it wasnt a blind test, but very experienced listener ( 3 ) did the listening.
Then why are you referring to it as if it meant anything at all?
it wasnt a blind test, but very experienced listener ( 3 ) did the listening.
Yes, scientifically it is. Higher bandwith, faster rise time and slew time will be shorter. Just inverse mhz into milli or even nano second that you frequently see. It is not that difficult to understanding in engineering sense. I mean your fave class D amplifier are using mosfet that run up to 1.5mhz.That’s because “propagation bandwidth” is not a thing. It doesn’t exist
No, it’s not. Just google the term and tell me if you can find the definition, it’s not there.Yes, scientifically it is.
Yes, google and found them.No, it’s not. Just google the term and tell me if you can find the definition, it’s not there.
Everything you put in between a source and a speaker makes the sound slightly worse .
The words “propagation bandwidth” are nowhere to be found in that article. This is an exact science. You can’t just make up words and then pretend they mean something else..Yes, google and found them.
Plus lots of them if you can understand those terms.
The crossover has nothing to do with dsp artifacts a driver alone acts as an analogue filter what would change with a crossover network?At faktiskt.io, a swedish hifi forum they have tested the new minidsp in a very expensive system . The result didnt come out well soundwise.
In my opinion , trying to combine a dsp with analog crossovers are not always a good idea . Everything you put in between a source and a speaker makes the sound slightly worse . It may be passive crossovers, cables , AD converters , digital gain structure and more .
Im surprised that the reviewers at faktiskt.io dont draw the conclusion or think about the reason why it might sound worse putting a dsp in a signal chain with passive loudspeakers .
My experience - Im not suprised at all. No gear , analog or digital are fully transparent to the ear . One of the worst offender is passive crossovers in loudspeakers .
To gain real benefits with a dsp, one should instead go fully active with the minidsp - with all the crossovers in the digital domain and no passive coils, resistors or capacitors in the signal path. The source ( for example a computer with a DDC) would then go directly to the digital input of the Minidsp SHD. No A/D:s involved. No external DAC outside the minidsp is needed.
This way one can gain real sound improvements .
As I said in the beginning - buying a dsp to correct an analog loudspeaker is often a waste of money or time . The first step for real improvements would instead be converting the passive crossover in the passive loudspeaker to be fully active in the digital domain , keeping the signal digital as long as one possible can, and doing the crossover in the digital domain without converting it first to analog.
Whats your experience ?
At faktiskt.io, a swedish hifi forum they have tested the new minidsp in a very expensive system . The result didnt come out well soundwise.
Everything you put in between a source and a speaker makes the sound slightly worse . It may be passive crossovers, cables , AD converters , digital gain structure and more .
Whats your experience ?
Well, I dont entirely agree - everything have drawbacks - pick your poison .Were there any specific, supported, complaints? Or just audiophool circle-jerkery?
That is obviously wrong. Anything added is just a degree of freedom. Used well those degrees of freedom can be used to improve fidelity. Used poorly they can make things worse. But the implied holy grail of straight line with gain from source to transducer will sound bad every single time.
It takes time, and thought, but thoughtfully applying EQ to passive loudspeakers based on the right criteria (room sound power down low, anechoic or quasi-anechoic listening window higher up) has never made things worse for me.
OMG you poor thing. I feel sorry for you. Your ears must be bleeding. Be careful.Well, you gotta put something there.
I've gone to great lengths to make my sound worse.
I think I have succeeded, beyond my any reasonable initial expectations.
Strike 1: Digital sources, TOSLink and Coax, go to an Audio Authority 177 switch and can be output as TOSLink or coax as desired.
Strike 2: That signal goes to a Focusrite Clarett Pre USB where the USB from PC or analog sources can be digitized and mixed in, if desired. Sometimes it changes the sample rate, I suppose.
Strike 3: Whatever is left of the signal goes to a MiniDSP OpenDRC-DI, where either my own settings for EQ/Compression/Volume/Polarity/Delay or AcourateDRC FIR and IIR filters are applied to further mess with the signal. I definitely get the sample rates adjusted there if they aren't bad enough yet.
Strike 4: That goes to an old Behringer DEC2496 which gives a nice RTA of whatever is left, and can apply even more destruction if the signal hasn't been worsened sufficiently already.
Strike 5: Whatever is left of the digits goes to a Benchmark DAC 2 to turn it into a lossy analog electrical voltage wave, resampling internally to 211kHz, which must have been the worst frequency they could find,
Strike 6: That feeds a Krell KCT preamp which turns the voltage signal into a current signal, just to be sure every last bit of worsening can be attained. The volume gets set here, and just for laughs, I can reverse the polarity if it still sounds good.
Strike 7: The Zone 1 output goes as a current signal to a couple of dusty (well, everything here is dusty) old Krell monoblocks,, converted back to something resembling a voltage source, and finally fed to the passive 24 year old Martin Logan reQuests, which, just for fun, i suppose, stick a transformer into the signal path in front of the panels, just in case there is something left to make worse. Or the Zone 2 output can go to the JBL LSR 308, which don't understand the current signal, so a little more worsening can be applied turning it back into a voltage signal.
Strike 8: Oh, the cables are all cheap junk. I figure if the signal gets through at all, I'm good.
It really does sound bad, especially if I play some old music recorded live with a boombox or other primitive device sometime in the last century.
I even play Bad once in a while, to see if it sounds bad, just to make sure it is all working as badly as possible.
Strangest thing though, it still seems to measure pretty well in-room. Well, some parts worse than others, which is to be expected, I guess.
Even Audio Buddy probably said it sounded bad at some time when he came by.
Well, I dont entirely agree - everything have drawbacks - pick your poison .
The sound quality with the minidsp in the signalpath were considered to sound slightly unnatural in the treble register.You didn’t answer my question: Were there any specific, supported, complaints?
Also, what was methodology of applying correction?
As for everything having drawbacks, sure. Any manual process requires expertise and time to get right - that’s the drawback. Lack either, and results are likely to be suboptimal. Most of the valid complaints about processing come down to lack of user expertise - bad starting measurements, poor gain staging, asking tools to do what they cannot, etc. The rest of the valid complaints tend to be from shortcuts in the measuring or optimization process, or defective/incompatible hardware. Others are audiophool idiocy for the most part: bitching and moaning about non-issues such as sample rates or an extra A/D conversion for example.
But the bottom line is, without modern EQ tools it’s near impossible to get the bass right in a small room. Given that bass is estimated at 30% of preference, the logical inference is that anyone interested in fidelity should learn these tools and use them.
The sound quality with the minidsp in the signalpath were considered to sound slightly unnatural in the treble register.
Oh, so just stupidity without evidence. Got it.The sound quality with the minidsp in the signalpath were considered to sound slightly unnatural in the treble register.
Uh oh, here we go again with your favorite hypothesis. In the past, you have presented similar with no supporting data. Let's see if this time we get some evidence:trying to combine a dsp with analog crossovers are not always a good idea
No.In my opinion
No again, with a dose of snark it seems.In my opinion - The analog crossovers often hides the soundquality gains that can be had . One can ofcourse be happy with that .
This is also not evidence. You didn't even try to summarize the thread for the broad ASR audience in English, so doubly not evidence. And I hope you appreciate that of all the citations, this weak in any language. Please read the ASR charter documents.At faktiskt.io, a swedish hifi forum they have tested the new minidsp in a very expensive system . The result didnt come out well soundwise.
No, unless you have gear that has distortion and noise above your ear's detection limit. OK, so you personally can hear the sonic signature of every piece of equipment inserted into an audio chain? No.Everything you put in between a source and a speaker makes the sound slightly worse
In the same post, you essentially contradict yourself. MiniDSP is OK by itself, but coupled with the passives pushes it over a cliff? Or some mysterious Digital-Analog interaction??? So No.To gain real benefits with a dsp, one should instead go fully active with the minidsp
So is it 'transparency'? Like, can you hear the difference between different capacitor types or inductor types? Can your ear measure the SINAD or PRaT of a 1uF MusicCap? No.No gear , analog or digital are fully transparent to the ear . One of the worst offender is passive crossovers in loudspeakers .
Actually, your conclusion is the surprise. Some issues are not easily correctable by DSP. If you are trying to use DSP to battle a room mode, a resonance in a speaker, a breakup mode of a driver, an issue in the crossover... then for sure it is going to be a struggle with potentially no good solution. No idea what the people in this review were struggling with.Im surprised that the reviewers at faktiskt.io dont draw the conclusion or think about the reason why it might sound worse putting a dsp in a signal chain with passive loudspeakers .
Since you ask, I built a pair of Seas Thor in 2003. These have very challenging midbass drivers. I upgraded to larger transmission line and went through many crossover iterations, the Thor saga can be found all over diyaudio.com. Certainly the different crossover and cabinet iterations made large differences in sound. One thing was constant, the need to control the 4.7kHz resonance of the W18001 midbass driver. I spent $1500 on fancy passive components at one point, that was a total waste that didn't make a difference (well, I did have to add a adjust a couple of things to compensate for different DC-resistances of the boutique components). I later bypassed the passive crossover with an analog active, ending up with boards I got from Linkwitz Lab since they had all the functionality I needed to exactly duplicate the passive crossovers. Plus I super appreciated the supporting knowledge and documentation Linkwitz provided. And, right off the bat I was able to get the Thor to sound just like they did passive, except now active. The biggest gain seemed to be the headroom, normal volume seemed the same. I will grant that I likely never had the balance between mid and tweet the same as the passive, but gosh they were still sounded like Thor. The greatest thing about the active: I was able to change the crossover (relatively) easily. I tried all sorts of slopes and crossover points, with turnaround in minutes rather than the days it took me for a new passive. So I loved the analog active, so much fun. I ended up with an active crossover very similar to the super-Thor passive, except I did move the notch filter back to passive. Linkwitz even kindly helped me with the passive notch implementation suggesting a series circuit rather than the parallel. My reasoning at the time for the passive was based on a simple model of mechanical damping, and I admit the model in my head was naïve. Later, PuriFi wrote a nice paper with a more advanced understanding and detailed measurements confirming at least part of my reasoning:Whats your experience ?
So, no. Owning a crappy speaker that cannot be improved is a waste of money and time.As I said in the beginning - buying a dsp to correct an analog loudspeaker is often a waste of money or time .
While this may be a fun project for a few people and will potentially lead to some great sound if the person has the time and knowledge and money to pursue this goal, it is really bad advice for 99% of the people who own a bad speaker that could be improved by replacing the crossover. And it's bad advice for 100% of the people who already own good speakers.The first step for real improvements would instead be converting the passive crossover in the passive loudspeaker to be fully active in the digital domain , keeping the signal digital as long as one possible can, and doing the crossover in the digital domain without converting it first to analog.
Agreed. If you want to learn speaker design, it's a great hobby. Otherwise, you'll want to kill yourself pretty quickly.While this may be a fun project for a few people and will potentially lead to some great sound if the person has the time and knowledge and money to pursue this goal, it is really bad advice for 99% of the people who own a bad speaker that could be improved by replacing the crossover. And it's bad advice for 100% of the people who already own good speakers.