Let's share diagrams (and photos) of our total physical audio system and the whole signal path, with a few words and/or links

[Chr1]

Wow. Salon2 x6...

Think I just found my ideal surround system.
If going passive (and not including the Sphere, Las Vegas.)
OMG.
Splendid.

 

[GXAlan]

Here's a diagram of the system. SDP-75 settings were tweaked after running the Optimizer

With quad subs, does the SDP-75 work with the Waveforming firmware upgrade? Based upon initial AVSForum feedback, it sounds like it works well even in amateur hands and even with less ideal subwoofer positions.

I have three subs, so I need to add a fourth to enable waveforming.

 

[DonH56]

With quad subs, does the SDP-75 work with the Waveforming firmware upgrade? Based upon initial AVSForum feedback, it sounds like it works well even in amateur hands and even with less ideal subwoofer positions.

I have three subs, so I need to add a fourth to enable waveforming.

Don't know, like to try, but also have to deal with JBL running over a year behind SW upgrades (they were supposed to sync better with Trinnov but it hasn't happened). My subs are on the floor and symmetric in pairs so I'd probably have to move them around a bit. I barely visit AVS these days.

I spoke with a couple of Trinnov people about the approach as it is really interesting to me. I considered a sub array with beamforming approach decades ago when I was doing radar stuff, but didn't have the skills and hardware to do it at the time.

 

[AaronJ]

 

[AdamG]

Here's a diagram of the system. SDP-75 settings were tweaked after running the Optimizer but I still plan to have a professional calibrator adjust the system. It is a lot of settings, and specific to my system and room, so I am not listing them all here.

View attachment 388137

If you ever find yourself out of scotch or aged dark rum and need delivery. Just give me a text and I’ll be there with bottles in hand. That must be incredible to hear.

 

[DonH56]

View attachment 388157

If you ever find yourself out of scotch or aged dark rum and need delivery. Just give me a text and I’ll be there with bottles in hand. That must be incredible to hear.

Now that sounds like a deal!

 

[Count Arthur]

PC -> DAC -> ARC Studio -> Subwoofer -> Monitors.

Rather modest compared to dualazmak's London underground map.

 

[AdamG]

Lately I have been returning to IPhone - Qudelix 5K - Fiio FH9 IEM’s. It’s a phase but I have fallen in love with the sound and simplicity of using IEM’s.

 

[OCA]

View attachment 388156

Sansui was my dream brand when I was a kid. Very special system indeed!

 

[pseudoid]

2) Loxjie A30 zip tied to the monitor bracket.

Don't forget to replace the zip-ties every few years, some start corroding and destroy the sound!

 

[OCA]

Hello ASR friends,

It is really great and amazing to see so many interesting setup "diagrams" during only five (5) days after I started this new thread on August 19 Monday.

Even though we already have several interesting "physical setup/connection diagrams of audio gears", only a few "total signal path diagrams" were shared so far.
By "total signal path diagrams", I mean diagrams showing;
- the details of (your typical or optimal) DSP parameters (if included in your system and as far as you know!),
____including XO Fq, XO type (BW, LR, Bessel, etc.), low-side and high-side filter slopes, EQ Fq gain Q-value, fine delay on XO, invert or not at XO settings, output group delay in 0.1 msec precision, all the relative I/O gains, detailed routing, etc.
- where to control master volume,
- parameters in stereo and/or multichannel DAC (if any) including relative output gains,
- where to control relative gains among SP drivers,
- relative gain control in analog domain (if available),
- protection capacitors and/or any other protective devices (if any) for your treasure/gem SP drivers,
- parallel tuning-resistors (if any),
- normal or reverse (inverted) connection to SP driver(s),
- passive LCR network configuration (if any, and as far as you know),
- etc.

I believe such "total signal path diagrams" should be wonderful reference information not only for me but also for all the people on-board on this new thread.

Just for example, I believe the Fig.03, Fig.11 and Fig.12 in my very first post are showing almost all of these for your at-a-glance understandings. Please allow me pasting the three diagrams again here as follows;
View attachment 388051

View attachment 388052

View attachment 388053

You would please take your enough time and a little effort on preparation of similar "total signal path diagram(s)" to be shared on this exciting thread.
And, please let me also repeat this again;
I (we) do not always expect beautifully prepared/drawn diagrams and/or photos; even hand-written/hand-drawn rough sketch diagrams should work well in the perspectives of this new thread.

Why are using 12dB/oct Linkwitz Riley for both lpf and hpf between all drivers. AFAIK, HPF should be Butterworth 12 complementing high drivers natural 12db/oct roll off oppposed by a LPF LR 24 in the low driver.

 

[Matt_Holland]

Thanks a lot!

I prefer quality over quantity, so I usually listen at about 75 dB on average.

It's challenging to take good pictures of my setup and room, but I do have a couple of drawings showing the overall layout.

I'll definitely look into drawing up the whole signal path as you did in your post.


View attachment 387734


View attachment 387735

Wow, three spaced centre speakers. That’s pretty wild. What is the reason for this config and how does it perform?

 

[StigErik]

Wow, three spaced centre speakers. That’s pretty wild. What is the reason for this config and how does it perform?

It's one 4-way speaker actually, devided in three separate baffles.

 

[pseudoid]

Hi again, @dualazmak,
It is so good to know that there are more OCD peeps than I.
My OCD is primarily caused by visible cable-phobia.
Until 1983, I was blessed to live a life w/o a television and avoided being trapped in a room with a TV being on.
Co-habitation is an 'art of negotiations'; thus, the decision between the dog-house or the TV was an easy one to acquiesce to.
But marrying my audio equipment to the %^&* Video/TV became like a shotgun wedding for me!
The biggest/baddest CRT, at the time was a 30" Panasonic TV ('flat' screen). So, I spent a few thousand on an oak entertainment-center (w/doors) to 'barely' hide that TV in.
...TL&DR << circa 2011/02/07:

There were many different re-iterations, replacements, and finally settling on a Rotel Pre/Proc (multi-channel AV) as the central controller.
TL&DR: << skip to 2024/08, I just started this Visio to visualize current hardware I/O assets before wiring diagrams, etc.:

Just yesterday and before realizing this thread, I decided that I will be purging all my "AV" gear and will be going back to pure 2-channel starting with the above mini-system.
Notice that there will be ONLY one single HDMI connection in this system when I am finished figuring out what goes where in the other parts of the house (3 PCs, NAS, etc).

 

[Multicore]

Here's a diagram of the system. SDP-75 settings were tweaked after running the Optimizer but I still plan to have a professional calibrator adjust the system. It is a lot of settings, and specific to my system and room, so I am not listing them all here.

This was the previous post with room diagrams and pictures: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-words-and-or-links.56410/page-2#post-2060959

View attachment 388137

Oh man! I wish I had one of those Harmony remotes.

 

[Multicore]

Lately I have been returning to IPhone - Qudelix 5K - Fiio FH9 IEM’s. It’s a phase but I have fallen in love with the sound and simplicity of using IEM’s.

When I was a student and moving around a lot with my stereo as it was and a record collection then my dad remarked that he thought it would make more sense to invest in a decent pair of headphones.

 

[Steve Dallas]

Oh man! I wish I had one of those Harmony remotes.

I have 3 and I guard them as if they were the Crown Jewels. Since they were discontinued several years ago, I wish I had purchased 10 of them for future use. They are truly excellent.

 

[dualazmak]

PC -> DAC -> ARC Studio -> Subwoofer -> Monitors.

Rather modest compared to dualazmak's London underground map.

View attachment 388159

If you would carefully look at and study my diagrams, you will find that my system is not so complicated at all (much simpler than London and/or Tokyo subway network), but rather straightforward based on the very "conventional concept and practice" in DSP-based multichannel multi-SP-Driver multi-amplifier fully active stereo audio system which completely eliminating passive LCR network and achieving much improved total sound quality...

 

[AudioJester]

If you would carefully look at and study my diagrams, you will find that my system is not so complicated at all (much simpler than London and/or Tokyo subway network), but rather straightforward based on the very "conventional concept and practice" in DSP-based multichannel multi-SP-Driver multi-amplifier fully active stereo audio system which completely eliminating passive LCR network and achieving much improved total sound quality...

Maybe we needto change your name to "Neo"

 

[dualazmak]

Why are using 12dB/oct Linkwitz Riley for both lpf and hpf between all drivers. AFAIK, HPF should be Butterworth 12 complementing high drivers natural 12db/oct roll off oppposed by a LPF LR 24 in the low driver.

You are focusing on very good point, and this is a nice question which I have been well expecting to have!
To give proper answers and explanations, I need to touch on my personal "historical background and policy" for my present multichannel project.

Hereinafter, WO = woofer, SQ = squawker midrange, TW = tweeter, ST = super-tweeter, SW = sub-woofer

Far back in the summer of 1983, I purchased brand new YAMAHA NS-1000 (not NS-1000M) and LUXMAN L-530 amplifier, together with TT DENON DP57L plus MC DL-301 Mark II. Soon after, I added CD player TRIO DP-1100, and later-on I replaced it with large-heavy DENON DCD-3500RG.

The nice LUXMAN L-530 was replaced by ACCUPHASE E-460 in 2011, and OPPO SONICA DAC was purchased in 2017, then OKTO DAC8PRO came to my listening room in 2020.

In my present multichannel audio project, I have been strictly restricting myself sticking and limiting to the utilization of the three YAMAHA NS-1000 SP drivers, i.e. 30 cm cone woofer JA3058, 8.8 cm Beryllium-dome midrange JA-0801 (still one of the best midranges ever produced, I believe), 3 cm Beryllium-dome tweeter JA-0513, all installed on the heavy-ridged NS-1000 sealed cabinet, together with the outer added L&R sub-woofer YAMAHA YST-SW1000 and L&R super-tweeter FOSTEX T925A.

The "To limit within physical utilization of the specific SP drivers in the sealed cabinet" is a kind of my "policy" in my present audio project; in case if I would start to use new/different SP drivers and cabinet(s), I should start my new separate project thread.

Consequently, until July in 2019, I have been very much enjoying listening to CDs (and their ripped non-compressed aiff library) and LPs using single stereo amplifier (first LUXMAN L-530, later ACCUPHASE E-460) driving NS-1000 with its own passive LCR-network inside the cabinet.

Then, in July 2019, I fully renovated NS-1000; all the LC network was removed and the two attenuators were bypassed for not in use. I added two stereo SP terminals so that WO, SQ and TW are now directly connected to SP cables. I built outer LC+attenuator box with brand new coils, capacitors and three new attenuators (for SQ, TW and ST) (ref. #5).

This renovation was really very much effective in improving the total sound quality even though still driven by single-DAC + single-amp. I was again very much impressed by the total design and capabilities of my rather old NS-1000 and its SP units, WO, Be-SQ and Be-TW; they are still very very nice, and should be top ranked even now, I believe (Be=Beryllium).

In October 2019, I started to consider that these WO, Be-SQ and Be-TW should sound much more efficiently with "much better sound quality" if all of the "LC coils, capacitors and especially attenuators" would be removed/eliminated so that they would be directly connected to each of the three dedicated amplifiers; yes multi-channel, multi-amplifier system.

I knew several people were/are working on such multi-amp project with NS-1000 and NS-1000M, but almost all of them are using digital crossover hardware (like DBX VENU360) in analog line level, i.e. they actually need processing of "PC --> DAC --> Pre-Amp --> [AD (again!) -->crossover processing --> DA (again!)] --> amps -->SP units".

As you may fully agree, I really would like to avoid multiple DA-AD-DA processes, and started to search and investigate software crossover solutions which directly receive digital signal from JRiver, Roon, etc. inside the same PC, and send the multiple channels into multiple DACs. I encountered, however, the synchronization issue between the multiple DACs.

In early 2020, I was very much excited about the news of DAC8PRO from OKTO RESEARCH and its really wonderful specs and capabilities as fully reviewed by @amirm in this ASR Forum in March 2019 and thereafter;
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...d-measurements-of-okto-dac8-8ch-dac-amp.7064/
DAC8PRO is 8-channel DAC using single DAC tip ES9028PRO (so essentially no sync issue!) with wonderful specs just perfect fit for my project of stereo 5-way 10-channel together with my active sub-woofers YAMAHA YST-SW1000.

As you may well aware, for DSP (XO) software, I decided to use "EKIO" for many reasons and rationales which I dare not going into detail in this post.

EKIO uses IIR filters, and it has nicely designed GUI for safe and flexible control; we can use mouse wheel for up-down of all the numeric parameters. The processing is done using a cascade of second order transposed direct form II biquad sections. Every calculation is done using 64 bit floating point numbers. EKIO gives no pre-ringing nor post-ringing issue at least in my use-case/configuration (ref. #140, #142, #143).

After making my NS-1000 into fully active wiring setup (fully eliminating LCR-network and attenuators thereof) and introduction of DSP "EKIO" and OKTO DAC8PRO (came to my hand on May 10, 2020), my initial, mainly subjective, intensive evaluations were comparative listening tests between the preserved single amp (ACCUPHASE E-460) plus passive (with LCR network in outer box) reference setup and the DSP-XOed multichannel multi-amplifier setups.

I have been testing various DSP-XO configurations very intensively in almost over 1-year period, even though I did not always share the details of the "long story" on my project thread. My overall conclusion, however, was that "I could/can well simulate YAMAHA's amazing passive LCR-network design by DSP EKIO's XO configuration using similar rather mild Linkwitz-Riley filters at 500 Hz and 6,000 Hz with -12dB/Oct slopes all the way, of course very much specific for the YAMAHA SP drivers and the NS-1000 cabinet" which enables "much improved total sound quality mainly due to complete elimination of LCR-network and attenuators". Of course, I have tested so many DSP-XO configurations using other type of filters, various slopes, and at various XO Fq, etc., etc.

Consequently, going back to your specific inquiry, my present optimal DSP configuration (especially your point of the filter type and slope), is quite unique and specific to my present SP drivers and cabinet (and highly possibly also unique to my acoustic environment); I have no intention at all to generalize my present DSP configuration to other (other people's) SP system. Nevertheless, such sharing of my detailed "total signal path diagram" would be invaluable "reference" for many ASR friends on-board on this thread, I believe.

By the way, a famous sound engineer @Igor Kirkwood kindly joined on my project thread sharing his unique DSP setup for his YAMAHA NS-1000x (ref. #179-#189). He is also hosting his own thread on his amazing multichannel setup with YAMAHA NS-1000x showing various wonderful "diagrams".

Edit to add:
You would please also focus your eyes on the 22 Ohm parallel tuning resistors in the SP high-level circuit for midrange, tweeter, and super-tweeter which are just forcing each of the amplifiers a slight extra workload (ref. #248, #251, #99remote thread, #100remote thread, #101remote thread).

Furthermore, I completely eliminate any magnetic susceptible (magnetizable) metal, such as screws, Y-lugs, metal plate on terminal straps, etc. in SP high-level signal wiring and connectors thereof; please refer to my post #4, #250 and posts #013(remote thread), #023(remote thread) and here #9(remote thread).

Spoiler

In my post #931, I wrote;
I once have tested “Multi-Terminal Electromagnetic Relay” and “Multi-Terminal Snap-Toggle Switch” for this purpose (i.e. switching the wires between passive and active SP modes), but I found they gave some “uncleanliness and/or distortions” to the total sound. Consequently, I believe that the “physical screw-up cabling connections” like in these SP cabling boards should be the best way to go with. I carefully and completely eliminated, therefore, any magnetic susceptible (magnetizable) metal, such as screws, Y-lugs, metal plate on terminal straps, etc. in SP high-level signal wiring; please refer to my post #4, #250 and posts #013(remote thread), #023(remote thread) and here #9(remote thread).

You would please be reminded "the typical issue case" in this regard (even with no relation at all to my project thread) happened with first version of BUCKEYE 3 Channel Purifi Amplifier in which measurable (and I think audible) distortion was caused by iron (steel) plates at the SP binding posts, then BUCKEYE quickly and nicely replaced the parts with brass plates by a kind of recall announcement; please refer to the specific thread on that amplifier, amirm’s first review pointing the issue, as well as his second preferrable review on the fixed/revised amplifier.

Furthermore, in my post #9 on a remote thread "Ferromagnetic materials in audio connectors", I also wrote as follows;
If you take a look inside some rather high-end HiFi amplifiers, you'll see that the SP output wiring (and power wiring?) uses non-magnetic terminals and screws made of brass (no iron at all) or pure copper. However, this is also a common-sense measure to prevent sound quality deterioration in HiFi amplifiers. I remember it being pointed out and explained in interviews with a Yamaha amplifier designer and a Rotel engineer. It is frustrating when working with magnetized screwdrivers (screwdrivers) because you can't catch the screws, though. Yamaha's and Rotel's amplifier designers had a hard time persuading the assembly workers at the amplifier factories, but in the end, they convinced them to use non-magnetic terminals and screws, giving priority to sound quality; I've also heard that the screwdriver, which uses a chuck to fix screws and bolts to the tip, was devised so that it could be used in factories. In my DIY audio setup, I have the same thing; I strictly/completely eliminate/avoid any magnetizable metal/screw in my SP cabling/connecting.