Speakers for Kondo Ongaku... Please Help

Tango

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I adjusted phase of my Cessaro too. The adjustment comes in 15 degree incremental. I set mine either 15 or 30 degree. Listening jazz at 30 degree get me tap my foot more. The adjustment gives me more solidity to lower mid to upper bass. Increase in physical in that region can be felt.
 
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jeff1225

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Nothing about the crossover and phase? Again, without correct phase there can be no time alignment.
I can keep posting stuff for you Brad or you could take my word for it as I was seriously thinking about buying the Alpha’s and did my research. You couldn’t find anything on the site about the time alignment, do you need me to find that for you too?
 

morricab

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I can keep posting stuff for you Brad or you could take my word for it as I was seriously thinking about buying the Alpha’s and did my research. You couldn’t find anything on the site about the time alignment, do you need me to find that for you too?
Ok, I see that you are quoting stuff from the distributor site. They also mention crossover but not that it is pHase correct (They say something nebulous about psychoacoustics). I was looking on Cessaro’s home site www.Cessaro.de, which has pictures of the adjustable drivers with the Alpha III etc. but still no mention of the Time alignment system or crossovers.
 

morricab

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I adjusted phase of my Cessaro too. The adjustment comes in 15 degree incremental. I set mine either 15 or 30 degree. Listening jazz at 30 degree get me tap my foot more. The adjustment gives me more solidity to lower mid to upper bass. Increase in physical in that region can be felt.
Have you ever measured the impulse response of your system? How do they make this adjustable? I have only seen phase adjustment on active systems, like subwoofers, or with digital processors. Very hard to do this with passive crossovers...in fact, I cannot think of one...
 
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KeithR

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Actually, both of you have misconceptions. A speaker can only be time aligned if the drivers are the same distance from the listener AND they are in phase. High order crossovers will disqualify from all sounds reaching the ear at the same time. There are several truly time coherent speakers (mostly from Thiel and Vandersteen) that don’t have adjustable drivers but assume a certain listening distance range to still deliver essentially coherent sound.

If Cessaro or Avantegarde use higher order filters they are NOT time coherent...same for Wilsons...you can adjust until the cows come home but without correct phase there will be no time alignment...period. This gets lost in the marketing blah blah and BS from JA in Stereophile but it’s physics.
While I value coherency, pure time and phase coherence has limited value. Every Thiel I heard took my ears off in the (very measurable) treble and Vandy sounds sleepy most of the time. Says a lot that no one since has really used it.
 

Phantom-Audio

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Apr 23, 2017
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I would never buy vinyl that has been digitally mastered in some way. I think that defeats the purpose of an analog source!
If you are converting A to D, and back again, you are completely changing the nature of the sound. Let’s not get into the differences between analog and digital content…
Unfortunately, in this hobby, especially in the ultra high end, everything makes a difference. You want that signal signal to be as unmolested and pure as possible. Converting A-D twice, right before the speakers — that is not good if you are aiming for output as close to what the live music sounds like.
I get that with some speakers and rooms you must use DSP, so there is a net improvement. But all things being equal, it’s better to change the design of the speakers and look at room treatment, so you can avoid DSP altogether. Now, if your source is digital, and you are using the DSP before conversion to analog, that’s a different story.
Totally agree with this, keeping the signal as pure as possible and avoiding any Processing is the way to go.

Done it and tried working with DSP both on 2 Channel and Cinema rooms with all the time spent on listening and messing about. Overall keeping the additional processing out of the chain always sounds better. No everyone will agree but that's ok.

Especially for 2 channel Audio For me DSP is to be avoided at all costs.
 

jeff1225

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Ok, I see that you are quoting stuff from the distributor site. They also mention crossover but not that it is pHase correct (They say something nebulous about psychoacoustics). I was looking on Cessaro’s home site www.Cessaro.de, which has pictures of the adjustable drivers with the Alpha III etc. but still no mention of the Time alignment system or crossovers.
They had all this stuff on their website when I was seriously looking at the Alpha’s. When you said you couldn’t find it on the site I searched Google and found it. Not sure why they removed it from the main website.

Anyway, the real conversation was about Avantgardes, which are not time aligned and use DSP to integrate the midrange, mid bass and bass.
 

morricab

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They had all this stuff on their website when I was seriously looking at the Alpha’s. When you said you couldn’t find it on the site I searched Google and found it. Not sure why they removed it from the main website.

Anyway, the real conversation was about Avantgardes, which are not time aligned and use DSP to integrate the midrange, mid bass and bass.
With DSP you can quite easily make all the drivers time aligned without being too careful about the physical alignment...very powerful but with many potential artifacts if not carefully implemented (not enough bits, inferior DACs/amps etc.)
 

jeff1225

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With DSP you can quite easily make all the drivers time aligned without being too careful about the physical alignment...very powerful but with many potential artifacts if not carefully implemented (not enough bits, inferior DACs/amps etc.)
Yes, I’m just not a fan.
 

morricab

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Yes, I’m just not a fan.
I have two systems, one fully passive and one fully active with digital xover. Both work very well but of course don’t sound exactly the same. The active system is more explicit but that is probably more to do with the frequency response, which is quite flat and extended and/or the room. Both systems use only SET amplification.
 

jeff1225

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I have two systems, one fully passive and one fully active with digital xover. Both work very well but of course don’t sound exactly the same. The active system is more explicit but that is probably more to do with the frequency response, which is quite flat and extended and/or the room. Both systems use only SET amplification.
Well I'd like to hear a good DSP system someday, I'm not saying they're bad, I've just never heard a good one.
 

morricab

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Well I'd like to hear a good DSP system someday, I'm not saying they're bad, I've just never heard a good one.
Book your flight ;)... you're always welcome...:)
 
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adrianywu

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Nov 15, 2021
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Actually, both of you have misconceptions. A speaker can only be time aligned if the drivers are the same distance from the listener AND they are in phase. High order crossovers will disqualify from all sounds reaching the ear at the same time. There are several truly time coherent speakers (mostly from Thiel and Vandersteen) that don’t have adjustable drivers but assume a certain listening distance range to still deliver essentially coherent sound.

If Cessaro or Avantegarde use higher order filters they are NOT time coherent...same for Wilsons...you can adjust until the cows come home but without correct phase there will be no time alignment...period. This gets lost in the marketing blah blah and BS from JA in Stereophile but it’s physics.
Why are "higher order" filters not time coherent ? A 4th order filter is phase correct, whereas a 2nd order is 180 degrees out of phase, and a 3rd order is 270 degrees out of phase. And the phase relationship has more to do with lobing at the crossover frequency, and not time alignment as such.
 

adrianywu

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I am not following exactly what you mean - just for semantics, IMHO if I do not feel any difference I call it "100% transparent" in such situation, even if such thing does not exist - perhaps I should not have written the "100%".

Are you saying that mic feeds are subjectively less susceptible to A/D and D/A processes than the final product?
In a monitoring chain, we monitor the source after AD conversion (by passing the digital signal through a DA converter). We are not doing AD-DA to record in analogue. What I am saying is that even after AD-DA, the signal is not preceptably different. Bear in mind that this is happening in real time. When you are playing digital from recorded media (hard disc, CD, streaming), the signal is going through buffers and error correction. There will be jitter. When we were still using hard drives for our multi-channel recorders, even the brand of hard drives made a difference to the sound quality.
 

morricab

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Apr 25, 2014
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Why are "higher order" filters not time coherent ? A 4th order filter is phase correct, whereas a 2nd order is 180 degrees out of phase, and a 3rd order is 270 degrees out of phase. And the phase relationship has more to do with lobing at the crossover frequency, and not time alignment as such.
Group delay
 

jeff1225

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Thanks for having the honor of being the only person on my Ignore list here.
You’re obviously highly insecure and don’t know what you don’t know.
Your knowledge is a mess, sorry to say; but brush up on Speakers 101 before commenting:
jeffrey_t
1. 200Hz is considered midrange - Wrong
2. for a driver to be time-aligned it has to be adjustable - Wrong
3. (something incoherent about DSP, subs, and time-alignment) - huh?
Being ignored by you is a complement. Few times do I see someone so wrong dig in so hard.
 

Solypsa

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I have two systems, one fully passive and one fully active with digital xover.
Iirc you are using miniDSP digital in/out with presumably 4 channels DAC after?

It is interesting how few DSP loudspeaker management devices ( aka digital crossovers ) offer digital input and output. I have wondered if an AES67 ( Dante / Ravenna ) setup with a crossover on Aoip input and output is around....
 

Audiophile Bill

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Mar 23, 2015
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Iirc you are using miniDSP digital in/out with presumably 4 channels DAC after?

It is interesting how few DSP loudspeaker management devices ( aka digital crossovers ) offer digital input and output. I have wondered if an AES67 ( Dante / Ravenna ) setup with a crossover on Aoip input and output is around....
I think Brad has 2 stereo dacs rather than a 4 channel one.
 

Audiophile Bill

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Mar 23, 2015
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Iirc you are using miniDSP digital in/out with presumably 4 channels DAC after?

It is interesting how few DSP loudspeaker management devices ( aka digital crossovers ) offer digital input and output. I have wondered if an AES67 ( Dante / Ravenna ) setup with a crossover on Aoip input and output is around....
One way around all this would be either a laptop or pc or audiophile server running your chosen crossover (preferably FIR based) made in Acourate or various other choices and then outputting via USB to a mch dac - there are various pro ones to choose from.
 

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