Wow. You keep your nose out of the Forum for few days and you come back to find your system appears to elicit controversy in some quarters. (So, what else is new, This is WBF after all, isn’t it!) If I may, I’d like to clarify some of the comments that have been said recently. Steve is correct in that the original reason I turned to DSP was that I found it frankly impossible to EQ PipeDream Towers with JL Gotham subs with any resemblence of seamlessness with an analogue crossover. My initial thread on DSP is found here:
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?520-DSP-one-person-s-experience&highlight=tact
And Dan is right, once the signal exits my preamp, the signal goes through the Tact 2.2XP, and this, much to the chagrin of many, includes the phono signal (Goldmund Studio/T3F/Benz Ruby2/ASR phono).
The benefits of the TacT have been increasingly clear to me from the start for more than their simple crossover function (24 dB /octave, 80Hz.). They are instrumental in the overall EQ of the system, which is mostly done below 400Hz due to room boundary effects as in any system. However I can and do employ a gentle top end roll-off so as to simulate the oft referred to B&K curve discussed in previous forum posts.
The TacTs continued advantageous use was also quite beneficial when switching the Spectral 400s for the VTL Siegfrieds, mainly because I was better able to dial in the critical valley of death from 90-120Hz which is rendered with more articulation with the Spectrals in the system than it ever was with the Siggies. The following post goes into more descriptive details of the use of the Tact in my current system.
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...-DMA-400s-arrive-in-New-Jersey&highlight=tact
As I have said before, I think much of my enjoyment with the TacT stems from the fact that it is highly modified unit by Anthony and Dan.
I would also like to clarify that the TacT target curve does not necessarily look like the room response curve at the listening position (the room response is always less linear). I have posted both previously, but they are not identical. I would however like to point to a comment that was most likely ignored which I think bears repeating with regard to my choice of target curves for the TacT (post 25):
http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?723-Target-Curves&p=264312#post264312
And let me re-emphasize the following point with all due respect to Dan. There Is no audio system on earth I would want to be flat +/-1dB from 20-Hz to 20Kz at the listening position. This is a well-trodden subject on the forum. I am very much in the camp that "flat is NOT where its at". I have never, I repeat
never, heard a great sounding audio system that measured flat at the listening position to a standard pink noise signal. But that's just me.
Finally, I'd like to close by addressing the comment of how much tweaking vs listening I do with my system. Through the years, the answer is frankly, a lot of both. I generally listen between 1 pm and 2 am daily. . With time, and after tweaking is done to account for major changes in ancillary gear (i.e. power cords, conditioners, interconnects etc), the period of tweaking is followed by far more listening than tweaking. I think the key observation which needs to be mentioned regarding Steve’s visit is that 2 days before Steve arrived I noticed that one of my dear ECC801S Telefunken preamp tubes appeared to have bitten the dust (high distortion, poor bass). These tubes are supposed to last 10,000 and I would say that’s about what I have on them. Wouldn’t you know it- you’re good friend and audio maven is arriving and you want to show your system to it’s best advantage and a tube craps out. I had no choice to replace the tube with one of a similar Telefunken vintage, but as everyone knows, even a used tube, it takes time to optimize. What Steve noticed was my frantic hope to try and EQ the tube in the 2nd day of its use as a replacement tube in order to get it to sound its best. At some point, you just have to throw your hands up in the air and accept that in this case, defeat was stolen from the jaws of victory. Fortunately, by day 3, the bass had come in beautifully, and we did no further tube tweaking, fully satisfied that the sound of the system was about as good as I’ve ever had it.
Bottom line, I treat DSP with great respect and make changes consistent with the scientific methods that I use to perform laboratory experiments in my professional career. That doesn’t mean I do this any better or any worse than anyone who dabbles with DSP (which, keep on mind is unquestionably used on the vast majority of anything that anyone has ever heard in a digital format). What it means is that as a student of implementing DSP optimally for my system, the learning curve was slow and arduous, particularly for someone with more than touch of an OCD persona. OK, so sue me. In the end, that’s the process that I have used which serves me well. At the same time, as those close to me also know, it drives me nuts that the sound I am extracting takes so much time, energy and patience. As I have hinted in previous threads, there in may in fact be another way to get the same enjoyment as I am getting now without the use of DSP, but that will surely require different speakers than what I currently utilize. I am truly envious of a system’s such as Steve’s that can deliver tremendous musical pleasure without the use of DSP. But for the time being, I find it an irreplaceable tool and one that I do not anticipate shelving anytime soon with the Pipes/Gotham combination.
Oh yeah, one last thing. Not sure why these issues are posted on a "computer audio" thread (sort of) but that's where the comments were made pertaining to my use of DSP so I am posting them here. Uh oh, time to get back to my inner nerd.....