Active monitors and Hi quality dacs

[dogmamann]

Since all the active monitors have to convert the signal to digital before diving them to seperate amps, isnt Hi quality DACs pointless with them? No matter how high the SNR they can provide, it will only be played at the SNR the internal ADC has. How is the scene with HI res audio here?

For example if I have a Topping D90SE and KH150, and if I am playing a file with 192Khz the resampling by the internal ADC of the KH150, wont it just resample it to 44khz and to a lower SNR of its own ADC?(Assuming it wont be Topping level)

In this case an amp like LA90 and passive speakers should be a better fidelity ?

 

[voodooless]

Most of them have a digital input. Use that...

In this case an amp like LA90 and passive speakers should be a better fidelity ?

Amps and DAC aren't really of primary concern for sound quality. The speaker implementation is orders of magnitude of more influence. A shit speaker will not get better by using a super low distortion (pre-)amp.

 

[dogmamann]

Most of them have a digital input. Use that...


Amps and DAC aren't really of primary concern for sound quality. The speaker implementation is orders of magnitude of more influence. A shit speaker will not get better by using a super low distortion (pre-)amp.

So if I somehow need to listen to Hi resoulution audio above 44khz as how the Topping D90 Producing at its RCA outs, none of the active DSP monitors wont be useful right? I need to go the LA90 -> Some super low distortion flat speakers?

 

[DVDdoug]

none of the active DSP monitors wont be useful right?

Maybe analog monitors or headphones? The don't have to be passive.

There are probably SOME DSP monitors that work at 96kHz. Most pro recording is 24/96 so 192 is probably harder to find.

Of course, the most important thing is overall performance over the audio range.

(The KH 150 actually processes at 48kHz.)

In this case an amp like LA90 and passive speakers should be a better fidelity ?

A lot of factors go-into speaker/monitor design and the sample rate or digital/analog probably isn't the limiting factor. For me (and most people) "CD quality" is better than my hearing.... If a high resolution recording sounds better (or different) than the CD (in a proper blind listening test) it's usually mixed or mastered differently.

 

[voodooless]

So if I somehow need to listen to Hi resoulution audio above 44khz as how the Topping D90 Producing at its RCA outs, none of the active DSP monitors wont be useful right?

Neither will your ears. Most do DSP at 48 kHz anyway. A few will do 96 kHz. An external DAC will not change any of it.

I need to go the LA90 -> Some super low distortion flat speakers?

I wouldn’t worry to much about DAC’s and amplification and find a complete system that performs well. In many cases, active systems do better than passive, but not always.

 

[dwkdnvr]

Not all studio monitors use DSP. Analog monitors are getting more scarce, but the Neumann KH120 and Genelec 8030C for example are still old-school analog designs. So, if you're hung up on the introduction of an additional AD/DA stage, there are some options. Not that they will necessarily actually accurately reproduce content >20kHz, but at least they will fail to do so for traditional analog reasons.

OTOH, these DSP based monitors are something of a 'test case' for the guiding philosophy of ASR which is that the measured performance is what matters, and how you get there less so. According to subjective audiophile gospel/dogma, DSP studio monitors 'should be' basically incapable of high-end reproduction since they violate so many tenets: introduce an additional AD/DA cycle, use 'cheap' amps, cheap-ish drivers, no audiophile-approved capacitors/wire/tuning dots etc. And yet, they measure extremely well and those who have adopted them find them very musically satisfying.

So, yeah - if you buy into the 'hi res audio' marketing spiel, then you are going to have to do some work to find components that have wide enough bandwidth to reproduce the source signal. Simply staying analog isn't enough, as most conventional passive speakers aren't really reproducing >20kHz either.

 

[dogmamann]

Neither will your ears. Most do DSP at 48 kHz anyway. A few will do 96 kHz. An external DAC will not change any of it.

I wouldn’t worry to much about DAC’s and amplification and find a complete system that performs well. In many cases, active systems do better than passive, but not always.

Simple answer is then it wont resolve anything in a sample rate more than 48khz. The max SNR you can get it also limited to whatever is the max SNR of the internal ADC and Amps. Got it.

 

[voodooless]

Simple answer is then it wont resolve anything in a sample rate more than 48khz.

Resolve what? A 96 kHz sampled signal won’t resolve the audible frequencies better than a 48 kHz sampled one. That’s just not how the sampling theorem works.

The max SNR you can get it also limited to whatever is the max SNR of the internal ADC and Amps. Got it.

If you don’t hear the speaker hissing when the room is silent, you have enough SNR.

 

[dogmamann]

Not all studio monitors use DSP. Analog monitors are getting more scarce, but the Neumann KH120 and Genelec 8030C for example are still old-school analog designs. So, if you're hung up on the introduction of an additional AD/DA stage, there are some options. Not that they will necessarily actually accurately reproduce content >20kHz, but at least they will fail to do so for traditional analog reasons.

OTOH, these DSP based monitors are something of a 'test case' for the guiding philosophy of ASR which is that the measured performance is what matters, and how you get there less so. According to subjective audiophile gospel/dogma, DSP studio monitors 'should be' basically incapable of high-end reproduction since they violate so many tenets: introduce an additional AD/DA cycle, use 'cheap' amps, cheap-ish drivers, no audiophile-approved capacitors/wire/tuning dots etc. And yet, they measure extremely well and those who have adopted them find them very musically satisfying.

So, yeah - if you buy into the 'hi res audio' marketing spiel, then you are going to have to do some work to find components that have wide enough bandwidth to reproduce the source signal. Simply staying analog isn't enough, as most conventional passive speakers aren't really reproducing >20kHz either.

I am not into Hi Res. The whole point of my post was to just to know if its 'Capable' of doing that. I guess ME Geithains still does analog crossovers, but I hate analog crossovers, as over the period the caps gets worn out and sound changes as the crossover point drifts. With digital it either works perfectly or wont work. Historically Active speakers' active components fail much easier compared to passive speaker. I listened to ls60 last week and was very very impressed. But I wont buy it, as with so much complicated electronics, I dont expect it to last more than 5 years. Stuff like Genelec and Neumann are reliable though. Then this thought striked me !

 

[dogmamann]

Resolve what? A 96 kHz sampled signal won’t resolve the audible frequencies better than a 48 kHz sampled one. That’s just not how the sampling theorem works.

If you don’t hear the speaker hissing when the room is silent, you have enough SNR.

Audibility, I am not worried about it. I am not having any files more than 44khz. I only wanted to know process that level of information just for the folks who believes in Hi res.

 

[voodooless]

Audibility, I am not worried about it. I am not having any files more than 44khz. I only wanted to know process that level of information just for the folks who believes in Hi res.

Chances are your high-res material was mixed and mastered on one of those 48 kHz DSP monitors

 

[dogmamann]

Chances are your high-res material was mixed and mastered on one of those 48 kHz DSP monitors

Cant disagree. Like I said the point was not to debate the 100th time again if Hi res is audible, but to make a conclusion like this:
Neumann KH 150 and similar DSP monitors cannot play Hi Res material without down sampling to 48khz.

 

[Rednaxela]

Since all the active monitors have to convert the signal to digital before diving them to seperate amps […]

This is not true.

 

[earlevel]

Most of them have a digital input. Use that...

Amps and DAC aren't really of primary concern for sound quality. The speaker implementation is orders of magnitude of more influence. A shit speaker will not get better by using a super low distortion (pre-)amp.

I think if you do a survey of DSP monitors, you'll find most of them don't have digital audio inputs (also, some will have an ethernet port for control, for instance, but not audio). With some, digital input is a higher priced option. Yes, they all should have it, doesn't make much sense not to, I'm sure most high end speakers will have it going forward.

Agree 100% with the rest. Flaws in a DAC in a speaker will be so tiny compared with those of the rest of the speaker, it isn't worth consideration. And at worse it's just part of the sound of the speaker anyway, so the object would be to get the best audio to it as practical, and not fret about it going into another conversion. Unless it has digital input.

 

[voodooless]

I think if you do a survey of DSP monitors, you'll find most of them don't have digital audio inputs (also, some will have an ethernet port for control, for instance, but not audio). With some, digital input is a higher priced option. Yes, they all should have it, doesn't make much sense not to, I'm sure most high end speakers will have it going forward.

Isn’t that because most are older models? Anything new and at least a bit respectable will have DSP and digital inputs. Few exceptions obviously.

 

[ebslo]

Cant disagree. Like I said the point was not to debate the 100th time again if Hi res is audible, but to make a conclusion like this:
Neumann KH 150 and similar DSP monitors cannot play Hi Res material without down sampling to 48khz.

The only generalization I would make is the following:

The performance of any active monitor is limited by the performance of its internal signal path.

The above holds regardless of analog vs. digital, DSP vs. no DSP, etc. Any specifics with regards to exact limitations of any particular monitor depend entirely on the design of that specific monitor. Those limitations apply both to frequency response as well as THD and noise. If a monitor performs DSP at fixed 48kHz sample rate, then it is limited to a theoretical max frequency of 24kHz regardless of source. It's THD+N will also be limited by quality of the internal ADC (if used), DAC, and analog amplifier, also regardless of source.

 

[JustJones]

You need a DAC for Focal monitors as well.

 

[voodooless]

It's THD+N will also be limited by quality of the internal ADC (if used), DAC, and analog amplifier, also regardless of source.

Hardly. The speaker drivers will have one or two orders of magnitude worse THD. They will determine the major part of THD.

 

[dwkdnvr]

Isn’t that because most are older models? Anything new and at least a bit respectable will have DSP and digital inputs. Few exceptions obviously.

My impression is that most 'lower end' DSP monitors don't include digital inputs. e.g. KH80DSP don't, the JBLs don't. They may be getting more common on higher-end models though (e.g. KH150 does support an AES3 input). A large part of the complication is that digital signals are inherently multi-channel/stereo, and 'mass-market' monitors are sold individually in mono. Handling a digital input requires daisy-chaining the monitors and having the ability to select which channel to handle. It's not overly complex, but definitely isn't in keeping with standard expectations for existing studios.

 

[JustJones]

For home use you really don't have to daisy chain AES3. I made a split cable like this from Sescom when I had Genelec 8351b. You set the channel at the speaker. Makes for neater cable management.

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