The Active Advantage

[Blizzard]

Lacking any real data to support your own argument you're now arguing against a point that I have not made. I think they call that a straw man.

Tim

Okay so at which price point do you think we max out in quality and anything beyond is tossing money in the wind, for a full range system capable of 20HZ-20KHZ in room response?

I would like to hear your recommendation for a system that's as good as it gets.

 

[Whatmore]

I'm a big fan of two-way active systems for all the reasons you mention and a couple more in theory, but what I hear is greater midrange clarity and remarkably good imaging from boxes. I'm looking forward to getting a Linkwitz LXmini system in my home next year, and hearing what happens when the box is opened and the entire room is energized. I may love it; I may end up selling it. I know I heard Linkwitz Orions years ago and thought they were exceptional, so different from box speakers that comparisons are kind of pointless. Is that difference superiority or a sonic hat trick? We'll see.

Tim

I just put together a LXmini system last weekend for a bit of fun.
I don't know what your current setup is but these little things sound a lot better than they ought to. Very very clear sound and imaging.

They won't replace my main system (which is a fully active Sanders hybrid-electrostat) but then they are a fraction of the cost

 

[Blizzard]

I just put together a LXmini system last weekend for a bit of fun.
I don't know what your current setup is but these little things sound a lot better than they ought to. Very very clear sound and imaging.

They won't replace my main system (which is a fully active Sanders hybrid-electrostat) but then they are a fraction of the cost

What are you using for amps? I have a pair of Hypex PSC 2.400d's that would be great for them.

 

[Whatmore]

What are you using for amps? I have a pair of Hypex PSC 2.400d's that would be great for them.

my 2XMagtechs seem to be adequate for the job

 

[Blizzard]

my 2XMagtechs seem to be adequate for the job

Shouldn't be underpowered

 

[Groucho]

It's really apparent when you play with active xover delay settings that timing is important. The soundstage becomes much more pinpoint when your have it dialed in perfectly. And this is listening in a real room. Not in an anechoic chamber, or on the moon.

Yes. I think it is what transforms a system from something that plays music into something that recreates (or at least creates) a sense of space. Now that might sound too much like an unsubstantiated claim, or expectation bias, in a sub-forum like this, but all I am saying is that we should make our speaker reproduce what is in the recording. This can be measured and demonstrated with a microphone. I think that justifying doing something else ("time coherence is not important") is a far more extraordinary claim and needs more than a few listening-based tests showing that people can't hear the phase of pulses in rooms or whatever.

I agree that the real room versus anechoic chamber issue is a red herring. At the very least, we hear the start of an isolated transient free of reflections i.e. as if in an anechoic chamber so it would be worth correcting the timing and phase just for that. And with normal music the only contamination of what we are hearing directly is merely delayed reflections which, it is reasonable to assume from our day-to-day lives, we are equipped to filter out in our hearing. Real music is not steady state waveforms, but is constantly changing so we can easily differentiate between direct and reflected. Only if music were steady state waveforms would we have no way of distinguishing between direct and reflected.

 

[Blizzard]

Yes. I think it is what transforms a system from something that plays music into something that recreates (or at least creates) a sense of space. Now that might sound too much like an unsubstantiated claim, or expectation bias, in a sub-forum like this, but all I am saying is that we should make our speaker reproduce what is in the recording. This can be measured and demonstrated with a microphone. I think that justifying doing something else ("time coherence is not important") is a far more extraordinary claim and needs more than a few listening-based tests showing that people can't hear the phase of pulses in rooms or whatever.

I agree that the real room versus anechoic chamber issue is a red herring. At the very least, we hear the start of an isolated transient free of reflections i.e. as if in an anechoic chamber so it would be worth correcting the timing and phase just for that. And with normal music the only contamination of what we are hearing directly is merely delayed reflections which, it is reasonable to assume from our day-to-day lives, we are equipped to filter out in our hearing. Real music is not steady state waveforms, but is constantly changing so we can easily differentiate between direct and reflected. Only if music were steady state waveforms would we have no way of distinguishing between direct and reflected.

I have always designed my speakers to have a flat response at the listening position, in the room size they were intended to be used in. To me anechoic chamber measurements are useless in the real world. They are good for the initial measurements, but not really required. With Clio you can simply chop all of the reflected sound out of the impulse response measurement so you just have the sound coming from the speaker on the plot. This simulates an anechoic response. It works very well. But you need a pretty big room with the speaker right in the center. Or you can take it outside in the middle of the lawn. But when I do that the result is identical to filtering the reflections out in room anyways.

 

[Rodney Gold]

If you have made your speakers flat at listening position..I can tell you that they will sound rubbish .. you have to have a "house curve" ..

 

[Blizzard]

If you have made your speakers flat at listening position..I can tell you that they will sound rubbish .. you have to have a "house curve" ..

Well this is the "house curve" from my latest set. And they definitely don't sound like rubbish. 1 measurement is on axis, and other at listening position overlaid in room.

View attachment 23786

 

[Rodney Gold]

you have no clue.. a flat response at listening position will be bass light and treble prominent
google "house curve"

 

[Rodney Gold]

i have built many active systems and dsp actives.. if you want to talk value .. home built frankenspeakers are valueless apart from about 1/2 the cost of the components you use or less..boxes worth nothing..

 

[Blizzard]

you have no clue.. a flat response at listening position will be bass light and treble prominent
google "house curve"

Definitely not the case with these speakers. This is why I use a .5 midbass for baffle step compensation. And you can see at listening position, the highs roll off a bit.

 

[Blizzard]

i have built many active systems and dsp actives.. if you want to talk value .. home built frankenspeakers are valueless apart from about 1/2 the cost of the components you use or less..boxes worth nothing..

Yes of course you need to know what your doing no matter where the speakers are constructed. These particular speakers are passive from 100 hz up.

As far as value is concerned, I think the worst I've ever done on one of my "frankenspeakers" is triple my money.

 

[NorthStar]

"Google house curve"...that's a new one to me.

* Mike, the scale of your graph is 20dB. If it would be 2dB, @ the listening position that curve looks pretty good to me. You have a gentle roll of (smooth), and no particular bass emphasis.

What type of tweeter in your loudspeaker, x-over, woofer driver's brand? Your speakers; active? ...Pics of your speaker's internals?

EDIT: I was looking @ the graph from the previous page, now I just read the posts above; active below 100Hz, only the subwoofer section.
And you corroborated that smooth gentle roll off from 2.5kHz to the top of the human range.

 

[Blizzard]

"Google house curve"...that's a new one to me.

* Mike, the scale of your graph is 20dB. If it would be 2dB, @ the listening position that curve looks pretty good to me. You have a gentle roll of (smooth), and no particular bass emphasis.

What type of tweeter in your loudspeaker, x-over, woofer driver's brand? Your speakers; active? ...Pics of your speaker's internals?

EDIT: I was looking @ the graph from the previous page, now I just read the posts above; active below 100Hz, only the subwoofer section.
And you corroborated that smooth gentle roll off from 5kHz to the top of the human range.

Yes with that program you need to zoom out to see the whole graph on 1 screen. But this is in room. Reflections and all.

I'm using Raven tweeters and Focal W cone midbasses. Crossovers components on the tweeters use the following components. caps are Mundorf silver in oil bypassed by Dueland silver/wax bypass caps, with Mundorf foil inductors. Dueland Cast carbon/silver resistor is used to set tweeter level. All cable is Neotech OCC. The upper mid is running 100% full range, and lower .5 mid has a single Mundorf zero ohm inductor.

You can see pics in this thread.

http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showthread.php?18648-The-best-way-possible-to-build-an-active-system

 

[NorthStar]

Wow, I missed some for sure: http://www.whatsbestforum.com/showt...-active-system&p=344234&viewfull=1#post344234

* Tim has a valid point below; your speakers are not fully active. ;-)

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Okay so at which price point do you think we max out in quality and anything beyond is tossing money in the wind, for a full range system capable of 20HZ-20KHZ in room response?

I would like to hear your recommendation for a system that's as good as it gets.

Wrong questions. Thanks for hijacking the thread. Anything to say about the advantages of active systems? Because there's plenty of "everything matters" voodoo in the rest of the forum.

Tim

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I just put together a LXmini system last weekend for a bit of fun.
I don't know what your current setup is but these little things sound a lot better than they ought to. Very very clear sound and imaging.

They won't replace my main system (which is a fully active Sanders hybrid-electrostat) but then they are a fraction of the cost

I'm looking forward to them.

Tim

 

[Blizzard]

Wrong questions. Thanks for hijacking the thread. Anything to say about the advantages of active systems? Because there's plenty of "everything matters" voodoo in the rest of the forum.

Tim

Yes I've explained my thoughts on that earlier in the thread. This was when you followed up suggesting that component quality has no bearing on the final result of the system.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Yes I've explained my thoughts on that earlier in the thread. This was when you followed up suggesting that component quality has no bearing on the final result of the system.

That suggestion is in your mind. No one over there suggested that component quality has no bearing on the final result of the system. The difference between here and the General Audio Forum, is here, if you claim superior sound, you might be expected to make a fact-based argument to support that statement. "I hear it," isn't enough here. Measurements, if you have the tools to make them (I don't), would be great, but a general discussion of the measurable impact of the thing you think matters, or at the very least, the theory behind how it should affect sound, would be expected. For example, and to bring it back to the subject of this thread, in that thread, you took the position that a high end active system would require the highest quality components to equal a passive system with the same components. Pick a TOTL DAC and tell us how (and why, and within the human audible range) it would improve upon the sound of a Linkwitz LX521 system with Dr. Linkwitz' recommended mini DSP. "Everything matters," by itself, is not a valid argument in this sub-forum. There are a lot of "everything matters" audiophiles in this hobby listening to systems that are demonstrably, objectively inferior to a $500 pair of studio monitors from about 60 cycles up. Nothing wrong with that if you like the sound, but purely subjective discussion is not the purpose of this sub-forum.

Tim