17 of 23 speakers in my studio and home theater systems are internally powered. My studio system is all Genelec and sounds very accurate. I know the best new concert and studio speakers are internally powered there are great technical reasons to design a speaker and an amp synergistically, this concept is much more important to sound quality than the vibration systems we often buy. How can an audiophile justify a vibration system of any sort with this in mind.
I second the opinion that horn loaded subs in the corners are hard to beat. I use Bill Fitzmaurice designed HT Tuba corner horn loaded subs. They are 18 cubic feet each. In my fully horn loaded DIY DEQX DSP equalized system the output at 25 Hz is identical to the output of the 1 kHz reference tone with a roll off of about 18 dB/octave below 25 Hz. I use 96 dB/octave roll offs for all crossovers.
Resonances at room modes were a problem so I sacrificed seven or eight dB of sensitivity with the subs to EQ by pulling down peaks. The horn loaded subs are so sensitive that after that seven or eight dB reduction they still have a sensitivity of 96 or 97 dB. The final result is very tuneful, powerful, articulate bass that goes way down deep.
@kota1I need your help. I have 2x JL Audio Fathom f113v2 Subs and they hum, this is the worst thing about powered speakers. They have 3000W amps, I have spent a fortune in power 2x P20 power regenerators from PS Audio. The subs hum doesn't change when I unplug the audio. Both speakers sound the same and I didn't buy them at the same time, I can be stupidly picky but have you ever heard of these subs or perhaps big amps in small boxes being noisy?
@donavabdear, if it is both subs I doubt they are both defective. Here is a trouble shooting sequence that might help:
1) Take one sub to a different room, on a different breaker. Turn the volume down to 0, then plug it in WITHOUT any interconnects plugged in. Turn it up from 0 to max and notice if hum engages. If it does then do same with other sub. If they both hum without any components plugged in it might be an issue on the powerline and I would try the DC Blocker from Audiolab. Amazon has a 30 day return.
2) If you don’t get a hum take it back to your room and try a different cable (XLR/RCA). Repeat as before and if it hums switch cables. If it still hums it might be the connection with your preamp. Try different ports, look at your settings. It might be the sub gain is set too high in your preamp.
3) If all of that fails to find the issue call JL Audio Tech support or maybe another member has some other suggestions.
@thespeakerdude, No it is not speakerdude. I measure everything I do and since when are line array characteristics just theory? They are very easily demonstrated. There are very few hard boundaries is acoustics, everything has a slope. For all intents and purposes line arrays beam severely in what is usually the vertical axis which is why you see them curved at stadium concerts. What is most important to me is that the subwoofers match the main speaker's line array attenuation characteristics as related to distance.
My audio room was also purposely designed for audio. There is not specific back wall. The room is open to the rest of the house eliminating to most significant reflection. The deviations that remain at the listening positions are easily managed by room control. Right at this moment I have three. You can have a listening position wherever you plant the measurement microphone.
@mijostynfeel free to put your opinions of how acoustics work above actual knowledge. It may make you feel better, but it will not help your understanding. You may have a basic conceptual knowledge of line arrays, but you are both not applying it correctly to your situation and not understanding that your situation does not apply.
You may want to dig a little deeper into line arrays and understand you are neither operating free space, nor at frequencies high enough that the side walls result in a virtual extension of your array:
No need to rewrite what others have spent a good amount of time already explaining. René knows his stuff. You may want to read his comments in other spots on DBA and plane wave in a tube.
For the last 4 days I've stayed up two nights rewiring and rearranging 3 sound systems in my home, my theater and both systems in my listening room. You guys have inspired me to make everything sound better.
I've come to the conclusion that I don't care about being accurate with my systems that are for enjoyment but I do want the most accurate system I can get for my professional mixing system. There is such a big difference between the two in terms of sound it's startling. You can't have both accurate and magical for now because the technology doesn't exist yet IMO.
Yesterday I herd a choral group from a local high school sing Carol of the Bells with only piano the singers were positioned around the auditorium no PA system, the sound was perfect. It was so beautiful, of course I was thinking about the acoustics and the phasing between the singer that were close to me and the ones that were farther away, it was beautiful and so far above anything I've ever heard coming from microphones or speakers.
My entertainment listening systems are hissy run by tube amps and sound magical there is no question about the depth the warmth and the enjoyment. My professional system is quiet sounds articulate edgy and naked, very few things look good naked.
This idea does have to do with powered speakers and technologies that make playing back music more accurate, until we can get microphones, speakers, electronics, and the processes that your brain goes through when translating sound to music there will be a detachment between playing back sound and music. OMG maybe I'll totally give up and go out and buy a record player.
@mijostyn, @thespeakerdude
I was a part some of the original acoustic research on line arrays when I worked with the new computer system that Crown made called TEF (Time, Energy, Frequency) our findings were just as thespeakerdude said. At first we thought all our readings were messed up because we didn't know how sound in a line array would become so additive, we also didn't realize how poorly they worked inside small rooms, line arrays work best in open spaces and large rooms. In small rooms the material the room is made of and the rigidity of the walls play a very strong roll. We kept getting impossible readings because of the drum like effect so many walls made at particular frequencies, we were getting 1+ gain meaning we got more gain than we sent out the speakers, impossible, turned out this was because of the drum effect the interior walls gave, the main engineer coined a term for it that was new to acoustics. This effect we thought was impossible so it caused a long pause in the research we were doing for Crown and later JBL. I was only in college when we were doing this so many things could have change since then but it was fun to be able to use the TEF and actually see the ray tracing models of sound for the first time. Later I got to write some of the math for the ray tracing algorithms, my very very small contribution to the world of acoustics.
@invalid i understand what you are saying but look at it this way, if you have a standard strawberry pie that everyone agrees that is how a strawberry pie should taste then you put extra strawberry flavor in your new pie that pie may taste better and everyone may eventually buy your new strawberry pie but it will not be accurate to the original. I worked with Tom Cruze, Anthony Hopkins, Jack Nicholson, etc they were making in the neighborhood of 20M for the movies I was recording sound on. There voices were a known commodity and I had to bring the most accurate recording equipment the most accurate microphones or I wouldn’t have a job after the director and producers watched dailies.
The audiophile world is a fake world that is searching for something that is unscientific but using the language of science to find their way. Accuracy is not reaching for the EQ it is not fixing phasing and acoustics, accuracy is what Anthony Hopkins voice sounds like when your are eating lunch with him.
In large rooms one wishes for DSP to create a delay of the mains to match up to the subs, but this is often not accepted due to the audible change the DSP introduces plus the barely noticeable delay created by DSP. Any offset in time makes tracking odd, sometimes difficult where one artist is in the live room and one is the control room- both being recorded at the same time. If the entire system is DSP driven that may be a different scenario, but with ATC we prefer 100% analog output to speaker.
It goes to show there are different ways, with different compromises, to achieve one’s goals. Sonically at least I couldn’t say whether I prefer the DSP route, other than it’s the approach I’m using myself - with great results, because I also find the active ATC speakers I’ve heard to sound marvelous. Obviously many variables come into play here for an assessment and comparison to take place. What I can say is that I prefer working with a DSP solution, because of the elaborate range of tools it offers for fine tuning in a very hands-on and on-the-fly manner. That said I like the consistency and non-trendy path of ATC’s with their all-analog active filter choice and class A/B amps used throughout in their active speakers, actually (the latter) what I’m about to convert to as well.
Kudos on you choice of the THT’s. They were also on my initial options list of horn sub variants. I corner load my pair of tapped horns as well, so there’s prodigious headroom in my listening space to say the least - which is a good thing; you never sense the effort, the energy just swells freely to a dizzying (indeed frightening) visceral magnitude when required, or else it simply blends in smoothly. I love that sense of power and energy bandwidth at one’s disposal here, a very immersive feel, and that there’re no limitations. Horn sub variants in particular do that effectively, yet without making themselves unnecessarily "known" in the process.
A very interesting mix of perspectives in this thread! I agree with you Phusis, a lot of ways to "get there". It does baffle me why audiophiles disike amps inside the speaker, as though this is somehow more detrimental to sound than the massive hunk of copper hung on the amplifier’s outputs, completely hiding the speaker.
@thespeakerdude, it is sad to see someone who professes to be a professional be so poorly educated as to not understand basic acoustics. Do yourself a favor and go back to school.
@mijostyn, do you really want to go there? This thread is about powered speakers, if you want to focus your post on a members system, fine. To drag this thread into a battle of "I am smarter than you" is boring. Or, why not start a thread on basic acoustics? The TACT you use is not exactly the latest technology you know? BTW, have you ever looked up the word TACT? I don't see any in your last post. FWIW I think this is a good video on acoustics:
@mijostyn, the bottle neck in your system is two fold. The TACT is like from the prior century and why not take advantage of Moores Law? (Look it up). The other problem is your subs are too big for your system, they bounce around (unacceptable) and can integrate better with your speakers. This is a good resource:
@mijostyn, you have two people @donavabdearand me, who work professionally in the field, both apparently with physics backgrounds. As well I (and apparently @donavabdear) have worked with other physicists, acoustic experts (often physicists) and engineers who also have significant expertise. I provided you with some links that explain, at as basic a level as I could, that what you think is happening and what is happening, are not the same. You can do with that as you wish. You can try to increase your knowledge, or not. Your choice. People often minimize the complexity of things they do not understand. I am sure you experience that in your own career.
As well I (and apparently @donavabdear) have worked with other physicists, acoustic experts
Please, you are an interesting member, I like your posts but you have to put up some kind of proof if you want to start boasting about your creds. @donavabdearposted his creds, I never claimed to have any creds so at least posted my system to show I can walk the talk of what I am claiming as experience. You have done neither and that is just not going to fly if you want to claim your brilliance here. So, you either gotta post some creds and post your system so we know you just aren't making it up as you go. Please, don't start dragging other members into your personal diatribe with @mijostyn, the mud splatters OK?
A very interesting mix of perspectives in this thread! I agree with you Phusis, a lot of ways to "get there". It does baffle me why audiophiles disike amps inside the speaker, as though this is somehow more detrimental to sound than the massive hunk of copper hung on the amplifier’s outputs, completely hiding the speaker.
(some of following is a rant not aimed at you) As compared to a passively configured speaker here, yes, I fully agree with you. For my own part, in principle, I don’t dislike when amps are built inside active speakers, it’s the claims of amp-driver matching via bundled solutions I find can be taken out of context for what it really is, and what could as well, fundamentally, be accommodated in an outboard active setup, if you even had to.
I mean, one may have way more than enough power from the amp connected to the HF section in a active outboard setup, but it sounds great so why "match" the HF section with a less power savvy amp - does it actually make a difference for the better in perceived sound? Maybe the added headroom could in fact be the better bi-product of something that is "more than enough."
Whereas in a bundled solution a MFR wouldn’t want to shell out more dough than necessary on the amps used, and so amp-driver "matching" not least comes down to power differentiation to the different driver sections, also to save space inside the speaker in addition to thermal considerations which may dictate more efficient amp principles for those reasons alone.
Amp-driver matching as claimed here is often very dubious, because what does it entail? "Oh, we can’t tell you being it’s a business secret." Bollocks. What’s ’fundamental’ with active config. is getting rid of the passive cross-over for amp-driver direct control; THAT in itself is the main takeaway to savor and apparently too straight forward a boon to speak of, and so additional matching parameters, by some, are esoterically flaunted and heralded as core aspects that supposedly make the real difference.
Give me a break, and not least some perspective. Those of us choosing an outboard active solution mayn’t have the R&D capacity of a MFR, however we aren’t bound by a business model that adheres to a bottom line and that has to take size restrictions and market specifics into consideration - not to mention convenience. Most importantly we get the fundamentals of active configuration whilst having free reigns to choose whatever components we prefer in further matching actions, from whatever brand in whatever size, design principle, shape and price we see fit to our own ears; you still get the core and most important benefits of active, yet on a potentially unlimited physical canvas to paint on.
Something tells me a primary reason why active ATC speaker models are so coherent and well sounding is due the consistency of their excellent, in-house and carefully manufactured drive units being coupled to what’s essentially the same, quality class A/B amp sections, just scaled in accordance to the driver sections they’re feeding. That’s how it’s been for years - decades even - fairly unchanged and with no crass PR efforts or claimed "cutting edge" new tech nor dubious matching parameters to sell their product. They may be old school in that respect, but to hell with that: to this individual’s ears they’re still among the very best out there of the bundled solutions (along with Meyer Sound).
@phusis, I can only speak for myself, the reason I don’t use an outboard amp configuration and active crossovers is space consideration. For a two channel system NP, but when you have a HT with 5,7, or more channels it would be a monster to have to store all of the additional gear. Internal amps is the opposite, takes away the racks I need and gives me biamped speakers for less money than I could build myself. No doubt, it could be better and I know you can use the Storm Audio/Bryston SP4 HT processor DSP capability to run active crossovers for each channel but you still need to house all the amps somewhere.
Theortically you could do this if you got the Bryston SP4 processor and then 5+ of the Bryston active speakers but it would be complex and you still need to house all the amps.
@phusis, come to think of it I may have one credential, maybe. The member not working in the industry with the most active speakers in a home theater-🎖
@phusis Something tells me a primary reason why active ATC speaker models are so coherent and well sounding is due the consistency of their excellent, in-house and carefully manufactured drive units being coupled to what’s essentially the same, quality class A/B amp sections, just scaled in accordance to the driver sections they’re feeding. That’s how it’s been for years - decades even - fairly unchanged and with no crass PR efforts or claimed "cutting edge" new tech nor dubious matching parameters to sell their product. They may be old school in that respect, but to hell with that: to this individual’s ears they’re still among the very best out there of the bundled solutions (along with Meyer Sound).
@mijostyn , you have two people @donavabdear and me, who work professionally in the field, both apparently with physics backgrounds. As well I (and apparently @donavabdear) have worked with other physicists, acoustic experts (often physicists) and engineers who also have significant expertise.
😂😂😂. Cin Dyment: that’s very funny. Last time you were a Craigslist scavenger. Before that a battery businessman. Before that an acoustician.
In reality, you are just a sad dude with a Google Machine.
You are a very sick dude. Mentally sick. And a very bad dude. The worst I have ever encountered. And you know it
Thanks to the members who suggested I use a sub in with my new Sony TZ-HA1ES dac/pre. So, I have a Paradigm PW Link streamer here that has a digital out. I connect the digital out (with an iFi SPDIF Purifier in the chain) to the DAC and the RCA out to my sub. Run ARC Genesis room correction, open the Playfi streaming app and bingo. This is a soundstage from two channel that wraps you in a cocoon of sound. Best two channel ever in my room. I still plan to get the DSPeaker 8033ii for the subs but this is another level from running it without the sub and DSP. The Link is on sale on the Paradigm website for $199. Audyssey charges $199 just for their software upgrade and DIRAC charges $499. This is like getting SOA room correction DSP and they throw in the hardware and the streamer for free. For the members wanting a room correction solution or just a refresh it is worth it. I have before and after graph of the results I'll post later, thanks.
@kota1, The TACT was SOTA until just recently and there are still some things the newer processors won't due. It's major problem is that it's ancient processor is not fast enough so you have to make sure you are operating it near 0dBfs, something I am used to doing. But, you are right in that it is time to move on. I was going to get a Trinnov Amethyst but it's bass management is no where near as sophisticated as the TacT's. The new DEQX processors were announced 6 months ago and supposed to be available right about now. They just updated their web site so it should be any day. As soon as they are released I will be getting a Pre 8.
A system is 95% speakers and acoustics and 5% everything else. The TacT has served me very well over 20+ years. Very few items are constructed as well as it is and it opened up a whole new world for me. I have been using very complex digital "powered" speakers for 20 years. It taught me that the only way to know what a room is doing is to measure it. My media room was almost a perfect residential music room. I designed it to be that way except the Tact showed me I had made one glaring error. I put a window too close to the right hand loudspeaker and somehow it was skewing the treble on that side. I had the window removed and the hole sided over, big improvement. I never would have known had I not measured it. I thought as long as the wall was reasonably flat it would be OK. I put blinds over the window and that did little to nothing.
Lastly, there are certain rules behind applied sciences that one violates at their own risk. While in medicine the 1/2 life of medical "fact" is 5 years, science such as acoustics are ancient, proven and well established. Unfortunately the math is beyond most of us because we do not have that training. This allows some of us to make thing up as we go along and the rest of us have no idea what is going on. This is how mythology is created. It is prudent that if one of us is aware of the science, to point this out.
@mijostyn, I had an issue with the window too. I hung a pair of Acoustic Lens diffusors and it worked perfect, I’ll try and upload a pic but as you see they let the light right through:
Small room acoustics is not science it’s an art when you consider the amount of refinement audiophiles expect in there finished product.
This is a perfect example of the OP. There is so much myth and knowledge that is totally baseless in any sort of audiophile knowledge foundations that there is no way audiophiles can claw their way up the hills of acoustics, electronics, material physics, and psychoacoustics, as well as psychology to reach the relativistic goal of audio nirvana at your listening position.
I use a Lyngdorf MC 60-2 with their program called "Room Perfect" these guys are really on to something including psychoacoustics. Trinnov is trying to linearize the room, impossible when you understand how much we don’t know. I went with Lyngdorf because of this exact issue.
I put a window too close to the right hand loudspeaker and somehow it was skewing the treble on that side. I had the window removed and the hole sided over, big improvement. I never would have known had I not measured it. I thought as long as the wall was reasonably flat it would be OK. I put blinds over the window and that did little to nothing.
I had a similar problem, rather than remove the window I did some creative room treating. This also was in line with Anthony Grimani’s "acoustic recipe" in the video I posted earlier. This is a 3D diffusor that has an absorber mirroring it on the opposite wall. As you see it doesn’t block the light either, win/win. I’ll post the measurements I just took after installing my new preamp later:
In order to run Anthems ARC Genesis room correction I connected the digital out of the Paradigm PW Link into my Sony dac/pre. Look at these results (the green line is the after). Anthem has all types of products with ARC, recommend you replace the TACT. With your 4 subs and PJ the Anthem AV90 is worth checking out. To get the results you want you can’t rely either on DSP or room treatments, you need to do both (remember to treat the ceiling too). I know you have a PJ, look how I worked around mine using a similar solution. The result is more than worth the effort:
The components of your system are like a Ferrari, but you are using a team of horses (the TACT) to power it. Yes, you have a lot invested in horses, you have used them a long time. It is time to let them go and get an engine suitable for your components. You have several members here who have already praised their own DSP (trinnov, room perfect, ARC, Audyssey Pro, DSPeaker, etc) and NOBODY is using TACT. It is a horse in the era of cars, time to get an "engine" more in line with your components. That system is from 2008 and if it was an amp or a pair of speakers, fine. For a digital component? No. A $100 DAC from today will blow a $5000 DAC from 2008 out of the water. "Digital Signal Processing" software that old is not even a consideration. If you need advice start a new thread and I am sure you can accelerate the transition, NP.
I finely used Room Perfect on my ProTools system, It came out much better than I ever expected, those new Genelec speakers are much better than I ever expected, nice when that happens.
When you set up your system then run acoustic programs that fix the room to show a perfectly flat graph don’t think your room is perfect or even good sounding that’s not the goal in fact if your room is flat your room will not sound good, as I said earlier a famous acoustic designer and studio architect John Storyk said it’s very easy to make a flat studio but they sound bad. When the goal of most acoustic room fixing programs is to give you a flat line well logically that gives you a room that sounds bad, any other line gives you an argument for what may sound great but a flat line is the only one that you know for sure sounds bad. Room perfect by Lyngdorf is the only one that I know of that doesn’t conform the speaker to create a flat room.
Small room acoustics are not hard to do correctly but impossible, sound is 3D the materials it bounces off of are all different and change with angle of the sound hitting the material and the absorption of the particular frequency hitting that boundary, and the amplitude of that sound hitting that boundary material. Acoustics and fluid dynamics are cousins in mathematics and both are done never in real world environments but in theoretical perfect boundaries and environments only hoping to get an average. DSP is great for surround sound systems but only adds latency for 2 channel systems, if you want your system to sound the same loud and quiet your brain will not understand, the Fetcher Munsen curve has been there all your life, it’s also different for everyone and especially different between men and women, how do they get low level loudness right, they can’t.
Also, I’ve only seen sound a couple of times both in about 2000 seat rooms for indoor concerts, a little to small for big systems but you have to set them up anyway because that’s what is in the trucks. When you have this situation sound checks are very dangerous the mixer comes in and has a 500hp engine in a Volkswagen bug and lets it rip. When this happens and you are looking at the lights on the mixing console you see the density waves go through your vision it looks just like a mirage on a hot day. All this to say hard lens diffusion is obviously wrong it gives you phasing by adding an accordion of smaller out of phase waves that falsely smooth out the problem wave. Sound doesn’t come as verticals sign waves it comes as horizontal pressure waves. Understanding sound in terms of frequency (length) and amplitude (density) makes you realize most of acoustics is psychological not physical.
The new digital amp boards from Elegant Audio Solutions (like the old TACT and Lyngdorf but more modern and using GaNs on the output).....allow inexpensive active multiamping using an external digital xover such as the inexpensive Minidsp units. For an OEM the boards also have DSP functions built in.....but even the board with just digital inputs can be used with amazing results. Peachtree has the GaN 1 amp now and there will be soon an amp with 400 watts a channel. You could use two of these $1500 digital amps (one per channel) and the $600 Minidsp Flex digital and you can biamp any drivers......full eq. room correction, time alignment (delay), whatever......Of course, you can use more amps and tri and quad amp. I am sure there will be 8 channel amps out within a year or so.....integrated amps as well. A digital amp allows you to use NO DACs, NO ADCs.....no preamps.....and no normal amps, no analog cables......and of course, no distorting passive xover parts. This is a revolution. Why buy speakers when you can make your own open baffle speakers in one weekend that will sound better than anything you have ever heard.
@kota1@mijostyn’s main speakers are floor to ceiling line sources. He does not need to worry much about floor and ceiling for them and side wall reflections are likely to be a bit lower. Still have floor/ceiling and side walls for bass as the subs are omnidirectional at those frequencies.
@donavabdearsince no one final masters in a perfectly flat room and mixing highly nearfield is the only thing that comes close why would you want to playback flat?
This brings us back to the original topic. You do want the direct sound perfectly flat if you can. Active speakers do that better than anything. That gives you a great starting point. From there do your room acoustics and subs to get close to your target non flat in room curve. Finally DSP to soften anything really off. Room correction has to make the on axis non flat to correct the room. Modern processors try to understand what is direct /reflect so they don’t over correct but it is not easy.
@ricevswe have had direct digital amps for quite some time. It sounds simple but is not. A DAC does not need feedback. Amplifiers generally do. Direct digital and DAC/AMP each have their advantages and disadvantages. Direct digital amps are single bit so far. DACs are multibit. The math in a multibit implementation allows more tolerance for the engineers to do their stuff. Does it matter? No, both can be transparent. Same with silicon and GaN. Silicon can already be transparent. GaN could make for nicer but meaningless specs. For us we like the reduced packaging/heat sink requirements GaN may offer.
This really should be a case by case scenario discussion. Definitely not a black and white topic. Especially with the advent of some very nice active component “systems” now available, and being designed by several different companies - boutique and commercial.
I love the sonic changes produced by different amps in terms of their compatibility with my components upstream. But I’d also really love to try some Buchardt A500 or A700’s, KEF LS 60’s (when I could afford the luxury of additional systems) or anything that might turn up in the near future with interesting offerings and superb design.
Genelec’s are interesting to me, as they tend to cross that threshold into the tonal aspect of home audio of listening. Not just a cold/analytical studio monitor. But I digress.
@ricevs Class-D is not PWM. PWM is not "Class D type amplification". The only thing they share in common is switching devices. Purifi is a Class-D amplification product that uses the input signal and feedback to reference the output to a clean analog input. There is no equivalent in a digital PWM implementation.
I believe the first one made was the Tact Millennium back in the late 90s. The PCM digital signal is changed in software to PWM (class D type amplification). Tocatta Technologies (TACT) was headed by inspired people who now work for Purifi. It seems odd that Purifi does not have a digital amp board.....prehaps soon...they will.
Simply hooking amplifiers up to drivers and using a digital crossover only provides some, but not all the benefits of active speakers.
You give a lot of bad if not misleading advice in your article. As a business, there is a level of negligence in doing that. That the new MOFI speaker. Encouraging people to take it apart, simply replace the cross over, and then lower the tweeter is terrible advice. Very few people have the experience or tools to do this. You can make some final tunings to a speaker by ear, but 99% of the work is with tools. Getting the crossover frequency right both for evenness of frequency and disperson, the slopes, any necessary notch filters, etc. is not something you just "do" by throwing in a digital crossover. At a minimum you need a calibrated measurement microphone and knowledge of how to measure a speaker / speaker driver. Then you need to understand what those measurements mean and how to turn that into a solution. You may get lucky or more likely convince yourself it sounds good by ear, with the first music you listen to, but across a wide range of music there will be issues. I am sure Andrew put a lot of thought into the crossover frequency based on distortion of the tweeter, output at frequency, and dispersion, or more specifically matching dispersion to the woofer and using the woofer as a wave guide. Again, it is negligent to blindly tell people to drop the crossover frequency on a tweeter without knowing the impact, which is likely to be negative.
@thespeakerdudeA question about your audio philosophy. Speakers should be like microphones they should record and playback flat if there is an audio character to the microphone sometimes that's great and it helps the happiness of the final product just like speakers. There isn's an exact right or wrong I remember in a recording studio I worked at we had an old EV microphone cable that added just the right amount of warmness (lack of high end) to the vocals of some people. To me microphones and speakers should record and playback in the most accurate way possible. Using room correction that changes the speakers is in general wrong, we should change the room, clearly that's the right way to do things but it is difficult, expensive and takes a lot of skill and luck. Fixing surround sound speakers with room correction makes sense because of the timing issues but also in that case the correct solution is again putting the speakers at the right distances physically. Flat rooms are awful and never work because phasing and wobbling sound is part of why we understand what sound is. Speakers should be flat if they're not the room may not work with the speakers in the same way if room correction software flattens the room with the speakers we have the same problem. Reason no #335 why audiophiles are on a slippery slope concerning proper sound reproduction. There seems to be several groups like the AES that want to standardize surround sound playback systems which is a great idea, after that standard is realized we can color our system the way we want but if there is no foundation our feet are firmly planted in mid air. Do you agree?
Actually speaker design is simple.....there are not that many factors and you can learn them all in a few hours and apply them with a digital xover and digital amps. There are tons of speakers that cross over a tweeter below 1K......yes, indeed. However, the problem is usually power handling.....and with steeper 48db per octave xover slopes it is no longer a problem. Anyone can buy a calibrated mircrophone and measure their speaker in room...including off axis response. A 10 year old with average IQ can take some great drivers and put them on an open baffle and with a good digital xover and digital amps will create a speaker that blows your frickin mind......and I am talking "all done in one day!!!!!!" It is really that simple. The xover in the Mofi speaker is not complex......Andrew probably spent a couple of hours designing it and tweaking it. Of course, he got in different proto versions of the driver and spent time with each one....but the xover design is simple and normal.....He can probably do the calculations for the parts in his head....he has done it so long. He spent no time listening to those xover parts versus more expensive more transparent one.. Of course there are polar patterns but it is easy to undertand and you can measure it very fast. Polar response matching is usually bad when you try to run a woofer too high so it does not have dispersion that matches the tweeter.
Simply hooking up a digital xover to digital amps and then to drivers not only provides ALL the benefits of normal active speakers but it gets rid of the distorting DACS, one dollar op amps on the output of the DACS and normal class D or A/B amps with all their parts and circuitry and feedback. A digital amp has NO....I repeat NO ordinary amplification stages, DACs or feedback......Usually, the shorter the signal path the more pure the result. There will be better implementations of digital amplidication down the road....as EVERYTHING changes the sound. The software that changes PCM to PWM is crucial to the sound. The switching frequency, the passive parts on the output, the noise and quality of the power supplies, the jitter on the clock that runs the processor.....etc. into infinity. So, we are not done....nor will we ever be.....that what makes this game fun.
BUT......this is the first time in the history of humanity.....he he...that a digital amp board is being made and can be purchased by any OEM and one can make amps, integrated amps and powered speakers with this technology that gets rid of so many components. So, will a $1500 digital amp beat a $125K MSB Select DAC, with the $145K Boulder preamp and the $250K boulder Mono blocks with $10K worth of analog cables in between?......probably not. But what will it beat? Most audiophiles have maybe 20K in their system.....I bet this 1.5K thing will compete with that......and then if you used multiple amps and a digital xover....and wired directly to speaker voice coil wires.....well, I think it would compete with 100K systems and you can put it all together yourself quickly and cheaply and have a ball tuning it and trying different drivers.......this is indeed a revolution.....like it or not.
So, what benefits do normal active speakers give that using digital amps and digital xovers not do? Remember, you can make a box speaker using this too. Stick a 10 inch driver in a box and put a tweeter above it......have the digital amp directly behind the speaker and hardwired to the drivers........The only advantage I see of powered speakers is that they are completely all in one. So you can put them in different places and move them around easier......for monitoring at location, etc. BUT, these digital amp modules can be put directly inside a speaker to make the same exact thing....but with no DACs, one dollar op amps, feedack and normal feedack amps inside, they will sound even better than the current powered speakers.......so all the companies making powered speakers now using digital xovers with DACs and op amps and normal class D amps can be upgraded SONICALLY by using these inexpensive digital amp boards.....you will see this happening......sooner than you think.
Besides being purer sounding than a normal active system.....digital amplification allows you to tune the speaker any way you like, including get rid of bass nodes and extend the bass. You are stuck with the drivers, box design and amplifiers and xovers in a normal active speaker. You want to try a different type of tweeter?.....well, you then have to buy a new set of monitors with that tweeter inside....and, of course, it will still have all the limitations of box design, etc. You can swap out drivers in minutes and play like never before when making your own speaker. How many active speakers are dipole? Dipole speakers give a bigger more open sound. Regular active speakers and monitors are so yesterday.
The only advantage of a regular electronic xover is you get to play with tube amps and tube preamps and tube DACs. Some will never like the ultra pure low distortion of a digital amp......they want the extra liguidity and beauty that only tubes do. So, this is not for everyone. As in all things.
Actually speaker design is simple.....there are not that many factors and you can learn them all in a few hours and apply them with a digital xover and digital amps.
No, not even close, though open baffle, just one type of speaker, which may have good or terrible in room results, is easier, but even for open baffle, there are subtleties to achieve the best design.
There are tons of speakers that cross over a tweeter below 1K......yes, indeed. However, the problem is usually power handling.....and with steeper 48db per octave xover slopes it is no longer a problem.
There are few dynamic tweeters that are crossed over <1K. Horn loaded yes. AMT no. It is not a simple matter of power handling. It is a matter of dispersion, i.e. the tweeter will be too wide at those frequencies, even 27-30mm dynamic, compared to the woofer, and it is a matter of high frequency off axis energy. The larger tweeter may be flat on axis from 1K-20K, but the off axis energy drops more at higher frequencies on the larger tweeter, changing the tonal balance, and you can’t correct that with DSP without breaking on-axis response. For older people it may not matter as much. It seems that you can’t learn everything in a few hours.
Andrew probably spent a couple of hours designing it and tweaking it. Of course, he got in different proto versions of the driver and spent time with each one....but the xover design is simple and normal.....He can probably do the calculations for the parts in his head....he has done it so long. He spent no time listening to those xover parts versus more expensive more transparent one.
He probably did it using his own custom software which he has probably spent decades tuning, however, you can bet from there, he probably made several variants and listened in a few listening spaces to get a feel for how it behaved real world. He didn’t spend time listening to expensive parts for a reason, he already knew what they would sound like.
Simply hooking up a digital xover to digital amps and then to drivers not only provides ALL the benefits of normal active speakers but it gets rid of the distorting DACS, one dollar op amps on the output of the DACS and normal class D or A/B amps with all their parts and circuitry and feedback. A digital amp has NO....I repeat NO ordinary amplification stages, DACs or feedback......Usually, the shorter the signal path the more pure the result.
It does not provide all the benefits, not even close. Please see your first paragraph, which I will point out, is incorrect as you appear to have spent more than a few hours and still have much to learn.
A $10 DAC chip with those $1.00 op-amps implemented on a PCB has no distortion that you can hear.
Feedback done correctly is a good thing. There just has to be enough of it. This is simple math.
The Peachtree amplifier is a DAC. A regular DAC requires very stable power rails, low noise clocks, and effective analog filters. Stable power rails, low noise clocks, and effective filters with no frequency effects are not difficult at the power level of a DAC (10’s-100’s of mW). Now replicate that at 200W per channel with no feedback to correct issue.
Those package DACs are based on multi-bit modulators, which provides significantly improved performance. The Peachtree will not be.
The Peachtree filter is outside the feedback loop. It will have roll-off at high frequency.
Peachtree has not released any specifications, but I would not be surprised if their performance is lower than class leading D such as Purifi and/or Purifi plus an external DAC. Time will tell. I am sure Stereophile or Audioscience Review will publish measurements when they can. You can already buy Purifi modules inexpensively and multi-channel DACs inexpensively. This is a refinement, not a revolution.
Besides being purer sounding than a normal active system.....digital amplification allows you to tune the speaker any way you like, including get rid of bass nodes and extend the bass.
You are only making a claim of purer. Pure is in the results, and we don’t have any to compare. We already are at a state of transparent DAC+amplifier. Anything purer is academic. We can already tune a speaker any way we like, We can also already even with a passive speaker extend bass. Bass nodes has nothing to do with the speaker. That is a room issue. DSP room correction which can be external to the speaker or internal can already be done. Your streaming S/W can do it. There is no advancement being made.
Dipole speakers may give a bigger sound or they may gives you a dark sound. They may help with some room nodes, while creating all kinds of other frequency response issues. They rarely give deep bass without a sub. The sweet spot tends to be small. The off axis energy is usually low, suiting them more for near-field or quasi near-field and can be a pain to room correct for frequency response as it is harder to balance on axis response and room response. There are a reason some love Magnepan and others hate them and that professionals who do mixing and mastering do not use them. Their popularity comes and goes. If your room is not symmetric, forget about open baffle. It will be a mess.
Now, I understand.....thespeakerdude is an objectivist......he believes in measurements only......that is why he thinkis that DACs and op amps and normal amps are transparent.......sorry. even one resistor is not transparent......we live in different worlds. I listen to "everything" I do......What do you listen to? measurements? I give minimal response to objectivists (won't respond again to thespeakerdude on this thread) because they have no real knowledge (ie....real knowledge in audio is from listening tests) and it is just a waste of time.....it just goes on and on and they have to have the last word. He probably thinks all passive components have no sound.....ie: he is against any form of tweaking. You see.....as soon as you "define" something you have to then "defend" it. This is what the ego does. All religions have LOVE as their essence.......but when you get to the formal stuff....well, then it gets pretty rigid and judgemental (not loving or inclusive). When you get that everything makes a difference sonically......then you are more open to possiblilities....and the possibilities are infinite. This is the joy of audio.....that you can keep playing and learning and growing. This is what the human soul has come here to do......to learn how to be more open, inclusive and loving. Putting things in a box.....is well....so yesterday. We are one....we are love and we are eternal infinte joy.
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