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

I use a miniDSP for sub integration with my mains, with DSP only controlling my sub for 2 channel. 
I use full DSP for my 7.2.2 home theater system. 

My view is adding equipment in the music stream degrades the sound and it would just be something I would mess with all the time detracting from the music.

@mswale

Vintage analog gear? or vintage albums? DSP & ADC conversion of some vintage album that can be tied to master tape is perhaps not the greatest idea.

But, for any new artist or newer album for a older artist, the final product/master from the studio is usually a 24 bit hires digital master (1980s onwards). I just don’t see the point of putting that on some analog medium for medium loyalty purposes.

The official hires master can be purchased for 10 bucks or so these days from qobuz, if you have a qobuz sublime subscription. But, i would spend 60 to 200 bucks a pop, botch it and throw it on vinyl due to medium loyalty? doesn’t make any sense, not to mention the price disparity.

On the same note, even some of the best sounding vinyl (Mofi’s stuff, for example) of vintage 60s 70s albums went through ADC before it got to you anymore. 

Anyways, I run it through a DAC...If i want the sound of master tape, Mark Levinson’s master class software gets you that sound with any hires, red book cd quality or even some mp3. There are so many albums where you can’t find tape even if you had a reel to reel deck. Mark Levinson’s stuff takes care of that.

These are things that didn’t exist 20 years ago, i.e. you couldn’t easily just get your hands on a official hires studio master or there was no master class software from Levinson or whatever...times have changed.

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

@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.