Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

Audiophiles like to use the word transparency. At moderate listening levels, the speaker will always be least transparent part perhaps with the exception of a turntable. No external amplifier that is not designed to interact with and drive one specific driver, in one specific configuration, can achieve the transparency of an application specific amplification.

@lonemountain Well said, marketing is the guiding force in high end audio. I understand cutting edge equipment is important but DACs that go way beyond what any human will ever hear, $25k anti vibration equipment racks colored fuses in which the PC circuits start and end in traces, marketing to the most gullible. Maybe it's time to form an audiophile society along with the AES or something like that because this is getting really silly.

 

@thespeakerdude I’m with you. 
 

If you want to significantly change the sound of a system, transducers- speakers and phono cartridges - are the way to do it.

An open question:  Is this above statement about change something audiophiles agree with?

 

@thespeakerdude When we speak at low levels our voices don't sound the same as when we speak louder as does a saxophone that plays softly doesn't sound like one playing loudly. When someone has automatic loudness DSP they are fooling themselves in more ways than one. As you said speakers and amps don't perform the same, the Fletcher Munsen curve is not the same, and the physics of the acoustic waveform are not the same in real life. I think part of audiophiles confusion is of course #1 marketing to rich people based on arrogance, but a close #2 is living in 2 worlds of music. If an audiophile wants to recreate an analog orchestra there are much different considerations than recreating a modern music group with computer based information. 

My Spiro Steinway grand that plays by its self is the perfect example of high end audio it sounds nearly perfect. There is so much difference between high end audio systems and the real thing it's not even worth talking about. When we see live music it's usually run through a PA and take it from me there are huge compromises when it comes to fidelity in every PA system and operator. I believe the answer to this problem is to understand the differences in our goals.

@lonemountain 

I think audiophiles want to change systems for the better in an incremental approach. Certainly you can change speakers but how do you improve the sound without changing the speakers? Source components, cables, amplification, vibration control, etc.

Re: the marketing question, are expensive products for a bunch of arrogant suckers with cash to dispose of? I think the companies that have been around a while have stayed around because of customer satisfaction. The new companies going against them may rely on grossly overstating their products, but how can they stay in business for very long? 

I think the issue is wasting money on mismatched components and rooms, not the dealers and manufacturers.

@lonemountain ,

Was directed at me? I am not sure I understand the question.

An open question:  Is this above statement about change something audiophiles agree with?

I expect little I say is something that audiophiles agree with 😁  Fortunately, I just have to make speakers that are transparent, not claim to be. There is, as noted so much lost in the translation from live music that it seems like an obtuse goal, but for what my customers mainly do, real transparency, which effectively is low distortion and controlled dispersion, is a real goal.

 

@thespeakerdude No, not at you!  I was commenting on your most recent transparency post where you talk about amplifiers.

@thespeakerdude wrote:

Audiophiles like to use the word transparency. At moderate listening levels, the speaker will always be least transparent part perhaps with the exception of a turntable. No external amplifier that is not designed to interact with and drive one specific driver, in one specific configuration, can achieve the transparency of an application specific amplification.

As they say: are you gonna balk all day, little dog, or are you gonna bite? That's just quoting to my immediate recollection of the completeness of this saying, so nothing really implied wrt. "little dog" as such, but being you and a few others here are so much into this intricate amp-driver match, so much so indeed that it would seem you're loosing sight of the forest for the trees (while smelling some bull as well), why don't you name me a few brands/models of active, bundled speakers that adhere in some fitting form to your strict standards here, and I'll attempt to seek them out to the best of my abilities as brand/model availability allows locally, and give them a thorough listen. Others around here would have the same opportunity also, and hear for themselves what all this is supposedly about. I know, you're apparently affiliated with a manufacturer yourself - alas, one you can't reveal - but maybe you could "hide" your own representative among a selection of, say, 4-5 brands/models, and I might be lucky to catch it of the bunch in random fashion. If nothing else I might be able to listen to just on of them and assess for myself what this claimed über amp-driver match transparency trait is all about (maybe I have made this encounter already without knowing it, and I didn't really make a thing of it either way), and if it moves mountains in the whole scheme of things combined with their overall design and implementation. 

To me you're just hiding behind it all, making the claims you do. Give us something to go by, or it's just hot air. I believe we agree on much more than what would seem, but this whole esoterically-laden secret-sauce amp-driver match baloney grew old a long time ago in your efforts to lessen the advantages of active if it isn't per your approach. What's there for all to see however, if they went at it themselves, is that getting rid of the passive cross-over for amp-driver direct-control is the major boon in itself and the meat and potatoes of active configuration. You go outboard active there are several aspects in dedication between amps and drivers that can be made, not least to ones own taste, and you have carte blanche wrt. the drivers, speaker design and size you want couple it with, along with the remaining gear. Forest for the trees, my friends..

@phusis ,

How would you listen for transparency? What does it sound like? Have you heard it before? Do you know what relative distortion sounds like in a speaker over any given frequency range? at a particular sound intensity? What would you use to listen for it? Do you know the pedigree of that recording and the signal / processing chain to know the level of transparency from the time the sound was created till it comes off the recording medium?

this whole esoterically-laden secret-sauce amp-driver match baloney

When you understand the intricacies of driving a traditional dynamic driver or AMT in the most linear possible fashion, at all signal levels, with complex waveforms, perhaps your attitude will be warranted.

Isn't the bulk of amp/driver "match" really about coordinating [the same] dynamic range of each section of a complete system?    I mean an active system cannot be considered high end if it clips its HF amp on the tweeter before the LF amp clips on its LF driver.  This is the most basic of requirements, yes?  The same rules apply to a full multi way active PA system, yes? 

There has been little talk of dynamics with active, but that is where one of the larger benefits occurs.  The level of LF demand on an amplifier is often underestimated, yielding a negative result for a HF device on a single way [passive full range] system. 

Brad 

 

@lonemountain,

 

@phusis , and probably most people's concept of amplifier/driver is a simple linear voltage based amplifier perhaps with some frequency response modification. Without writing a book, that is a traditional view that is not the future of active speakers. Even active subwoofer drivers with velocity/position feedback already break that mold.

There is no set "ratio" between the LF and HF peak in any given set of music, though practically, the peaks are significantly more at the lowest frequencies. However, you can soft clip bass while preserving mids and highs unclipped and achieve a speaker that is considered more flexible, i.e. able to play louder while being perceived as still sounding good. However, that is a "club" driven too loud situation, not a professional setup where you ensure the system is not clipping with the music you are using.

Isn't the bulk of amp/driver "match" really about coordinating [the same] dynamic range of each section of a complete system?    I mean an active system cannot be considered high end if it clips its HF amp on the tweeter before the LF amp clips on its LF driver.  This is the most basic of requirements, yes?  The same rules apply to a full multi way active PA system, yes?

If we assume that the HF component is riding on top of the LF swells then the HF always clips before the LF in a passive system.

Most tweeter in a box behind a crossover are more sensitive than the woofers and need to be padded down ~10dB, which further points to the HF needing very little power.

It would take some skill to design an active system which clips the HF before the LF. Maybe using a 1W SET on some inefficient tweeters, and a kilowatt amp on the woofers could get one close… But I sort of doubt it. It would take a lot of work.

@thespeakerdude

You need to back up the stuff you claim with something:

How would you listen for transparency? What does it sound like? Have you heard it before?

I can tell you EXACTLY how to listen for transparency, with your ears.

You have an invisible system, a mythical job, making fictional speakers. If I’m wrong post your creds. Otherwise start a new thread and title it, "Once upon a time.." so we all know its a fairytale going in OK?

I encourage my fellow members to stop feeding the troll unless he posts his creds.

@kota1 If I may answer for @thespeakerdude transparency is when you have a band setting up in the studio and before you start recording from the control room you walk into the studio and listen to each musician play their instrument to see how it sounds with your ears, and listen the guitar, bass, and drums. When you get back to the control room and put up some faders you have what the real sound is and if that sound is coming through the speakers in the control room. That is transparency and you usually never want it to sound like it did in the studio because you can make it sound so much better. A better description of transparency is recording Tom Cruse or Anthony Hopkins on a movie set, you better get their voices just like you were standing there in the movie or else they will have to loop the scene loose performance and sound quality. 

A lot of system/equipment distortions are amazingly easy to hear with a signal generator with variable frequency and level. We use these to check for driver distortion during the recone process. That would be a good place to start and being simple, easy for everyone to hear. It isn’t unusual to use one in a studio to check for speaker rub and buzz but also room/equipment/ furniture mechanical vibrations and resonances. 

@thespeakerdude

It is very difficult to listen for transparency

For YOU

because our (replace our with @thespeakerdude ) detailed audio memory is so short that we have a very hard time comparing

clearly there are several people commenting on this topic who are far more knowledgeable and experienced than you are

Of course there is, otherwise I wouldn’t waste my time in this thread. The people I am gaining knowledge from have all posted their creds. You are making it up as you go along IMO.

I would suggest you lose the attitude

I wouldn’t have an attitude if you posted something besides a fantasy system from your made up job designing invisible speakers, PLEASE prove me wrong OK?

Everything I make claims about when posting I either link to evidence or it is based on my own system which I have posted. When I call out rudeness I respond in kind, your insults to @phusis are ridiculous as he has backed up his claims by posting his system. You are just dancing around spewing insults with nada to back it up besides a keyboard so I called out your nonsense.

 

 

 

There was nothing rude in a teacher correcting a student who has made an error, or correcting someone using a 1990 snapshot of battery technology to comment on electric vehicles. Knowledge is never rude. Taking attitude with someone where you lack knowledge is rude. If you would like to fix that issue, here is a quick smattering of papers that provides a cross section of what active speakers means to those working nearer the forefront of the field. This is by no means an inclusive overview, but it is a good start. When you have read all of them, and fully understand them, including why in almost all cases they require tight coupling of the amplifier to the driver, then we can continue this conversation.

https://www.klippel.de/fileadmin/_migrated/content_uploads/Adaptive_Nonlinear_Control_of_loudspeakers_02.pdf

https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/13746312.pdf

https://acta-acustica.edpsciences.org/articles/aacus/full_html/2020/01/aacus200002s/aacus200002s.html

https://hal.science/hal-01103598/document

https://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/document?repid=rep1&type=pdf&doi=e689c7a596847f0255146e0209457c9bef76b755

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237669878_Distortion_Reduction_in_Moving-CoilLoudspeaker_SystemsUsing_Current-DriveTechnology

Oh brother...

@thespeakerdude wrote:

There was nothing rude in a teacher correcting a student who has made an error ...

A convenient pressumption to make the narrative fit to your needs. Come on..

How would you listen for transparency? What does it sound like? Have you heard it before? Do you know what relative distortion sounds like in a speaker over any given frequency range? at a particular sound intensity? What would you use to listen for it? Do you know the pedigree of that recording and the signal / processing chain to know the level of transparency from the time the sound was created till it comes off the recording medium?

I'm shooting sparrows with cannons in my systems approach in several areas, and don't have to proof nor explain anything to you with regard to my discerning abilities. The questions you're asking however tells me you may be working from a physically limited framework where it least some of the mentioned parameters will be all the more challenging and press upon themselves to be addressed - more "creatively," even. 

Again, you haven't yet addressed my plead: give me/us something to go by with a range of speakers that meet your criteria in being fairly faithful to the signal presented to them in a given acoustic environment - then we'll see what you're up to and what it really amounts to. It should be clear to most that you're knowledgeable, but so far it mostly comes down as show-off and telling people what they're missing out on. I surely mind being a bitch to that attitude of yours. 

When you understand the intricacies of driving a traditional dynamic driver or AMT in the most linear possible fashion, at all signal levels, with complex waveforms, perhaps your attitude will be warranted.

No, you need to show something by example here. 

.. and probably most people's concept of amplifier/driver is a simple linear voltage based amplifier perhaps with some frequency response modification. Without writing a book, that is a traditional view that is not the future of active speakers. Even active subwoofer drivers with velocity/position feedback already break that mold.

That's a preposterous claim before even realizing what's here. The future of active configuration is first making it more known and widespread in its varieties to the users in domestic sound reproduction. There are bundled solutions. Outboard. Pre-assembled. DIY. Small and large iterations to pursue - the latter if one truly chooses. You want to jump the fence from passive to your way of "shine a light" active as the only thing that really does it - in what form or shape? Details, please. There's a lot in between or even beyond. I've chosen DIY outboard-active from a relatively unrestricted package physically. It goes to show the importance of physics with subs in particular; below the Schroeder frequency it's about capacity, proper design/construction and implementation mainly. The larger the cumulative cone area the less cone movement is needed for a given SPL, and in effect less inertia build-up, more headroom, lower distortion, ease of reproduction and all that jazz. Not to mention attention to room-loading with DBA's, column sub solutions and/or more extensive room correction digitally. Servo drive needn't apply here, not that the effort isn't well-intended. And so on.. 

@thespeakerdude 

you can change this

There is no value to me in pushing a rope.

To this:

There is no value to me .... unless you publish your creds

@kota1 :

unless you publish your creds

There is no such thing. He is NOT a speaker designer. He is Cin Dyment. Famous in all audio forums. A sick dude with nothing to do, and a Google Machine. That’s all. If you did not get the memo, he had been here at least 19 times before with various usernames. All banned. Here is the list:

 

thespeakerdude

 

cindyment2

 

oddioboy

 

crymeanaudioriver

 

theaudiomaniac

 

theaudioamp

 

deludedaudiophile

 

thynamesinnervoice

 

cindyment

 

snratio

 

yesiamjohn

 

sugabooger

 

dletch2

 

audio2design

 

dannad

 

roberttdid

 

roberttcan

 

heaudio123

 

audiozenology

 

atdavid

 

@thyname 

He created so many secret identities to pretend a fantasy, in real life he probably drives pretend cars in a pretend house with pretend neighbors. There is clearly something wrong

Will all other posters in this thread who have MORE than 11 active speakers (including subs) in their PERSONAL HT (professional studios not included) please raise their hand?

Unless we have another member I win the "active speaker" playoffs for most active speakers in a HT. I think that gives me some creds when it comes to this thread.

When do I get my trophy? Thank you very much.

 

 

When it comes to the "most creative" active speaker category I nominate @phusis

When it comes to "most knowledgeable" active speaker category I nominate @lonemountain

When it comes to "best integration of active and passive speakers" I nominate the OP @donavabdear who also gets special mention for starting this thread.

When it comes to the "best swing and a miss" active speaker category I nominate the members who have not yet tried active speakers because they were confused (but hopefully they will be on the nomination list for next years awards.)

@Kota1

LOL I actually been to the Oscars twice for Titanic (we won) and Pearl Harbor (we didn't win, but we should of) the first time was the best my wife and I walked up on the red carpet and since Sinney Poitier (who was getting a lifetime achievement award that night) was in front of us and Will Smith was behind us so all the photographers took pictures that included my wife and I. I was not the department head of the sound crew, I was 2nd, so I didn't get to go up on stage, oh well, I didn't get a statue I got a certificate, oh well. We got to see Paul McCartney, and Sting sing it was a special night because all the previous Oscar winners were invited because it was the 75th Oscars and I was sitting on the isle so I saw everyone who was anyone in Hollywood history, a great night. 

Also the Emmys are nothing like the Oscars, it's fun to go but not nearly as fun.

 

 

 

 

donavabdear

What a great experience! Wow.

Brad

@donavabdear 

Wow! I was posting tongue in cheek and little did I know it was so close to home. 

Not just any Oscars either, 75th was historic and Titanic is legendary. What did you think of Celine?

 

@kota1 I got a few things wrong in my old age it was the 70th Oscars, and Paul McCartney and Sting sang at the 2002 Oscars for Pearl Harbor. That was also a great night because it was at the brand new Dolby Theater, we had to go through a lot of security because of 911 happening earlier. Celine Dion was perfect as usual the sound at the show was really good but it had to be quiet because of the broadcast of course.

Halle Berry presented the sound award and Black Hawk Down won with caned helicopters and looped dialog but whatever, seems like I would get over it. Halle Berry is very nice I was lucky enough to work with her on a TV series called Extant. Here is an funny story, the Director of Photography on CSI Miami would always yell out to one of his guys get me a "Halle Berry", when we finally figured out what that was it was a cup of coffee that had as much cream to have the same complexion as Halle Berry. Well there I was years later at craft service getting a cup of coffee with Halle Berry talking about Disneyland I think, I was pouring some cream in my coffee and looked up at her down at my coffee and back up at her beautiful face and just laughed to myself thinking how did this actually happen.

 

@donavabdear 

So the guy keeps saying, "Get me a Halle Berry" and the next think you know, you GOT Halle Berry on a show and over coffee.

Lesson learned! Ask for the order and see what happens. Next step:

Get me a _____________!, then put it on a loop and repeat.

She is a wonderful woman and I would never want to say anything bad or embarrassing about her. It was just an ironic moment and something I think of often when I put cream in coffee.

Just yesterday I said ok to remix a movie in my studio here in Idaho. I said no at first but thought ok I may as well jump in. I could write a book about production sound on set but I'm no expert in post mixing, I have about 5 months to learn all I can. An old friend hired me and I really don't want to let him down. I guess all I'm saying is I better get my system up and running first class, and I've got a lot of learning to do. The mix will be in ATMOS 5.1

 

Having a deadline will help you take it up a notch. If you want to swing by The Dub Stage in Burbank I'm happy to make an introduction to Marti, he was really helpful with advice for setting up my room:

https://www.thedubstage.com

 

@kota1 Thank you that is really kind.

I think I need to do something really good that may mean doing the job in an unorthodox way who wants normal anyway. I do think my system needs to be as standard as possible I just want to do something special by the way I use the system, hopefully. I think I'll have to hang speakers in my room it will look awful, oh well.

After having 4 pairs (total of 8) of expensive speakers all go tits up with their plate amps I’ll pass.

Add on top of that, nobody wants to even try an attempt at a repair on these amps.

I now have a lot of expensive door stops and anchors!

Maybe I can make some kind of yard decorations outta these abominations....🤮

That must be some kind of record @joysjane.

@joysjane 

What speaker (4 pairs) were you using? Are they for sale?

Infinity Prelude MTS.

"That must be some kind of record @joysjane"

Yea, really sucks!

They were some seriously great sounding speakers before the BASH plate amps went kaput...

How could a Harmon company abandon these and not support them?  Are these very old?   From my little corner, I’ve never seen an ATC amp failure we could not repair. 

@donavabdear 

You may want to check out this workshop on mixing in atmos coming up with Sweetwater's Shawn Dealey:

 

Example, if you have two Levinson mono blocks driven by a Levenson preamp. Will powered speakers sound like Levenson? Or the plate amp inside the speaker? Why not runa cheapo $3,000 setup through a great set of powered speakers if that is the case? Why spend $20,000 on mono blocks if you won't hear their aplomb or character?

 

 

 

 

 

 

It's amusing that posers think no one can tell they're posers.

@pcrhkr

When you buy Levinson separates you are able to mix and match passive speakers until you find the match you prefer. When you buy a powered speaker with a plate amp you have the ability to mix and match preamps. Whichever you prefer is up to you. I have passive and active versions of the Paradigm Reference 20 speaker and I could never get the same bass extension with the passive speaker, regardless the amp. If I already had $20,000 monoblocks maybe they would sound better matched with the passive Paradigms in the soundstage or the mids. At the end of the day it would be "different" and is a matter of preference and budget.

 

@kota1 Thank you I’ll look into it.

@secretguy Look at it this way if you buy very expensive speakers and very expensive amps how do you know they work together with the best efficiency, impedance matching, power efficiency per driver, particular driver power matching, driver frequency matching, just to name a few things. The answer is amps and speakers don’t work together most efficiently if they are not designed to work together. If you don’t like speakers with amps built in then get speakers that are designed to be run with outboard amps and crossovers. How could this not make sense. Audiophiles are very confused.