambience?

Well I can't say I ever heard that music in clubs back in the "old day".  Old school often seems to be what younger people think older people listened to, not what we actually did :-)   I liked that first mix by Takanome. The amapiano mix by DJRobbiez was not my style, too laid back. Not judging, just not what gets me going.

Unrelated to our topic, but clubs seem to be finally rediscovering the importance of good sound, not just loud. You could see a shift about 10 years ago. Back in the mid-late 80's, top DJ clubs would spend a fortune on their sound systems, not just going for loud, but going for really good sound, no matter where you were in the club.  As the 80's turned into the 90's, it stopped being about songs, and was just about the beat. Didn't need to have a good sound system, just needed lots of bass. As the 2000s shifted into the 2010s, that started to change again.

@donavabdear , every once in a while I get to hob knob with people with a lot more money than I have.  On the Aida speakers, I think you will love the rear firing speakers on some music, and hate it on others, and may dislike it when listening to surround material. Wild guess here, it may frustrate you that you cannot easily turn it off with a remote. Seems to be a knob adjust. As a professional who often will know how something "should sound", you may be more critical about an artificial presentation.

@donavabdear , you know you should not make me say this, but I will. You need to set the Lyngdorf to perfectly flat, volume match it to the BHK pre, and then compare them with someone else's help so you can't tell which is which ... but you can't do that cause the BHK is noisy so you will always know which is which. I only have the Stereophile test report to go on here. You can tell from the frequency response graphs that there are some frequency based compression artifacts. The frequency response changes when the volume is max. Distortion is a bit high. Stereophiles tests are pretty basic so I can only guess on much. Enough distortion is most evident caused by bass, but revealed in upper bass and lower mid-range. That could be warmth, or it could just sounds louder, even volume matched in the mid range. Still not going to rule out that it is because you know it is there.

Don't use the saying better sound. You mean the sound you liked, at least at the moment you were doing the test, and with the music you were listening too.

Maybe it is just the noise :-)

Danny's channel is part fact, part tongue in cheek, with more than a small helping of BS. The crossover he made for the SF is different not necessarily better. Some aspects of the response were smoothed but the off axis is worse. You will see it repeated from Toole, ASR, etc about the importance of a flat on axis response. In practice that axis is not the centerline of the speaker it is the line from the speaker towards the listener which may be off axis from the centerline.  Some speakers are a bit smoother off centerline and are designed for less toe in, not pointed directly at the listener.  Going from 11 parts to 6 suggests lower order crossover or removed notch filters. I would like to see the before and after distortion plots. There could have been a reason for the higher order.

Like most things in audio, crossovers are another area that audiophiles have some extreme and poorly justified phobias. That's makes marks for overly expensive parts of suspect (read as no) value. 

@lonemountain ,

I am a huge proponent of active obviously but i also have to accept that a complex (expensive) passive crossover can achieve almost all that an active system can. You would not see that in a professional monitor.

Most of our cherished music was mixed on passives complete with all those little elements as well. They couldn't work hard to keep them there if they couldn't hear them.   

You get frustrated that passive just smooths all this information over, covers it up in the background, the mix now is somehow missing the little elements the artist and mix engineer worked so damn hard to put in there for you, but content wise it sounds very similar.

@donavabdear , remember I wrote a long time ago now it seems that low distortion, accurate reproduction takes getting used to but once you do it's addictive and you can't go back? What @lonemountain just described was exactly what i meant.