Vandersteens on active speakers and room correction

Pro Tip for those running the automated tools - do a run at normal listening hours and again at 2am... compare !

its all about s to n in the room

Actually Eric it’s amazing how reruns with the computer generate different results....

at the end of the day, no computer is going to fix a cone that is out of phase to the input signal 1/3 of the time over large % of the radiator- again it cracks me up that people obsess about distortion or hyper flat frequency response and think 33% is a good number....

the ugly elephant is pistonic eliminates trash which today counts as efficiency !!!!

I think IF your everyday  Listening tool is a pair of Vandy 7 speakers and amps in a great room with a preamp of your own design with a Brinkmann / Triplaner / Lyra Atlas front end, iF you could get an active digital box to sound better, I would expect Richard to be all over it. There are designers who do choose to go the active route. Certainly the Roger Modjeski designed Beveridge filter is IMO one of the best sounding.
Fundamentally, Vandersteen is an analog company, I am a black sheep with my digital front end 7 system.Funny how both my Aesthetix DAC and ARC preamps have defeats for the chip driven displays - both sound better OFF. I suspect that because the Jim White designed DAC puts all the digital stuff inside a Faradcage, the defeat effect is smaller. So it would have been the easy route to use a chip to manage cooling on the model 7 amp... a designer who lives by principles :-)
fun
good music

I don't know who Johnny Rutan is, but I assume he's experienced at doing this sort of thing, and that kind of proves my point, that the biggest benefit of ARC systems isn't the EQ so much as the sub configuration. It's not easy. I wrote about those difficulties here:


https://speakermakersjourney.blogspot.com/2020/04/how-to-not-buy-subwoofer.html


I personally have avoided EQ anywhere but in the subwoofer until recently. I don't use ARC with Roon, just some tailored PEQ settings I wrote about here:


https://speakermakersjourney.blogspot.com/2020/01/the-snr-1-room-response-and-roon.html


Tune your system for your own preferences, but having massive peaks and nulls in the bass is to me far worse than any sound quality issues I've noticed with Roon, which so far I haven't.  Of course, sub placement, room treatments all matter, as does the basic phase, delay, level settings.

As for the rest of ARC, I am with Floyd Toole in the sense that I like my speaker sound, I don't want an ARC system to attempt to deliver a perfect presentation and I think some systems work much better than others. Consumers too often believe that because it's computers and math the results must all be the same, which is far from true.  Humans pick the algorithms and targets and parameters of importance, they just automated quite personal tastes.  Whether they match yours is another story.


Best,

E

erik, you can't argue with the ease, but my personal thoughts have never been positive and I think I've heard some of the more popular implementation's in the US market.  Again, it's all about ease vs performance.  

It took us about 2 hours for Johnny Rutan to tune the bass on my Quatro's.  It was straightforward, but you needed two people to do it properly unless you use a stand to hold your meter.  Easy?  Not nearly as so as hitting a button and moving a microphone around the room, but you don't hear it.  I have yet to hear a digital correction that didn't degrade the sound a bit.  Roon degrades the sound too, but it's a breeze to use and fun.  I don't use it as I guess I still care about sound quality most.  

When I want ease of use and fun, I turn to my custom in ear monitors and DAP.  I can play all day long and have a blast as I don't care as much.  JMHO and not for everyone.  Fully understand the 'ease' of use market and I'm sure I'll be there some day also.

I have to say that when it comes to convenience, automatic room correction is super hard to beat, especially in configuring a subwoofer.

Regarding Mr. Vandersteen's views on "digital filter networks" (for active configuration) compared to discretely equipped passive filters in the higher-end realm - views which, fundamentally, I don't agree with - I find below linked video a more even-handed take on the pros and cons of active (also digitally filtered) vs. passive overall:

https://youtu.be/7Z_UPvXr4pA

Where room correction goes I'm more divided. DRC Designer made some improvements in my previous (passive) main speaker set-up, but not without some artifacts in the shape of mild ringing/ghosting. 

I have my unpacking, setup, breakin and long term listening notes from 1k hours of use... maybe this thread will get me to clean those up :-)

IF you go to my Poverty Bay Sound system page, there is a sneak peak underbthe hood of the Model 7 High Pass Amplifier...

Actually it makes perfect sense and is as Richard says “ an unfair advantage “ for a speaker designer to build an optimized amp for the load AND back EMF. The architecture and hyper innovation is Richards, the detail design is the partnership in genius he has with Dick Klidnfelter of PSE fame.

high pass , the power factor corrected feed forward sub amp takes load off.
just five parts in signal path
no emitter resistors
liquid radiator cooling for stable temp and no thermal bias drift
tube front end, SS driving load
no global feedback
analogbtemp control circuit no microprocessor hash...
built in hanging truss HRS isolation
silver Audioquest speaker wire with 128 v DBS included... 

The M5 amps I heard sounded really really good. I was quite shocked a speaker maker could also make a great amp.  Wish they sounded that good for $2k instead though. :)

The great thing about an active speaker or even semi active is they are a perfect match.  That can't be overstated when done properly.  I'm getting the new Vandersteen M5 amps to mate with my Quatro's to make mine a true active speaker if you would.  I've heard them a few times and fell in love.  They sound better than the 30k Audio Research mono's to my ears.  

I always have asked designers which amps and sources they used to voice their products. I also ask for the internal wire adn cables they use.

"Above 150Hz", he said there is nothing that can be
compared with using high quality capacitors and air coil inductors.  

That sounds credible to me and I have no interest in active speakers other than I *am* curious to hear the Dutch & Dutch.

I owned TReo's and now own Quatro's. I needed the bass EQ in my room.  It's a loft with a 48" high back wall to an open 20' high LR ceiling. Bass is really difficult and the Quatro's nailed it.  I've had some very expensive high end speakers in the room over the years and nothing sounds as good or coherent in my space as the Steen line.  

I never liked them years ago and I think it's because the rake wasn't set up properly in the stores.  I used my ears and not my prejudice's when choosing my speakers as well as the associated electronics.  Heck, I never loved AQ wire/cords/cable years ago either and now I have yet to hear anything close to what Garth is coming to market with.  

Richard is one of ht most opinionated designers around, but for those of us who don't worry about the name on the product, it's easy to understand WHY he feels the way he does.  His choice of caps is as good as anyone in the business.  Same with inductors.  He never puts out MK 2,3 or more unless it's a HUGE change.  He constantly changes caps etc... when he finds better and his gear just keeps pushing it's envelope.  Most companies just decide to throw a new mk whatever on the product and force folks to sell and buy new if they want the 'latest and greatest' as most audiophiles do.  

My three most memorable hifi moments were the following but not necessarily in the following order

1. A pair of horn Avantgarde 
2. Thiels CS2.4
3. And Vandersteens 5A driven by some huge tube amps

Of the three, the 5A had the most unique presentation in which I swear I could see the air molecules moving :-)

I'm not a Vandersteen fanboy per se, but last time I was at a show near LA, the Vandersteen's were the best sound of the show.  In particular, they sounded really good inside a cramped hotel room, a feat few others could accomplish and I chalk this up to exactly this feature, being able to tailor the bass output.

Of course, they were driven by top notch electronics, but I swear it was practically the only room in which I could hear the electronics at all. Everything else was noise.

Best,

E