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Integrated stereo amplifier with bass-management?

MrPeabody

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... in short, Hi-Fi separates as we knew for half a century has disappeared for the mass market.

I'm not sure I agree with that. Many things have changed for sure, but I doubt if there was ever an era where you would have been able to wander into a consumer electronics retail outlet and find off-the-shelf components that would meet your very particular requirements.
 

GDK

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The NAD C-368 almost fits the bill. It has a proper HP filter, but it is not adjustable. Rather more unhelpful, is that it is set at 150Hz.
 

MrPeabody

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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.

If there were/are any subwoofers that did this (applied HP filtering to the pass-through speaker-level signal), they were/are few and far between. There may be one or two or a few that actually did this, but the norm, for a subwoofer supplied the speaker-level outputs of an amplifier and with the stereo speakers daisy-chained through the subwoofer, is for the pass-through signal to be full-range, with no filter. And the reason is pretty obvious if you think about it, because it amounts to a passive high-pass crossover filter built into a device that is not dedicated to any specific speaker. The variation in woofer impedance is the obvious difficulty.
 
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sarumbear

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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.

I said: “I am not asking advice on how to use something, or what to use. I am asking information about devices that fit a specification.”

I have not said what I want to achieve. Please don’t guess or tell me what I want is not practical. If you have suggestion to add to my list tell us.

I have so far learned the existence of various other units that satisfy my specs, hence mine is not “plainly” a wrong premise. There are manufacturers who think the premise to be valid enough to offer products.
 
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sarumbear

sarumbear

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The NAD C-368 almost fits the bill. It has a proper HP filter, but it is not adjustable. Rather more unhelpful, is that it is set at 150Hz.
The manual doesn’t suggest a high-pass filter on the power amplifiers to match the low-pass filter on the subwoofer out. Can you guide me where is that information?
 

Ron Texas

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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?"

I have given up on the OP because of his attitude. Just why he want's a particular feature set, he will not say.
 
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sarumbear

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I'm not sure I agree with that. Many things have changed for sure, but I doubt if there was ever an era where you would have been able to wander into a consumer electronics retail outlet and find off-the-shelf components that would meet your very particular requirements.
I was writing in general, not particularly about units that fit my specs. It was perfectly normal to go to a consumer retail shop and buy a stereo receiver, amplifier, turntable, etc. since 70s until a decade ago.
 
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sarumbear

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I have given up on the OP because of his attitude. Just why he want's a particular feature set, he will not say.
Because it is not relevant to this thread.
 

MrPeabody

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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).

I am going to have to take strong umbrage to that. It is not honest in the least. The comment I made was not in any way, shape or form disproven by anything that Elon Musk might have done, and I find it patently bizarre that you somehow arrived at this belief. Since you obviously have difficultly keeping your thinking on the logically straight and narrow, I will say again that (1.) the reason that the product you want is not common is that marketing departments of the large consumer electronics manufacturers do not think it will be especially popular or profitable (2.) the truth of that is not confounded or conflicted or contradicted by anything that Elon Musk ever did, and this would be true even if he had proved that every marketing decision ever made by every marketing department on the planet was a wrong decision. I said absolutely nothing in the way of defending the decisions of marketing departments. I simply said that they control these things and that the unavailability of the thing you want is directly attributable to their decisions. Hopefully this will not go over your head and you will understand why the comment you wrote above is entirely out of line and not appropriate.

I am really, really, really disgusted by the overt lack of honestly in what you wrote above. Am I not allowed to point out that marketing departments wield great power, without being unfairly accused of defending their decisions? If I were to be so bold as to say (I haven't yet) that the majority of their decisions are sound decisions undertaken with insight, will it then be fair for someone with a hit-and-run mentality to insinuate that what I was wrong as evidenced by the fact that marketing departments have been know to make mistakes? Would this really make sense to you? You complained vociferously about the way people responded to you, then you turned around and did something like this?

Share whatever opinions you have about the fallibility of marketing decisions, but please do not present it in a disingenuous way that insinuates that the mundane truth of whatever you muster disproves something that I wrote.
 

tgray

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Sonos Amp technically fits most of the bill. Amp, digital input, analog input, and streaming interface. It does have a sub output with a configurable crossover on both the sub and mains. Not very configurable - crossover frequency goes 50 to 110 Hz, phase, and level. Digital input is on HDMI, but they sell an optical to HDMI adapter that works decent.
 

MrPeabody

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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.

That's a perfectly good question. Perhaps it is the question that you were trying to ask previously.
 

MrPeabody

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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.

What John McEnroe said.
 

Ron Texas

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Because it is not relevant to this thread.

Attitude is always relevant. I suspect you don't have an application, you just want to know something. The knowledge of the members here is a resource and you are misusing it. You are wasting our time. Several around here have said you are rude, but you don't get it.
 
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sarumbear

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I am going to have to take strong umbrage to that. It is not honest in the least. The comment I made was not in any way, shape or form disproven by anything that Elon Musk might have done, and I find it patently bizarre that you somehow arrived at this belief. Since you obviously have difficultly keeping your thinking on the logically straight and narrow, I will say again that (1.) the reason that the product you want is not common is that marketing departments of the large consumer electronics manufacturers do not think it will be especially popular or profitable (2.) the truth of that is not confounded or conflicted or contradicted by anything that Elon Musk ever did, and this would be true even if he had proved that every marketing decision ever made by every marketing department on the planet was a wrong decision. I said absolutely nothing in the way of defending the decisions of marketing departments. I simply said that they control these things and that the unavailability of the thing you want is directly attributable to their decisions. Hopefully this will not go over your head and you will understand why the comment you wrote above is entirely out of line and not appropriate.

I am really, really, really disgusted by the overt lack of honestly in what you wrote above. Am I not allowed to point out that marketing departments wield great power, without being unfairly accused of defending their decisions? If I were to be so bold as to say (I haven't yet) that the majority of their decisions are sound decisions undertaken with insight, will it then be fair for someone with a hit-and-run mentality to insinuate that what I was wrong as evidenced by the fact that marketing departments have been know to make mistakes? Would this really make sense to you? You complained vociferously about the way people responded to you, then you turned around and did something like this?

Share whatever opinions you have about the fallibility of marketing decisions, but please do not present it in a disingenuous way that insinuates that the mundane truth of whatever you muster disproves something that I wrote.
I have been honest throughout. I do not have a hidden agenda. I’m asking for information. I’m sorry that you felt disgusted reading my posts. However, I believe that in a civilised society, especially in a scientific forum we should all be allowed to think differently and agree to disagree.
 
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sarumbear

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Attitude is always relevant. I suspect you don't have an application, you just want to know something. The knowledge of the members here is a resource and you are misusing it. You are wasting our time. Several around here have said you are rude, but you don't get it.
You “suspect”? How clear I have to say that is exactly what I’m trying?

Ignoring given advice when it’s not asked is not rude. Insisting that I tell why I’m asking this information, however is.
 

MrPeabody

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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.


Good grief. Now you are manufacturing reasons why reality should be what you think it should be instead of what it is. I tried to explain to you that the assumption that you have been making, that the presence of a subwoofer output absolutely means that the component with that output will apply a high-pass filter to the main stereo outputs of the power amplifier, is likely not to be a sound assumption. In response to my well-intended attempt to make you aware of this (perhaps you already were, but who knows ...) you insinuated that it logically follows, from the fact that the result will be flawed without the high-pass filters, that components with a subwoofer output will also apply high-pass filtering to the main stereo outputs. I.e., that it is reasonable for you to have made that assumption that you made because otherwise the result would be flawed. The question that now seems too obvious to overlook: Why do you think that consumer electronics equipment is never flawed?
 
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sarumbear

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sarumbear

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Actually it has an adjustable high-pass filter that can be set at 40, 80, and 120 Hz.

See the review at soundandvision for some discussion of this feature.
Thank you for your help! I wouldn’t know this if you haven’t told me as the user manual is not mentioning it.

The list of units that fit the spec is growing.
 

MrPeabody

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I have given up on the OP because of his attitude. Just why he want's a particular feature set, he will not say.

Yes, it is an unusual stance for sure. Most people would soften up and share a little bit about why they dislike what they dislike. He wants a power amp that has a very specific set of preprocessing features that are suitable for audio only. The requirements are reasonable in an idealistic sense, but we do not live in an ideal world. He doesn't want any suggestions that stray from his rigid requirements, but it is difficult for anyone who is practically minded to refrain from suggesting more realistic alternatives. I didn't have much difficulty with it, though, until he responded in a flippant way to my attempt to explain to him that an integrated amp with a subwoofer output does not necessarily apply any high-pass filtering to the main stereo (speaker level) outputs. He's got some suggestions for integrated amplifiers that might meet his requirements, but in order for him to be certain whether they do or not, for most of them he'll need to contact the manufacturers and try to get meaningful, reliable information about exactly how the "bass management" actually works. I wish him luck with that, because short of them sending him fairly detailed block diagrams of the circuitry along with meaningful, detailed descriptions of the logic implemented in the digital processors, it will be a guessing game. Maybe he'll succeed, and I genuinely hope that he does, but it won't make it easier for me not to wonder why he is averse to a good stereo power amp supplied stereo signals from a good A/V preprocessor that hasn't any power amplifiers. Whatever.
 
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