Hello
maxime.levesque and friends,
I believe now you understand well about the policy and approaches in my project.
At the start of my project, I firmly decided to keep the SP drivers and enclosures remain unchanged, and I moved step-by-step towards the final full active multichannel system.
In addition to the nice responses and suggestions already given above by our ASR friends...
Based on my rather long and intensive exploration, I would like to suggest you as follows:
Have your reference sound system to start with
I highly recommend you to have your reference (base) passive sound system before going into multichannel exploration.
In my case the passive system,
single amplifier (Accuphase E-460) + renovated outer LC-network box (inductors, capacitors, attenuators) + Yamaha NS-1000 + horn super-tweeter + L&R sub-woofers, has been my reference sound system throughout the project, and I can/could easily roll back to this reference sound system any time during the project for comparative listening sessions.
Step-by-step progress with only one parameter modification in each step
If you would change multiple parameters at once, then you would easily get into confusion.
Very carefully eliminate LC-network and attenuators and mimic/simulate these by digital crossover and EQ
I assume you well understand that the inductors, capacitors, resistors and attenuators in passive LC-network consume/waste considerable portion of "energy" provided by the amplifier before the SP level signal would finally go into the SP driver. The elimination of LC-network and attenuator, therefore, is significantly effective in making the amplifier to drive SP driver much more easily, effectively and efficiently.
As
@Speedskater nicely pointed in
his post #19, however, the process is not straightforward, not simple. You definitely need your passive reference system, I believe. Even the simple attenuators are part of the LC-network having certain variable impedance (resistance) in the SP line as I shared in detail at
here and
here.
Avoid, as far as possible, magnetizable (magnetic susceptible) metals in the SP lines
This is really important and critical in high-end HiFi audio system to keep the cleanliness of the sound, as I shared
here and
here.
Major issues are always interdependent with each other
As I wrote in
the very first post on my project thread, the following major issues in multichannel multi-driver multi-amplifier system are always interdependent with each other;
- Digital I/O for software crossover within PC
- Delay, latency and synchronization issues
- Phase issues
- Master volume and gain issues
Very carefully evaluate and select amplifiers, in your system in your room
I believe you would use quite HiFi grade SP drivers, and these drivers very much efficiently respond to the "nature" of the dedicated amplifier directly connected without LC-network.
Even though I know you already have, or soon to have, Hypex plate multi-channel amplifier(s), I strongly suggest you also to try/test some of (affordable) Class-AB and/or Class-A HiFi grade "power amplifiers" and "integrated amplifiers", in your system.
As I shared
here, I intensively evaluated and tested YAMAHA MX-A5200 (fairly nice 11-channel amplifier) in my project, but the total sound quality with MX-A5200 was considerably inferior to my reference passive system with Accuphase E-460. That was, therefore, the start of my long and intensive explorations on search for amplifiers in my multichannel system.
In
my post #311, I wrote;
Furthermore, throughout my amplifier exploration, I well experienced and learnt that we should never exclude high quality Hi-Fi "integrated amplifiers" to be possibly implemented in this type of multichannel multi-amplifier project.
The durability, warranty, repair possibility are also important factors in amplifier(s) selection.
In any way, I believe you can get much valuable insights for your possible multichannel DSP project, after you would kindly and carefully read all the way through
my project thread in which many of our ASR friends are cooperatively participating.