Digital Active Speaker Thread..... - Page 2  

How would you know that they are the closet to perfect execution if you haven't heard them? What is it specifically about what you have seen that leads you to this conclusion?

When did you become a DEQX dealer? You might want to contact DEQX and have them update their website to correct its dealer network because you're not listed as one. Or do you consider yourself a DEQX dealer because you carried the NHT Xd back when it was still being manufactured.

What products did you carry in your store?

digital processing is a tool. a tool that in the right hands can be tremendously powerful.

It all depends on whether you go with auto setups, or get a little more in depth, or better yet have a person that REALLY understands acoustics and sound. and have them combine placement, with treatments, and then wringing every last bit of performance out of the system by dialing things all the way in.

digital processing gives a level of control that was previously not even dreamed of. and of course this is both the best thing, and the worst thing that could happen.

Personally i think that fully digital speakers (all processing and amps "in" the speakers) where all you run is either a network cables or blanced line level to each speaker along with power, will not ever really take off. precisely for the reasons listed earlier in this thread. there are too many variables in speakers (sound, finish, price point, etc) to make this economically feasible. but driving those babies with first class didgital processing is indeed the way of the future. and more and more speaker companies will find it in their best interest to have a "custom" processor that does what they feel is the best to their speakers. (a la pro bose stuff from a while back. God help you if you did not have the processor for the 802's with you) so you could still buy wilson X2's (or whatever) and get the dave wilson stamp on the (now external) crossovers/processing.

Another upgrade to come OB!

My perspective is a bit like the old Miller Lite commercials where Billy Martin was asked if he preferred "less filling" or "more taste" and he tells them "both" ... but in that case he could get both (asserted anyway) with a single beer whereas in the audio world it takes multiple different beers.

I don't believe one technology is "preferable" or "superior" to another, at least at this point in the development cycle.

I've owned LOTS of the leading digital gear and have spent literally thousands of hours tweaking them in my rooms. I've used Meridians MRC, I've got an Audyssey Pro (balanced) box, I've had two channel and multichannel Tact gear, I've got a DEQX, and I've got several Behringer units. Most of these systems I used with several "bespoke" speakers that were purpose built for an active system (Salk MTMs, Selah Accuton/Fountek line arrays, Accuton MTs in sealed cabinets, etc.) I've even gone so far as to have bespoke amps built for some of these.

I've had three different measurement and acoustic "pro's", folks who regularly post on these boards, custom tweak those setups in my rooms.

I've owned quite a few fairly high end "traditional" speakers, including the biggest Dunlavy's, the Krell Lat1's, big Genesis ribbons (350SEs), and have listened to the big Revel, Soundlab, Talon, Maxx and Hanson units (all of which I genuinely enjoyed).

So, a few assertions not supported by any measurement.

(1) The best active crossovers and room correction software can sound very nice. But, it takes a LOT of work to make them work work superbly. You can get to the 80% or 90% level pretty easily, but that last 10% is very hard, takes a lot of time, and requires expertise akin to an advanced engineering degree. It's an order of magnitude easier to get a turntable dialed in than to get these active units dialed in, and it's not easy to get a turntable dialed in!

(2) None of the commercially available units sound truly terrific until they are heavily modded. Most need their analog stages significantly upgraded, and most don't have truly "state of the audiophile art" digital stages either. The end result is that they all, to me anyway, have artifacts that sound "hard" and "tizzy" and dare I say it "overly digital" unless you choose to spend money and void the warranties. The degree of improvement from modding these units is not subtle, akin to the step up from a Sonic Frontiers tube preamp to an Audio Research Reference preamp (a transition I've experienced.)

(3) Even before modding, and certainly after, the sonic improvement of a speaker where you replace the passive with the active is usually pretty amazing: more transparency, more detail, more information, just plain more. It's like the first time you hear a great digital stack with a truly great digital recording: what it does well it does really well and you never forget what's possible after hearing it for the first time.

(4) At the same time, there's generally something "subtractive" going on with all these digital units. You get those genuine improvements at a cost. The speakers tend to be less enjoyable over extended listening, they tend to become "too revealing", and they tend to require more "volume management". In many ways, this experience is the same as what I experience in switching between digital and analog source material. On my Basis/Graham/Koetsu system I hear amazing "liquidity" with no obvious lack of information or detail. But when I play the same recording on a dCS stack I hear things I don't hear on the analog gear. But over time I miss what I'm not getting on the analog gear and then listen to that. But then I miss the dCS stack. Sigh: crossovers are the same.

In my experience I have yet to find both "less filling" and "great taste" in a single approach. The best passive speakers sound amazing in ways that, in my experience, even the best active crossovers don't yet deliver. And, the best active crossovers deliver sonic experiences that the best passive systems don't.

The debate should not, at least in my opinion, be about which is superior to the other and why. Instead, the real question is "if you choose to experiment and play with the active approach, what's required to really get the most out of the experience?"

Sorry for being so long winded. It took me over a decade to switch entirely to digital sources from analog sources, and I still occasionally miss the best analog source experiences. I expect the same long transition to occur, at least for me, with crossover and room correction technology downstream from the source.

I would restate that in my thinking as I think networked speakers, wireless or cabled, SHOULD clearly be the future.

I too hear things with the DEQX I've never heard before, and genuinely enjoy it.

But, over time I miss the "liquidity" and "wholeness" of the best passive crossovers. (Similarly, over time I miss the DEQX with the best passive crossovers. My dilemma is solved via an architecture that keeps two chains in the room, with one set of sources and one set of speakers. Just as, for a decade, I kept both analog and digital sources.)

Almost all of the hardness can be eliminated with modding. The DEQX can become amazing when the innards are approached without regard for cost.

I've heard the Meridian 6000, 7000 and 8000 speakers on multiple occasions. Despite their technical architecture (which in IMO defines the state of the art for how digital should be done) hey don't float my boat.

I also cannot confirm that digital active speakers usually sound thin and harsh. I think it's not an issue of digital vs. analogue, at least not today anymore, but rather an issue of a linear speaker vs. a sounded high end speakers.

All I can confirm that at trade shows I have listened to alot of them in non optimized rooms giving harsh sounds due to too much hard reverb.

Digital speakers I heard, some I owned :

- Philips DSS930, liked them alot
- Philips DSS940, ok
- Revox Scala, great
- T+A A3D or A4D, ok
- Meridian - various, not my style at all
- Genelec 8240, love them

I heard as well :
- big Chario towers on Audionet DSP unit
- B+W Matrix 800 reference towers on Audionet DSP unit

And one additional remark I would like to make. Never bring your so beloved passive reference high end speaker to an engineer with an anechoic chamber access for DSP correction (personalized compensation curve). You may hear the most hard, truthfull profound facts on your beloved gear, that only tough man can withstand

Aesthetically or sonically?

First of all, I was a Meridian fan, owned a very early used 861 with 20 Bit ballanced card architecture, if I recall correctly, before that a Meridian 565, that was 18 Bit I think. Man, I loved Trifield and I still have an Ambisonic record around. Once I can grap that 565 for the good old times somewhere cheap I pick one up, just to remind myself how much I loved the work and the nice Meridian people I met in Frankfurt (former place of German High End show). The mix mode was the hype in those days, also Peter is raving about that much.

However, that is were my wallet ended. The Meridian speakers seemed overstyled to me (6000/5000 Series back then), the appeal I did not like at all, the 8K series was back then not available, which is probably superior and in a different world. It was the time when I realized that stereo should have the smallest and tightest phantom image between any two speakers to be able to listen to the room in the recording, not to the room your are sitting in. The demos way back then where always to big in sound, I never felt attracted and as said my wallet said also no for 5.1 or 7.1. Later came the race for more bits and sampling rates and I was really glad I did not go that way. I admit looking at money is a big influencer. I do not think is was due to technology (drivers) Meridian used or any FR influences in the sound. The package never felt right. Also a bit later I did fell in love with Geithain (and Genelec) studio monitors. Nothing then mattered anymore.

The Revox was way back impressive due to their slim stylish appearance and sound. The T+A I had the smallest time listening to. All Philips I owned, sometimes 6 of them. Genelec DSPs I own today. All experiences in different rooms, different events. So beware

Let's pimp the thread with some pictures :

DSS930



DSS940



Both I owned, very good for smaller rooms. DSS930 I loved....

Revox Scala



T+A had A2D, A3D, A4D.....



Meridian was there all the time, no pictures needed....

And today these are my reference for small rooms....

I have a pair of Genelec 8250A. I find the sound too dull compared to my other digital active speakers (successors of the Revox speakers: Campana).

I find the 8240 just right....

Are you listening near field ?

Which companies have preamp processors that have digital outputs for 7.1? (Not counting Meridian, which I gather uses proprietary connections.)

How about these?

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showt...audio+speakers

Lee

In the past Meridian had 4x SPDIF (565) = 8 channels, that was in the "before HDMI times"....

The TACT, of which Peter shows pictures of on a regular basis has obviously 4 AES/EBU outs.....but no HD sound chips, right ?

If you only need stereo you can use a pair of dsp speakers, take the SPDIF out of the cd player and run into a professional processor, like a cheap Behringer and convert to AES/EBU.

The JLs look nice, but I have not understood, if their inputs are digital as well as analogue or just either one ? Genelec offers both....

Hi
Sorry to be long winded...

I have no doubt there will be resistance but in the end we will see more of these... I understand that the thread is about Digital ACTIVE speaker. I believe it would have been more encompassing if it were about Digital Crossovers in general. The more one understands the various compromises that a passive crossover represents the more one would weigh toward Active Digital Crossovers. I would like to see more Preamps/DAC with a built-in crossover. I would not mind analog AND digital outputs.. Analog to drive analog amplifiers and Digital well to drive DAC based Power Amplifer of which the behold seems to be one of the trailblazers (Who else does that kind of thing Boz? TacT?). It would provide a less jolting upgrade path to Audiophiles desirous to keep their beloved amps, that it be tubes or SS or their cables...

What one should understand is that a crossover network ( that's how they used to be called) has a lot of work to do , aside from routing frequencies to drivers... They must also equalize the drivers levels and try to correct obvious driver aberrations, soa side from band, high or low pass you would see some notch filters here and there...They arefar from ideal in this regard. In a nutshell a crossover passive or active try to perfrom a mathematical transformation of the signals that go through it... With a Passive crossover the approximation is simply not good... In digital it is posible to to completely perform in real time the mathematical function with virtually no error and to add correction to the function results... Time Alignment for a subwoofer that had to be placed a good distance from the mains to avoid a room node? but now small differences in arrival time? .. No Problem you can delay the signal to yourheart content so as to have the Main and the sub acoustic center appear exactly aligned and with virually NO distortion something TOTALLY impossible with a passive approach. The fact that each band of frequency is handled by a specific amplifier is one of the bonus the active approach, passive or active... SO one can have a brutal SS for serious Bass control and depth, a Tube Triode for luscious midrange and a SS for the treble is you' re so inclined... It will not necessarily cost less but by using the most appropriate amplifers, one shall obtain better results than with a single amplifeir...

Like anything else they are not a panacea... At the end the art of speaker designs remains.. Simply using Digital Crossovers does not guarantee great speakers.. The best pen in the world does not guarantee great poetry either.. IT is simply a tool and need a practitioner of the Arts or the Science to yield greatness... but for a given Practioner the better the tool the better the results and on this Digital Crossovers are theoretically and in practice better than analog...

By the way I was an analog holdout for a very long time until a few months... I can simply say that I have seen the light... My analog gear just like my cables SHALL remain the same for the foreseeable future their hours have passed... I am embracing fully the digital ( BRIGHT) future

Frantz, what crossover / speaker chain have you chosen?

The main audiophile benefit of digital that can't be done with analog (or active analog) is crossovers with zero group delay over a given low frequency cutoff. You can simulate the benefits and drawbacks of group delay with a program called phase arbitrator, by Thuneau. There are two approaches you can take to understand the benefits, you can either see if you can tell the difference with headphones with an allpass filter, or you can see if you can tell the difference with your speakers. A lot of things have to be right with your speaker crossover and room for you to hear an improvement with phase correction.

Other than that, I'm betting home theater will enable more active loudspeaker designs. By ensuring that the speakers only need to have response at 80Hz and above, you can have smaller power supplies (also enabled by more efficient woofers for a more limited bandwidth). Also, I imagine digital will enable more active designs simply because it seems quality IC's get cheaper over time. I don't think the analog components will ever get cheaper; one second order lowpass stage in my active analog crossovers costs on the order of $10, those resistors, capacitors and opamps add up quickly.

From a design perspective, digital makes a lot of sense for prototyping. I started with a digital crossover before I printed an analog circuit board. Once I went back to analog design iterations for this version, it takes a whole lot longer to A/B changes. But that doesn't mean a manufacture would put out a GOOD loudspeaker any sooner, the digital prototype I had before the analog version only took me so far (I'm going to see if I can increase the fidelity of the digital prototyping system to take me further and save me time to take fewer analog revisions in future designs).

The last thing that needs to be addressed is well rounded expertise. I don't think everyone that designs speakers is qualified in all aspects necessary to put together a competent system as a whole. Throwing boutique components in your crossover/amplifier system won't do you any good in solving a good many electrical engineering problems. Of course, I'm sure the engineers at National,Texas Instruments, Analog Devices, will eventually make their systems completely dummy proof, if they haven't already.

Nothing yet... I will move very cautiously.. I hate equipment-hopping. I have kept my current system almost the same for 5 years or more... I feel the urge to change speakers.. but am extremely satisfied with my electronics... I am interested in a hybrid approach... Active Digital Crossover but the rest of the system would be regular analog amplifier and passive speakers sans-crossover.. My current speakers lend themselves very much to active crossovers.. The cost could be substantial, when you use 3 amps of similar qualities my current reference being far from inexpensive... I also need the most tranparent Pream/DAC/Crossover my ears will find and I don't even know where to begin my search, let alone audition.. So it is a project.. but one I am looking forward to.. I forget to add that I am researching Music Servers and DAC capable of the highest resolutions... The behold looks better and better to me .. I must hear it first.. My ears not my eyes (reading a FR and other specs) are my final judges...

My room uses all active speakers. All speakers except the subwoofer are digitally active. My LRC are Dynaudio AIR25's and the rears are AIR6's. All the AIR speakers are using AES digital input from a TacT TCS.

It took me several years to upgrade to the AIR speakers, mainly because I thought there was going to be more processors arriving to output a decoded digital signal. TacT and Goldmund should be at the top of anyones list if they are going to consider digital active speakers. Theta does it, but doesn't allow for volume control and Meridian limits output to 44k.

I'm in the middle of the upgrade, so everything is far from optimium. Give me another month and I'll know if it was a good move...

Actually Meridian speakers are 96/24.

Yes but there's no volume control on the digital output unless connected to Meridian speakers. The VC is in the speaker.

It is my understanding that Meridian limits the digital output to 44k when connected to a non Meridian speaker.