OP
- Thread Starter
- #81
Thank you for understanding that I am doing a research and respecting my quest.
-
WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!
Integrated stereo amplifier with bass-management?
- Thread starter sarumbear
- Start date
OP
- Thread Starter
- #82
Yamaha does not have crossover. Its sub output seems to be just a mono output. There is no mention of any filtering on the user manual nor on the brochures.
Why would you call a 2ch amplifier inferior? Or am I misreading you? @amirm has measured many AVRs and demonstrated the negative effects of video circuity and DSP artefacts. Reading his reviews shouldn't the AVR has more potential of being an inferior product, especially at the low end of the price spectrum? It doesn't cost to add a simple 2-way cross-over to an integrated amplifier. A couple of dual op-amp, a few components and a multi-position switch to offer different crossover frequencies is all it takes. If the signal is processed in the digital domain then it is even easier/cheaper as the only difference will be in the code (assuming the signal output already exists).
PS. I am a retired audio-acoustics engineer, an Abbey Road alumni, AES member, good friend of Siegfried Linkwitz RIP and a one time speaker designer. I am not boasting, just to let it be known that I am making suggestions as a person with credentials and the education.
Last edited:
OP
- Thread Starter
- #83
That wouldn't help the (satellite) speakers though as they will have the full frequency range.
Bear123
Addicted to Fun and Learning
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2019
- Messages
- 796
- Likes
- 1,370
If the sub has an adjustable crossover frequency(most do that I'm familiar with), wouldn't that send signals above the crossover to the speakers, and below to the sub? In other words, the sub would serve as the crossover for both speakers and sub if there are speaker level inputs? I thought this is how it works but admit I'm not positive, now that you mention it.
This sounds a bit more complicated than what I'd be looking for. To clarify what I mean by being inferior, I mean that lack of subwoofer output, bass management, and eq will be a far larger degradation to sound quality than thousandths of a percent of SINAD in an AVR, if any , since A LOT of 2 channel gear measures the same or worse.
We've made a list on this topic, perhaps somewhat helpful even though OPs requirements was pretty specific.
https://www.sigbergaudio.no/en/blogs/news/stereo-amplifiers-with-proper-support-for-subwoofers
https://www.sigbergaudio.no/en/blogs/news/stereo-amplifiers-with-proper-support-for-subwoofers
OP
- Thread Starter
- #86
May I ask in your example where will be the high-pass part of the crossover? In other words what is cutting off the low frequencies from the speaker?
Last edited:
Bear123
Addicted to Fun and Learning
- Joined
- Nov 27, 2019
- Messages
- 796
- Likes
- 1,370
Looks like what I'm thinking of would only apply for subs that have speaker level input *and* output, which seems uncommon. I had a Polk sub with this feature and I did use it in this way. I believe in this case, the crossover of the sub will filter lows to the sub and highs to the speakers. Again, this greatly limits subwoofer selection as it appears uncommon. The few other subs I've glanced at with speaker level inputs have only inputs and not outputs, so speakers will still receive a full range signal with crossover only affecting the sub(obviously)
OP
- Thread Starter
- #88
That will not work. Implementing a 2nd order high-pass filter at around 100Hz and at the speaker level impedance requires totally unrealistic and very bulky components, not to mention it will be very expensive. Also, as that is the range where the speaker has its f3/fc (when the speaker impedance changing wildly), the high-pass cut-off frequency will change dramatically (more than double) from speaker to speaker.
The Polk sub you had most likely used a single capacitor (1st order filter with a 6dB/oct slope) and hoped for the best. It should have never entered production.
Last edited:
OP
- Thread Starter
- #89
Many thanks for this.
As my budget was US$1000 or thereabouts and an integrated amplifier with at least one analogue stereo input the only units in your list are as follows. Please correct me if I missed any.
- Outlaw RR2160
- Denon DRA-800H
- Marantz NR-1200
Where did you read that there is a configurable high-pass for the main speakers for Denon DRA-800H and Marantz NR-1200? Their user manuals only mentions low-pass filter.
Meanwhile, bravo for your ingenuous subwoofer designs of the Inkognito series.
I'm going to do the silly thing and state the obvious answer to the question: The great majority of people who want room correction and bass management want an AVR. It really is this simple, and it really is nothing more than a question of product management. It is apparent that there is not a big market for stereo integrated amps (or receivers) with these two features; if there was a big market, there would be more products of this type. An inference that seems logically justified is that the majority of people who want an audio-only stereo integrated amp (or receiver) are not particularly interested in room correction or in bass management (or in a subwoofer). I'm only saying what seems self-evident to me and that I think is surely as obvious to everyone else as it is to me. As such, I regard the question as rhetorical. Everybody wants to debate a rhetorical question, the answer to which is self-evident. I have no problem with that, however I don't think that it is very genuine for so many people to be acting like there is some kind of mystery here. Anytime that anyone asks a question of the variety, "Why don't the majority consumer electronics manufacturers make thing ______?, the answer is always, "Because their marketing experts don't think there is a strong market for thing ______.
Seriously? Makes me wonder how multiplexed digital audio (Dolby 5.1) was transmitted from DVD players to AV receivers prior to the arrival of HDMI.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #92
I personally am very glad that Elon Musk disagreed with you
The planet had a brief time to breath when the Detroit car manufacturers went almost bust when low petrol consuming small cars from Japan swamp the US market back in 70s while their market experts were insisting there is no market for small cars.
Apple's experts said streaming will never take on, Spotify ignored them and ending bulldozing the mighty iTunes. Remember that?
Market experts without detailed knowledge of their product can only lead an industry to oblivion. They successfully killed the Hi-Fi industry. People now listen music from good quality kitchen radios (smart speakers) and traditional Hi-Fi manufacturers are playing catch-up. In a few years there will be no Hi-Fi manufacturer left (other than esoteric level).
Of course manufacturer's do not make products for which there is no market. You misunderstand my point.
My question, not rhetorical, is WHY two channel buyers do not want bass management/room EQ incorporated into their components, while multi-channel customers (as well as less audiophile customers for many of today's single and dual channel smart speakers) do want it. Nearly all of the integrated amps mentioned with bass management thus far are niche products with limited sales.
Perhaps today's two channel customers want simplicity, but two of the first major advocates of auto/EQ were Bose (in 2 and multi channel Lifestyle systems and Sonos. As my earlier post stated, the benefits of Bass Management/Room EQ are simple to demonstrate. In my more than 20 years on the sales floor I found effective bass management and or auto room EQ is one of the simplest concepts to sell general home AV customers, and one of the biggest product differentiators.
Not true with 2 channel. My guess is a good portion of 2 channel customers want no signal modification at all (including loudness contours). Perhaps they are of the straight line with gain persuasion. That's not objective considering the home environments the systems will be used in. I think that's strange.
ADD: to sarumbear's point, leading markets by proving useful new benefits is how you grow business. There is not a lot of market growing happening in component audio at the moment. In many ways Bose Acoustimass and Lifestyle products were analogous to Tesla 25 years ago. Traditional audiophiles (and especially consumer audio salespeople) heavily derided these products....while Acoustimass made up, for a long time, over 50% of all home speakers selling for over $500 in the U.S. Bose reps proudly stated that many of these expensive speaker systems were sold from Bose stores in outlet malls to people shopping for discounted sneakers.
Last edited:
OP
- Thread Starter
- #94
Dolby 5.1 is a compressed 2-ch signal that is transmitted via optical or SPDIF. I was talking about discrete multi-channel formats like SACD, DVD-Audio or Blu-Ray.
Last edited:
Denon engineers had been exceedingly naughty. However, maybe you can now understand why I specified "adjustable" crossover frequency. Not only your amp will fail to qualify but it also exposed the cunningly misleading marketing Denon in this case and according to you, the vast majority of the industry is involved that I was not aware of.
It seems I was the boy who was shouting "the emperor has no cloths on" and told not to be rude
I think you might me making an assumption here ... back before sophisticated bass management arrived along with room EQ, plenty of receivers had subwoofer outputs and even with a selection for the cutover point of the low-pass filter. The signal passed through the LP filter was tapped prior to the main power amp, and no filtering was applied to the signal passed through the main power amp. Thus, there was no "crossover" in the sense that you are using the word, which is the ordinary sense of the word. The assumption that I think you might be making is that if an integrated amp (or receiver) has a subwoofer output with a variable cutover point for the low-pass filter applied to that output, that the device is somehow obligated to have a crossover per se, i.e., that a complementary high-pass filter is certain to be applied to the signal delivered to the main power amplifiers. What you are assuming may well be a valid assumption. Or it might not. How do you know? Where is it written that if an integrated amplifier has a subwoofer output with LP filtering and with selectable cutover point that it necessary applies a complementary HP filter to the signal delivered to the internal power amp?
OP
- Thread Starter
- #97
In audio engineering 101 course notes!
If an integrated amplifier (that does not offer pre-power splitting connections) has no high-pass filter on its amplifier channels then a subwoofer cannot be used correctly. Because there will be no crossover to “cross over” the signal and combine the two emitters’ outputs.
Last edited:
The major reason why integrated amps back in the day is that many people wanted to insert a tape deck between the pre and main sections. Not many people do that anymore, so the feature fell by the wayside.
To my personal point of view, a useful kind of device to have is an AVR loaded with features but without the power amps. Use the features you want to use, ignore the ones you don't care about, and find comfort in the knowledge that you've got extra capabilities that will make the thing less likely to become obsolete just a few years down the road. The power amps add most of the weight since the heavy power supply is in the thing mainly for the power amps. Get rid of the power amps and you get rid of most of the heft. Then connect the line-level stereo outputs to the inputs of a decent stereo audio amplifier, and connect the subwoofer output to a subwoofer. To my way of thinking this approach is better and more pragmatic than the approach that the OP and others are propounding. The stereo-only thing that people want should be the amplifier. It isn't realistic to approach the thing the way it is being approached, i.e., a stereo amplifier with some of the advanced features of an AVR but without others. From a purely pragmatic perspective, it just doesn't make a lot of sense. From a purely pragmatic perspective, it makes a good deal more sense to look for AVR kind of thing, a processor with lots of features including room EQ and sophisticated bass management but without any built-in power amplifiers, and a separate stereo power amplifier brick-like device that has no controls other than a power switch (and possibly not even a power switch).
OP
- Thread Starter
- #99
No crossover.
I do not want to come across as rude to you, but I nevertheless want to say plainly that your premise is not the practical way to achieve what you seem to be trying to achieve. The practical solution is for you to look for a good pre-processor that has all the features you want, ignoring the features you don't want, and connect it to a decent stereo audio amplifier. You may say again that this is not what your requirements are, but you have never squared up to the question of whether your requirements are practical requirements. I would rather that in your original post, you had phrased it thus: "Are these requirements realistic? If not, why not, and what is a more realistic approach that would yield a solution with the essence of what I'm trying to achieve?"
Similar threads
