When I hear directional bass, I get worried right away as I have been hearing this for years. Now, I would be really interested in what you had in mind. Sound interesting.
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miniDSP Tide16 - Holy Grail with 16 Channel Atmos/DTS:X, high SINAD
I probably used the wrong wording when I said directional bass. I don’t mean stereo bass / trying to localize low frequencies.
What I had in mind is closer to what Dirac describes in their ART documentation and what Trinnov talks about with WaveForming: adjusting how different subs support different mains so you can influence how the room is energized.
ART actually exposes this as support range and support level between channel groups, and they explicitly warn that pushing it too far trades off some of the global optimization. What I have in my mind is experimenting with routing and timing to see if the room behaves more appropriately.
A well integrated mono summed subwoofer array is probably better but this is more about having the tools to explore how the room reacts.
What I had in mind is closer to what Dirac describes in their ART documentation and what Trinnov talks about with WaveForming: adjusting how different subs support different mains so you can influence how the room is energized.
ART actually exposes this as support range and support level between channel groups, and they explicitly warn that pushing it too far trades off some of the global optimization. What I have in my mind is experimenting with routing and timing to see if the room behaves more appropriately.
A well integrated mono summed subwoofer array is probably better but this is more about having the tools to explore how the room reacts.
You might have used the right word, and at the right time. Speaking out of stereo as well as not really my primary interest right now.
There are discussions in the ART thread around this topic. No conclusions as it seems though. IMO, ART is very smartly distributing the bass load and seems to be preferring the sub group up to 80hz, even though there might be available and capable support from the bed towers. This might be just my experience with ART that has 4 solid subs and 8 solid bed channels to choose from. Might work differently in other rooms/systems.
I have never had a better directivity in the bass area before. ART is taking it to a different level. We all seem to agree that below 80hz bass sound wave is not directional, so what ART does is leaves the clues in the range above that to provide directivity when called for. In the multi-channel world directivity is when there is actually something coded in the particular channel. Without the coding, it's really nothing to experience.
Active Room Treatment (ART) by Dirac
It depends on you system i would say. I have more or less all out active system and to ad active crossovers and amps is done in a jiffy With it i also have peq and rephase capabilities. It is not that i need more low end, but more low end will let ART have more to work with. As is, surrounds...
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One thing I’ve noticed is I get much more punch in the bass if I limit my center and surround to support above 80hz and only use the subs and large main below that. All are set at -18db default. I guess the explanation may be that below 80hz the more capable speakers are doing precisely what ART expects while the more limited smaller speakers are compressing a bit.You might have used the right word, and at the right time. Speaking out of stereo as well as not really my primary interest right now.
There are discussions in the ART thread around this topic. No conclusions as it seems though. IMO, ART is very smartly distributing the bass load and seems to be preferring the sub group up to 80hz, even though there might be available and capable support from the bed towers. This might be just my experience with ART that has 4 solid subs and 8 solid bed channels to choose from. Might work differently in other rooms/systems.
I have never had a better directivity in the bass area before. ART is taking it to a different level. We all seem to agree that below 80hz bass sound wave is not directional, so what ART does is leaves the clues in the range above that to provide directivity when called for. In the multi-channel world directivity is when there is actually something coded in the particular channel. Without the coding, it's really nothing to experience.
Active Room Treatment (ART) by Dirac
It depends on you system i would say. I have more or less all out active system and to ad active crossovers and amps is done in a jiffy With it i also have peq and rephase capabilities. It is not that i need more low end, but more low end will let ART have more to work with. As is, surrounds...
I'll start by responding to your comment before I address your question.
This is essentially what the Tide 16, Marantz AV10-30, Anthem AVM70/90, Hyperion APR-16 or any other AVPs do but without resorting to Dante/AES67 but in some cases using analog volume control. They all include multichannel DACs with XLR balanced pre outs. Adding Dante/AES67 as a digital input source to a multichannell DAC with balanced pre outs doesn't change anything over using an AVP that has multichannell DACs with balancex pre outs. You're just moving the DACs around into another external box. In the context of home theater, the HDMI inputs are much more useful and the the facto standard.
The reason why one may want to add Dante/AES67 into an existing speaker is the same reason that Dante speakers have been developed and exist. The crossover network is a very important component and a key contributor towards a speaker's sound quality. Everybody here knows this. My speakers for instance, while having good quality Scanspeak drivers are known for having a less than optimal crossover network. The design of a well performing crossover network to integrate the varying characteristics of each driver and their interactions inside the cabinet is not a trivial matter. You can take the best drivers, put them in a well designed cabinet and add a poorly designed crossover network and your speaker will end up sounding... well poorly.
An advantage of adding Dante to the speaker is keeping the signal digital in order to implement the crossover in the digital domain inside a DSP. This allows the designer to better integrate the different drivers in order go greatly reduce the spikes and dips and achieve a smoother, more linear response. Other DSP crossover advantages compared to traditional passive crossovers include no insertion loss, no power wasted as heat in resistors, and no added distortion from large inductors/capacitors interacting with driver impedance contributing to lower distortion and cleaner sound with tighter bass and better transient response. Another advantage is perfect time and phase alignment, something very difficult or impossible to achieve with passive crossovers, which improves imaging, coherence, and transient accuracy. There are a handful more of advantages of implementing the crossover design with a DSP but I'll stop here as my reply is getting too long.
As for disadvantages, like I said in my previous post, they're cost related with DAC/amplifier modules required for each driver. But as Amir's tests have revealed, you can get totally transparent DACs for about $100 and some excellent small amplifiers that are quite affordable. Then again, I wouldn't necessarily implement the Dante/AES67 strategy on all speakers, concentrating primarily on the L-C-R channels. For the surrounds and others channels, to keep the cost from escalating too high, I would be contempt with balanced analog outputs and if the processor only had Dante outputs, then sure, if a mutichannel DAC with a Dante input was available, that coul be used to feed the other channels.
Before the Dante/AES67 interfaces were developped, a handful of companies like Meridian produced active speakers with DSP crossovers, where the digital signal was fed into the speaker through coaxial S/PDIF. Today there are other many other companies selling active speakers with DSP crossovers that have various digital or wireless input interfaces, look at Kef for instance.
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monsterlag
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Mother of God Tarrifs…
Looks like I am not upgrading from my lowly Denon X3700H till this administration is done.
welwynnick
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I've been meaning to reply all along. I think there has been a lot of interest in the DPR-16, though some of it has been in this thread:
Possible solution for DTS/Dolby/Atmos+eARC+HDCP to AES/EBU - via Dante? (for Okto DAC8PRO etc)
This is more or less what I am after too. All I need is a simple eARC to 12 channel (7.1.4 setup) converter / sound processor (after all the downmixing/upmixing/no-mixing). All digital and no analog in or outs. It's hard to find a single device that has 12 output ports (either Dante or ABS/EBU)...
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Yes the $4895 price on a $3500 MSRP is high. Adding the 25% tariff sets the price at $4395. I’m not sure what you gain by paying another $500 plus shipping.
I’m 75/25 leaning towards the Marantz AV20. I’ll wait until after Axpona though. Hopefully they will have both there so I can check it out in person.
It’d be more like $400 more once all the random processing fees are added on However what that is buying you is the ability to return it to the importer for warranty service rather than you having to pay to return it to Hong Kong and do all the customs paperwork and pay any fees to do so.
lol you must be like me in that regard. I guess we were absent when they were assigning elven ears.
Makes sense. Everyone has different standards. As long as that Denon is good enough for you, it’s all that matters.
Marantz is definitely going to be there so hopefully they’ll have something. I’d like to hear the sound quality with 2 channel music.
Keith_W
Master Contributor
I’m also trying to decide between Dirac based system with a Tide16, APR16 or AV10/20, or Trinnov, or a more bespoke system using Audiolense, Room Shaper, etc. I’m impressed with the 2 channel sound quality using a Denon 4800h with ART. It took a bit of tuning but now that it’s more dialed in, it sounds great. Bass outperforms what I had earlier with 60,000 tap Audiolense convolution running on Roon, TAD R1s and RME DAC, no subs. TADs have plenty of very low distortion bass down to 20hz, but physics is what it is and adding a double bass array managed by ART makes a huge difference dealing with the room modes.
Hopefully ASR will review these choices.
You have me looking at the TAD R1 lol. Seems like it would be a solid upgrade from the salon2 and would be an end game, end game speaker. I purposely said end game twice (2x) because I thought my salons were end game (1x).
I’m very curious to see what ART will do to improve my bass because with my current setup using the dual Gothams and salon2 w the CR-1 active crossover, I don’t see how much better it can get. Also, this is just a little better than the salon2 by themselves for reference (your results are different). The bass with just the salons for 2 channel music is more than enough for most of the music out there. And again, using the salons w subs, the bass with anything and everything sound almost perfect. Super tight and dynamic. Small relative difference though.
The R1s are really great, but if I had to do it over again I’d buy the TAD CR1. That’s Andrew Jones favorite speaker. I don’t think much has happened at TAD since Andrew left, so if you can get a used pair at a good price, these are the ones to buy. I’m letting my R1 go down to 40hz, just above where the port starts to make a big contribution. With the CR1 you can go to 80hz without problems. The real magic in these is the beryllium coax that these two speakers share. It’s crossover is at 250hz. ART does a great job integrating the TADs with my Perlisten subs. I would think it would work equally well in your case with Salons and Gotham.
So the difference here is that you are comparing your R1 standalone vs R1 + Perlisten subs with ART. Whereas I have the mains + sub already integrated for music. I’m understanding this a little better now.
My setting for the JL CR-1 has the low-pass at 80Hz and high-pass at 50Hz. The high pass when set above 50Hz, starts to lose the midbass punch.
The R1 with the beryllium tweeter and the beryllium midrange does seem like it would sound amazing. I’m not a fan of bookshelf speakers but yes I agree that getting the CR1 would make better use of my subs. But I like the the look of the R1 a lot more.
Yes there is no telling how much it’ll improve my system. I’m thinking not that much especially for 2 channel music. It’s hard to improve on this fine tuned setup I have over here lol.
I also like to see and touch before I buy things. I’m not from the buy sight unseen internet purchase era.
