skankhobag
Active Member
- Joined
- Sep 1, 2025
- Messages
- 138
- Likes
- 205
Just followed a link to the Klippel site and did some reading on their new tech, Klippel Controlled Sound.
It’s for integrated speaker systems like smart speakers, smart phones, internal computer & TV speakers, etc. It also mentions that it can be used in studio monitors and PA speakers so we’re talking any speaker that can incorporate DSP.
It seems geared toward woofers so it’s similar to servo systems used for subs, but it uses a feed-forward system rather than the feedback system of servos. It also reduces distortion at much higher frequencies than a servo system.
The speaker being controlled has to be analyzed so their algorithm can then act upon it by monitoring the music and mixing in a correction audio signal to it. There is no special wiring. It covers distortion, excursion, amplifier power and much more.
The other aspect is that it does monitor the signal coming back from the speaker driver and uses that keep it operating at its ideal specifications even as it ages.
It’s pretty heady stuff.
There were a few very dry, lab videos showing the system at work. The one where they demonstrate a 6” woofer being abused by 22Hz & 440 Hz sine tones is amazing. That poor little driver was as close as you can get to destroying it without it exploding.
The distortion was so high and so bad that I could easily hear it through the speakers on my phone. They also showed it on a RTA.
Switching in the system reduced both the THD and IMD by 20dB!
Think about that: you can drive a speaker to its maximum level with vanishingly low distortion and never burn it out.
Bottom line: this tech is going to do to passive speakers and dumb power amps what the passenger jet did to transcontinental ocean travel.
I guess there will be some speaker manufacturers that have passive mid/tweeter sections for the dimwitted, don’t be surprised if all of the best speakers are fully active in 10 to 15 years.
25 years ago, I was producing and mixing a demo project for a couple singers. I was using Paradigm actives (LCR-450’s/Servo 15 subs). The system ran me around $4k and was specced +/-1dB, 20-20k.
The artists wanted to know how good my system was so I took them to HiFi House and played my mixes on Meridian active DSP8000’s (at that time, around $47k and also ruler flat).
Both systems being almost perfectly flat in FR, they sounded almost identical with two exceptions:
• My room sounded better because it was larger and had better acoustic treatment.
• At true concert level (towards 110dB), the mains in my system started to run out of power and sounded a little harsh as the protection circuits kicked in. The DSP8000’s sounded just fine at that level. They were cruising.
At any sane volume, there was almost no perceptible difference between the two. We listened to their 5 songs for about 4 hours (my place/HiFi House/my place again) and everyone reached that same conclusion.
Where these serious review sessions? No, but I needed to school the clients that my system was virtually as good as actives that were 11 times the price.
That day showed me how fantastic active speakers can be. I continue to be somewhat amazed that passive speakers are still so revered in HiFi circles. It just doesn’t make any sense given that passives are obsolete as main studio monitors, but that’s a whole other subject.
Seeing what KCS can do, I can now foresee a day when speakers of every kind will be active.
It’s for integrated speaker systems like smart speakers, smart phones, internal computer & TV speakers, etc. It also mentions that it can be used in studio monitors and PA speakers so we’re talking any speaker that can incorporate DSP.
It seems geared toward woofers so it’s similar to servo systems used for subs, but it uses a feed-forward system rather than the feedback system of servos. It also reduces distortion at much higher frequencies than a servo system.
The speaker being controlled has to be analyzed so their algorithm can then act upon it by monitoring the music and mixing in a correction audio signal to it. There is no special wiring. It covers distortion, excursion, amplifier power and much more.
The other aspect is that it does monitor the signal coming back from the speaker driver and uses that keep it operating at its ideal specifications even as it ages.
It’s pretty heady stuff.
There were a few very dry, lab videos showing the system at work. The one where they demonstrate a 6” woofer being abused by 22Hz & 440 Hz sine tones is amazing. That poor little driver was as close as you can get to destroying it without it exploding.
The distortion was so high and so bad that I could easily hear it through the speakers on my phone. They also showed it on a RTA.
Switching in the system reduced both the THD and IMD by 20dB!
Think about that: you can drive a speaker to its maximum level with vanishingly low distortion and never burn it out.
Bottom line: this tech is going to do to passive speakers and dumb power amps what the passenger jet did to transcontinental ocean travel.
I guess there will be some speaker manufacturers that have passive mid/tweeter sections for the dimwitted, don’t be surprised if all of the best speakers are fully active in 10 to 15 years.
25 years ago, I was producing and mixing a demo project for a couple singers. I was using Paradigm actives (LCR-450’s/Servo 15 subs). The system ran me around $4k and was specced +/-1dB, 20-20k.
The artists wanted to know how good my system was so I took them to HiFi House and played my mixes on Meridian active DSP8000’s (at that time, around $47k and also ruler flat).
Both systems being almost perfectly flat in FR, they sounded almost identical with two exceptions:
• My room sounded better because it was larger and had better acoustic treatment.
• At true concert level (towards 110dB), the mains in my system started to run out of power and sounded a little harsh as the protection circuits kicked in. The DSP8000’s sounded just fine at that level. They were cruising.
At any sane volume, there was almost no perceptible difference between the two. We listened to their 5 songs for about 4 hours (my place/HiFi House/my place again) and everyone reached that same conclusion.
Where these serious review sessions? No, but I needed to school the clients that my system was virtually as good as actives that were 11 times the price.
That day showed me how fantastic active speakers can be. I continue to be somewhat amazed that passive speakers are still so revered in HiFi circles. It just doesn’t make any sense given that passives are obsolete as main studio monitors, but that’s a whole other subject.
Seeing what KCS can do, I can now foresee a day when speakers of every kind will be active.
