Do active speakers interest you? Also, let's talk directivity


Hey all. Don't think I've ever made a thread here. This is a super interesting community for me. I'm an audio professional, a mastering engineer and music educator. I'm someone who differs from much of the pro community, in that I don't see a difference between "pro" systems and "high-end" systems. 

There is one way they often differ, and that is in terms of directivity. Home systems are more frequently omni, while and studio or live sound requires directivity.

This was definitely the case in the 70s, back when audiophiles still had parties :D 

It's very hard to set up a directional system to fill a large room evenly unless you use a line array.

But let's be honest. Aren't we mostly sitting and listening, and hoping for a good image? We aren't expecting every spot in a big room to sound exactly the same for every guest. Personally, my social life is 95% virtual now and I am generally listening in my mastering room. I have a high end system in every room in my house, but my wife uses the living room system more than me (and she has better taste in music, so it's nice to learn about some new artists when she decides to put something on from he collection).

Anyway, I'm designing an active system. Though the cabinet is not large, with a combination of Hoge's principles and active electronics, we will achieve accurate response through to 20hz.

The reason to choose an active crossover is very obvious. Sending power directly to each driver allows us to use a very low sensitivity woofer, which thus plays much deeper than expected. We are using a ported woofer and a sealed midrange/hi cabinet, which are not sold separately. An interesting feature is the the very low-crossed ribbon tweeter carrying all of the high midrange and treble

It's an 1800w system, aimed at both the professional and home market. I'm curious, does this sound interesting to anyone? We are intending to have a prototype ready by 2022, so it is a ways off.

Part of the directivity concept is also dealing with room issues. Cancelling the rear energy of the woofers can help. I am inspired by Bruno and Merjin (whatever  his name :P). a big part of our concept has to do with advanced acoustic materials, which I don't want to discuss too much, as I don't think anyone else has thought of it or connected with that maker, yet

Curious to hear people's thoughts!
128x128mehtayoungs
11-09-2020 4:50am
Have you ever seen an old school audiophile tapping his (her) feet?
I believe they prefer the warm box colored sound because it makes a good sleep..

(The warmth etc. should be in the recording, not the speaker.)
Yes I have gosta. Tapping feet & bobbing head...it's not cute but I try not to judge it. ;-)

The warm box colored sound? A lot of audiophiles (they won't be on this thread) will call it musical or use words like natural or analog and talk about how Harbeth or DeVore brings them closer to the music....

In reality these passive systems take them farther away from the recording studio sound...by adding ambience, warmth, reverb, harmonics, etc. 

I have a nice pair of curved aluminum billet studio monitors...active & DSP. They reproduce the sound of the recording very well. They are quite analytical and unforgiving. Bass quality, imaging, and instrument separation will destroy any passive design near it's price...

But I still don't listen to them much because they are not enjoyable. I prefer my lightly damped, thin walled, first order crossover monitors much more. 

(The warmth etc. should be in the recording, not the speaker.)

Should be? That's a personal preference. Some audiophiles want as close to the recording as possible. Many others want sound that is better than the original recording (to their ears).

 If you look at who is using euphonic warm reverb boxes and who uses studio monitors or Kii Three type speakers...you can see which camp folks are in. 
     
Your approach has my attention.

Here is an audiophile who finds fewer components of interest.

Since each component requires connectors and a power cord, and they are important, to my ears, a small number of component means you can invest more in each piece and in all important room treatment. A system that sounds attractive is power supply -> streamer/dac-> active speakers.  Active Speakers might have their own power supply separate from streamer/dac since the power needs of the speakers will be very different from source.
Like your hesitation about implementing DSP for speakers given current SOTA or lack thereof.
Peace.
bosssound, there is a lot more complexity inside the speaker you can get rid of, the crossover. With my system there is no additional complexity at at. All the heavy lifting is done by the preamp which is connected to amps and speakers as usual. There are no additional components and better yet there is no streaming. The drop outs you get streaming are intolerable. I only use it for back ground music not serious listening on my Sonos network. 
 
If you have a great system that images correctly you can go accurate with Hi Res digital or you can go romantic with vinyl. They both sound great.
The market for actives are non audiophiles and disgruntled audiophiles. With stereo less of a hobby and HT the market now what will sell is what will integrate with the tv room and be invisible with a remote to turn the voices up!