@kota1 You brought up the TV show "Lost" I turned down that show and 3 of my friends worked on it and got fired, it was run by producers that didn't understand why they couldn't shoot next to a freeway in Hawaii and not hear it on the tracks. They literally went through 7 sound mixers on that show. The producers thought you could push some buttons and turn some knobs that would take out anything unwanted on the recording, why besides being typical idiots they saw things on shows like mine on CSI Miami that was alway using sound in impossible ways. Sound is invisible and sexy and practically no one understands it that's why there is so much mythology around it even on this forum.
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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.
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@kota1 I agree with @thespeakerdude in general passive speakers that have amplifiers matched to them is definitely level 2 audio, I imagine the only reason you would make a speaker that way is to really cater to very high end people, the manufacture would be limiting its self by designing the idea that this amp only goes with this speaker, you and I know that is ridiculous but it seems most audiophiles don't think in terms of physics but fun and status. Best practices in speaker building are not interesting to audiophiles, try to name another industry that you can spend $100s of thousands of dollars on pieces that weren't made to fit together. Sorry but the host of this video didn't really have a clue there were many clues one was he said the JL Audio CR-1 was a JL sub amp and they had turned them off well there weren't any JL subs there and the CR-1 is an analog crossover, it's actually a very cool piece of gear you may be interested in, look it up it is a crossover between the stereo subs and the home theater subs, and LFE channels, it's a one of a kind unit and I'm surprised you don't own one. Also he mentioned the speakers were made for the Mac amp he used that phrase not in a precise manner, it's a hugely powerful amp and the speakers needed a hugely powerful amp like that one to work them. Im sure that in no way is that amp and the drivers in that speaker designed for each other in any way except for broad functions like total power and probably being about to go down to 2 ohms without going belly up. |
Do you see the connection between the headphones and the headphone amp being made by the same company and speakers being powered by amps that have been made for them? Yes, I own the Sony Signature line up headphone amp. IDK if they would work for doing mixes,, but I love what they do for casual/critical listening. The Signature amp is surprising me on so many levels, the headphone amp sounds great with both my balanced and unbalanced headphones, the DAC and the DSD remastering engine is like sonic alchemy, turning any type of track (lead) into DSD (gold). The Sony Signature Lineup amp/headphones/source/active speakers are purpose built and YES, that is the way to go. https://www.sonypremiumhome.com/signature-series/ 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. Wrong again @thespeakerdude , the steaming BS is your shallow knowledge around speakers and amps. When a company makes both amps and speakers you DON’T think they are made to match?? What a load of "steaming BS". Try checking out this Canadian company called Bryston: or this America company called McInosh:
or this British company called Meridian: |
@thespeakerdude It doesn’t seem like a very hard problem to create a spreadsheet about speaker drivers, amplifiers, crossovers, cables, etc. and come out with a compatibility number. I understand the changing variables and functions of curves associated with speakers but it’s not that hard. Take a very well respected speaker like Sonus Faber how can I buy an amp for it without gambling, sure I maybe able to listen to a Sonus Faber but very unlikely I’ll be able to test it with the amp I want and then how would I ever know if that amp is pushing the speaker to its ultimate potential. I think the emperor has no clothes in the entire audiophile world, very frustrating. |
@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? |
@kota1 When I bought the Focal Stella’s and the Naim amp I was thinking that they made these units for each other the Naim Adam HP edition has many upgrades above the normal Adam Unity amp the Stella headphones were upgraded around the same time seemed to me like these should have been made synergistically Focal and Naim / Anthem and Paradigm etc. I’m not sure I can use my Naim for it’s streamer somewhere else and buy a tube headphone amp and save my headphones, they are to analytical. Do you see the connection between the headphones and the headphone amp being made by the same company and speakers being powered by amps that have been made for them? |
I was wrong about my purchase +1- As you make bad purchases inevitably ask your self if you were starting over would you still buy that same component. If the answer is no you should sell it immediately, no sense being miserable. The opposite happens too, you have something you like and sell it for an "upgrade" and then miss what you sold so bad you have "sellers remorse". --it happens ☹ |
@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. |
I was exploring mythology in audio, You were geeking out, we all do it, NP. I had a unique position that I had just weeks previously been in recording sessions with the vocalist in maybe the best recording studio in the world You should call them and see if you can move in and use their system, problem solved. the most famous recording engineer in the world If you tell me he has tube amps then I get why you were geeking out I spoke to the guy who personally sold more Focal speakers than anyone in the world Ahhh I see the first misstep, you didn’t meet just a salesman, you met a real killer and he saw your wallet comng from a mile away. I hope you didn’t tell him you came from that studio, all he heard from that point on was a cash register. I was wrong about my purchase because I fell into the trap of believing the mythology. You didn’t fall in, you jumped in like everyone does with few exceptions. I still think you should hit the bid with your passives and get that same salesman to show you the active setup I posted and I bet he wont. The two towers you auditioned ar $25K. The setup I posted is $25K all in for everything. If you were in sales what would you be pitching? Duh!
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@kota1 Also the reason I told the Focal story was that I was exploring mythology in audio, I had a unique position that I had just weeks previously been in recording sessions with the vocalist in maybe the best recording studio in the world with definitely the most famous recording engineer in the world with someone that had a voice that I knew every aspect of, that is a unique position that has only happened to me once in my career. I went to a stereo store that sold more Focal speakers than anyone in the world I spoke to the guy who personally sold more Focal speakers than anyone in the world and I told him those Focal speakers had to much sharp high end, I don't think I could have said that with so much practical experience at any other time about anything else I knew the recording was not what I was hearing at the studio. Why do Focal speakers and headphones have such a good reputation, I spent $8k on focal headphones and a Naim Unity Atom HP amp (Focal company). I was wrong about my purchase because I fell into the trap of believing the mythology. Mythology is a lot of what this thread is about. |
first was to get an idea of how audiophiles were embedded in silly mythology You are the arbiter of silliness?? Its been tried before by the engineering crowd, LOL. I thought it was a given that everyone knew that amplifiers and speakers should be made for each other Most members here agree, why is that silly? the second idea was that since of course powered speakers are superior to randomly partnered speakers and amps That is where you seem to be adopting the silly ways you protest about. I am not the arbiter of how people choose what they buy, I just see buying speakers with subwoofers in them and then buying... more subwoofers as wasteful. Welcome to the silly audiophile world, call it addictive, crazy, nonsensical. I am not sub shaming you. However if you would have stayed in your lane (powered speakers=not silly) it would have been better (no buzzing subs, no tube frying amps, no problema ) I like the recommendation of cashing in your chips, chalking it up a weak moment of "silliness" as you entered this insane hobby and getting back to your OP.
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@kota1 I started this thread with 2 ideas, the first was to get an idea of how audiophiles were embedded in silly mythology, I thought it was a given that everyone knew that amplifiers and speakers should be made for each other, and the second idea was that since of course powered speakers are superior to randomly partnered speakers and amps what about the vibration the amp is going through inside the speaker along with vibration systems that nearly every audiophile spends good money on. Just yesterday I saw an equipment rack that sold for $75k. These ideas are mutually exclusive and I wanted to see audiophiles try to justify what was clearly unjustifiable. I don’t see the problem with other points being brought up with such a general idea in the opening post. If the first post said "does anyone have experience with Steinway stereo systems" well then yes that’s pretty specific. Acoustics and speaker placement does include a lot of mythology in audio. I spent a lot of time in college studying math and physics and the things I remember decades later were stories by the professors that may have only had a slight reference to the subject of the day, I say fine. |
It seems passive speakers are what is confusing for @donavabdear , not active. Every problem he has listed in this thread is related to his passive setup. So, why start this thread?
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"I know the best new concert and studio speakers are internally powered" "the Focal sopra N°3 speakers I went to Upscale Audio in So. Cal. and listened with some tube amps" Why did you start this thread?
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Focal sopra N°3 speakers I went to Upscale Audio in So. Cal. and listened with some tube amps That combo is something I would NOT buy for myself, for others YMMV. ACTIVE, look at the system I posted, maybe at a local Guitar Center they have a pair?? |
I include the Lorraine Campet link as a fan. I've done a great deal of work in studios as a musician. Post production often takes such a toll on the original tacks that I lost interest in that side of the product long ago. Despite my proclivity, if your method satisfies the customer thats all that matters.
Without having heard any powered speakers in my own system I don't trust my audible memory to make any worthwhile conclusions. On the other hand I have had a number of Paradigm speakers in my system. After a number of dealer suggested electronics substitutions my firm conclusion is for whatever reason their products, from the Studio and S series to the 9F, clearly have a coherence trait that is contrary to my subjective taste. Within minutes of replacing the Paradigms, like a switch, not only did all the electronics substitutions work very well with the replacement speakers. My entire family noted, we went from listening to the system to listening to the music. While the 9F's were a clear improvement they're still... |
@thespeakerdude 3 years ago I almost bought the Focal sopra N°3 speakers I went to Upscale Audio in So. Cal. and listened with some tube amps, Katherine McPhee's Jazz CD had just came out recorded and mixed by Al Schmitt so I knew exactly how her voice should've sounded (I worked with her for 4 years on Scorpion TV show) so I used those tracks as my reference. The speakers sounded very harsh and edgy way to much cutting high end, at that point I went to another stereo store in LA "Shellys" and listened to the Paradigm speakers that also used beryllium for their drivers, The Paradigm speakers were much warmer without the harsh cutting high end. As you said the harsh high end may be from distortion but then why does Focal have such a great reputation? The Genelec "The Ones" speakers I have are a revelation they are getting better and better the more I fuss with them, I've had a few cars in which the longer I had them the better they got this is also a wonderful attribute to have when it comes to speakers. The Genelecs for now are clearly way ahead of the Focals. |
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. What part of your OP don't you understand? You spent $$$ on passive chasing IDK what and you are chasing your tail in this thread about problems. @m-db nailed it, time to move on. I proposed TWO active systems in this thread, the Meridian and the Focal (with your beryllium tweeters). You should have just followed your own advice 😫
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@donavabdear , not sure I posted this:
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@m-db Thank you for the link, I've mixed hundreds of orchestras and I always bump up the cello and bass, when I did that to me it always made everything else sound better just like a sub makes vocals better in a stereo system. In an orchestra the beautiful instruments are not the 1st violins but the low instruments. When mixing group vocals the big mistake is to over feature that star lead singer and not do most of the mixing of the lower range vocalists. |
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. |
Focal both pioneered and perfected the beryllium tweeter design. Incredibly light and rigid, beryllium is said to offer a faster, more linear transient response than titanium or aluminum designs. Its only real downside is that it’s poisonous if ingested, so no licking the tweeters… and no, you’re not supposed to touch them, either! The Trio6 Be is a triamplified active design. There’s a 200 W Class G amp for the 8” driver, a 150 W Class G amp for the 5” driver, and a 100W Class AB amp on the tweeter. The Trio6 Be has a range of 35 Hz to 40 kHz with a 115 dB SPL. You couldn’t do this type of amplification in a passive speaker for this much money. It would be crazy triamping with 450 watts per speaker and an outboard crossover. https://recordingmag.com/resources/featured-reviews/focal-trio6-be/ |
Paradigm? It’s not the electronics, simply move on. +1- he knew he should have used active speakers from the get go and got side tracked. Hit the bid on the passive speakers that didn't get the bass right, the buzzing subs, the amps that burn tubes so fast you can cook bacon on them, the speaker wire and make bank. Now you got funds for the ACTIVE Focals and the room treatments (wife approved variety of course). Keep the Genelecs. |
Why would @donavabdear downgrade from the Genelecs to the Focals? |
Interesting, I like the very brief scene where surf is breaking on the beach nearby. Paradigm? It's not the electronics, simply move on.
avatar: https://www.stringvirtuoso.com/artists/lorraine-campet/ |
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. |
thespeakerdude wrote: @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. Thanks for comment. Do you have the link to this measure? Having lived with my MA-1 amps for ten years trying different speakers I do know the importance if amp/speaker matching. My point is only that even with non-optimal matching, the small speakers I tried sounded better from the MA-1. This is a free test everyone can do, if they have a good amp. Before you pay for a pair of active speakers, check out how the passive speaker sounds driven from this amp, compared to the amp in the active speaker. You may be surprised. |
If you like traditional, the brochure for the bamboo diffusors I use are posted in my virtual system, but these look much nicer IMO. I got Geofusors (PERFECT for immersive audio) backfilled with polyfill so they double as bass traps on the ceiling and they work mounted on the walls too: The GeoFusor imparts a more neutral spectral balance to the room while revealing a more three dimensional soundstage (width and depth). Also evident is improved separation and placement of sounds in the image of a recording from left to right and front to back. |
I get the impression the OP is here for entertainment, he is baiting both of us and clearly has not taken much in the way of advice. You saw the pic I posted of the Titanic right? That is where this thread is going, good luck with bailing it out. Do you think someone who is going to have a movie mixed will use a guy, any guy, who built his studio on the advice of a chat room? No way, you build a studio with someone who has creds and then you market it (this world class studio was designed by ______.) The OP married a $15K amp with $35K speakers and didn’t like it. In the same thread that he proposed ACTIVE speakers for many good reasons he didn't use them and now he’s stuck. Tubes burning out, bass no good, and getting advice on how to spend $200K from this thread?? Might as well use Etsy, did you SEE the stuff? A lot of it is art impersonating as diffusors I know, but it pops. At least his wife will love it😍
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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
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Couldn't agree more, I think room acoustics is like the story of a movie if you have a good one even a bad movie or poor stereo equipment won't sound bad but it you have a bad room even or a bad story no amount of fabulous special effects or great equipment will make much of a difference. My wife has a big laser I'm going to design some hopefully good looking absorption frames for my back wall, put some diffusion on my ceiling and I'm going to put a remote on my refrigerator it's so noisy. I want to really try to make my absorption and diffusion look a little better than what you usually see, let me know if something comes to you. Thanks |
My BHK 300 mono blocks are hybrid amps tube on the input and MOFSET on the output they are pretty good (about $15k) or so, likewise my 9hs are hybrid the mid and high frequency are passive and the bass has 4x 8inch drivers that are powered by an amp with peak power of 2700W. This is the audiophile trap you speak about in the OP. The $$$ is fine, I am sure its a fine value for what it is. If you can drop $15K on an amp $2500 shouldn’t be a roadblock, I think it will be a better match for the Paradigms. Remember I own Paradigms that are powered internally by Anthem amps (active) and have already bi-amped the passive Studio Reference Paradigm’s I own with a Carver amp that was a precursor to this one. The Sunfire amps have headroom that won’t quit, dynamics and a soundstage that open a Paradigm speaker up like I have never experienced, and are exemplative of finesse, in my system. I hope you get the opportunity to compare. |
@kota1 My BHK 300 mono blocks are hybrid amps tube on the input and MOFSET on the output they are pretty good (about $15k) or so, likewise my 9hs are hybrid the mid and high frequency are passive and the bass has 4x 8inch drivers that are powered by an amp with peak power of 2700W. These speakers should have lots of bass on their own, I think my particular speakers are simply turned down to much because when I push the sweep generator built into the speaker it gets VERY low 19hz they say and it feels like it but with normal music the low end is very poor. I can’t power the low end of these speakers it is all internal. These speakers were reviewed very well by everyone they should be better. I’m going to tear into them myself now that the warrantee is over. The sunfire amp I don’t think is an upgrade to my BHK 300s, I could be wrong though, and Bob Carver made some really awful PA speakers/amps 35 years ago. |
@kota1 Oops, I didn't look at it much because you mentioned Titanic.
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@kota1 you posted a picture of Titanic going down, I was there for 6 months in Mexico filming that monster. There was only one side of the ship made so every once in a while we would have a flipped day, that meant everything was switched like looking in a mirror, we did that when we needed to do a scene with odd numbered lifeboats. The men's hair was parted on the opposite side as well as all their clothes being buttoned on the opposite side, they shook hands using their left instead of their right and all the writing was backwards. The tricks in movies show how much psychology and science are used together to achieve an outcome, just like sound, except sound is more psychological because it's invisible. |
@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. |
