My philosophy is that the stereo recording should emerge from two speakers in the form of sound pressure variations that match it as closely as possible. To this end, I use:
It is the nicest system I have yet heard - with the standard bias caveats.
I may apply the same 'formula' to some other vintage speaker enclosures that I like the look of, but I don't expect any further substantial improvements in the sound. Omni versus directional may be an interesting avenue to explore. I could also be interested doing the Kii-style bass dispersion stuff, but I don't really feel that it's necessary at the moment.
- digital source in the form of an asynchronous USB multichannel DAC
- six channel AV amp (90W/channel I think - way more than is needed)
- three-way active speakers with fairly low cost drivers (they have a very easy job to do)
- re-used vintage speaker enclosures
- large, sealed woofers
- a Linux PC-based DSP convolution engine whose software I wrote. The PC does the following:
- provides bit perfect playback: sample clock is provided by the DAC
- plays CDs, audio files and streams off the internet
- corrects the individual drivers to have linear phase
- provides the crossover filtering
- provides delays for time alignment
- provides gentle pre-calculated linear phase EQ for best response at the listener's position
- A fully-carpeted room something like 15x15 feet with a higher-than-average ceiling.
It is the nicest system I have yet heard - with the standard bias caveats.
I may apply the same 'formula' to some other vintage speaker enclosures that I like the look of, but I don't expect any further substantial improvements in the sound. Omni versus directional may be an interesting avenue to explore. I could also be interested doing the Kii-style bass dispersion stuff, but I don't really feel that it's necessary at the moment.
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