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What are your opinions of DSP's for speakers

This seems to be a popular trend with many speaker brands. Some have internal amplification with DSP's and some have external implementations of it like Legacy. I have heard some good results with it being used but don't necessarily like the idea of everything being digitized for the sake of room/bass correction. Do you own or plan on buying a speaker like this, or have you heard any using it? 

willywonka

Showing 3 responses by mswale

mswale
204 posts
 

Have yet to hear DSP work well for 2ch. It usually make the soundstage smaller, and makes everything sound compressed. I'm sure it's smoother, cleaner, optimized, but it takes all the emotion out of it, feeling sterile. 

Yes, DSP for my 9.4.2, (13 speakers @ 150wpc) absolutely! It's almost impossible to time align all them speakers to a listening spot. Soundstage isn't affected with 4 speakers providing it. But music (unless encoded for atmos) sounds lifeless, and dull, but movies are incredible. 

 

mswale
204 posts
 

@mapman where do you live? Always down to hear someone else system.

 

@deep_333 Never stated any facts, just my opinion. My 2ch is all vintage analog. 

I'm sure in the near future, we will have little black boxes that work their magic to get the perfect sound in any room. Not sure we are there yet. Even my TOTL HT receiver DSP is on the "basic" side of things. Still need a few room treatments to get it "perfect" 

mswale
204 posts
 

@deep_333 

Good questions, vintage audio system. Everything is analog, sans my streamer.

Don't want to get into the analog/digital of vinyl. If it sounds good, don't care how it was mastered. Have some old original pressings that sound awesome, and some that sound like poop. Same for new stuff, having a revealing system is both a blessing and a curse. 

My point was, that DSP is great for what it is, but in the 2ch it removes some of the sparkle to get that flat response curve. Was out auditioning some speakers. Was enjoying these $15k speakers feed from a hybrid tube/SS amp. Sounded sublime. Then he turned on the DSP. It just sucked the life out of the speakers. The sound stage collapsed, things were thin, lifeless.  It was smoother, the salesman told me to listen for a bit before forming an opinion. Listened to a couple songs with DSP, then the same without DSP. To me, DSP off sounded much better. 

This setup was over $50k, far superior to my system. IMHO, DSP right now is best for HT and 2ch subs, it's not ready for full range if the system is setup properly in the first place. 

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