PhilofCas
pfm Member
What did he think Keith?
Active speakers - Kii Audio, Dutch & Dutch...
- Thread starter ste71
- Start date
Purité Audio
Trade: Purite Audio
To be honest I think he left more confused than when he arrived.
Keith
Keith
I saw a thread a couple of years ago where a dealer had sold a pair of massive speakers that were shoehorned tight into corners and we're driven by a system that should have been a lot better as the speakers were over 50k. Surprise surprise it didn't work that well. The answer was to sell the customer some 6k room correction, madness. Don't sell the customer speakers that are unsuitable for his room and system. Profit over common sense and looking after the customer properly.
Space is the Place
pfm Member
You could have saved a bit time here and just shown him some graphs instead!
Sorry Keith couldn't help myself
J
Purité Audio
Trade: Purite Audio
Yes I remember that expensive passive PMCs with no form of adjustment, dealer really should have expected room mode issues, fixed the problem as you say with external room correction.
Keith
Purité Audio
Trade: Purite Audio
I did, but he insisted on hearing them!You could have saved a bit time here and just shown him some graphs instead!
Sorry Keith couldn't help myself
Keith
iansr
pfm Member
You have MBL’s yes? The MBL Extremes play in the same league as the Olympians and they are a bit cheaper. Only €200k as I recall. Then there are those Bayz omnidirectionals which are equally fabtastic.Other choices are available
Sorry, I’m going OT. Back in the real world, if I was starting from scratch I’d certainly be going active. In another year or so something revolutionary is going to appear from New Zealand . . . .
camverton
pfm Member
Perhaps you could have locked him in a room wallpapered with your REW measurements for an hour before blindfolding him and leading him into your dem room.
John Phillips
pfm Member
I think there are two issues that could helpfully be discussed separately: active vs passive and equalization or not.
However the elephant in the room is the quality of the drivers and the enclosure. If quality lacks at the foundation of the loudspeaker then IMHO these two issues are moot. I would always look for evidence of foundational quality in a loudspeaker before making the effort to audition it and before looking at other matters.
Dealing for now only with active vs passive (I will make some comments later about my view on equalization).
I have heard active and passive versions of ATC's SCM40 and SCM50. The passives driven by both Chord amplifiers and by ATC's own. The active/passive audible differences were not "night and day" to my ears (although I finally chose to go active). It was the characteristics of the drive units and the enclosure that dominated for most of the music I heard.
For context, the audible difference between loudspeakers from different manufacturers and their different design philosophies are greater to me than the difference between active and passive within one manufacturer. So foundational quality and design philosophy drove my choice more than active versus passive. I do have my own views on the differences and I think active is better (to gloss over a lot of detail) but my experience is that if well engineered both approaches work well.
As in the OPs case, I was mindful about the number of boxes in the system and keeping it at a minimum. Very non-audiophile I know but very relevant to some. I was also mindful about issues such as the degree of functional integration versus long-term maintainability (since I don't swap boxes often), and the likely later addition of new functions which could increase the box count again.
However the elephant in the room is the quality of the drivers and the enclosure. If quality lacks at the foundation of the loudspeaker then IMHO these two issues are moot. I would always look for evidence of foundational quality in a loudspeaker before making the effort to audition it and before looking at other matters.
Dealing for now only with active vs passive (I will make some comments later about my view on equalization).
I have heard active and passive versions of ATC's SCM40 and SCM50. The passives driven by both Chord amplifiers and by ATC's own. The active/passive audible differences were not "night and day" to my ears (although I finally chose to go active). It was the characteristics of the drive units and the enclosure that dominated for most of the music I heard.
For context, the audible difference between loudspeakers from different manufacturers and their different design philosophies are greater to me than the difference between active and passive within one manufacturer. So foundational quality and design philosophy drove my choice more than active versus passive. I do have my own views on the differences and I think active is better (to gloss over a lot of detail) but my experience is that if well engineered both approaches work well.
As in the OPs case, I was mindful about the number of boxes in the system and keeping it at a minimum. Very non-audiophile I know but very relevant to some. I was also mindful about issues such as the degree of functional integration versus long-term maintainability (since I don't swap boxes often), and the likely later addition of new functions which could increase the box count again.
Purité Audio
Trade: Purite Audio
Couldn’t find any measurements for the Pinocchios but Hi_Fi News just reviewed these £80k Avantgarde’s.I’m with you on what you want your system to deliver. The good news is that there are speakers that are so realistic that it’s spine tingling. The bad news is that they are called Vox Olympians . . . .
https://www.hifinews.com/content/avantgarde-duo-primo-xd-loudspeaker-lab-report
Keith
John Phillips
pfm Member
I made comments earlier about active versus passive. On equalization vs not I have less listening experience. I have heard (but not extensively) Kii THREE + BXT (not Kii THREE alone) and D&D 8c both of which I though were good.
If you read the loudspeaker literature you will find that the human ear/brain system adapts to a room when it knows what it is listening to. There are certainly peaks and troughs in my room/loudspeaker response but experience suggests that with careful loudspeaker positioning "flat enough" exists for me without equalization. YMMV for sure and I am certain that equalization (either built-in to the loudspeaker or separate) would make getting there easier to achieve and in a more difficult room might well be essential.
Equalization is a very useful tool but I think, as with almost everything in loudspeaker design, it may come with a price. If you do any form of boost or cancellation I think you will always be using up some part of a drive unit's high-level dynamic range. Even if you just cut peaks the user will turn up the volume to compensate.
My experience is that the drive units in smallish domestic loudspeakers are typically marginal (or worse) on high SPL capability at low distortion. They can sound uneasy to me at even moderate average listening levels if peak levels go too high. Keith Howard wrote a HiFi News article about this a short while ago which very much mirrors my own experience. And reviews of some active and equalized domestic loudspeakers have shown concerning levels of distortion at low frequencies and very moderate listening levels.
So my view is that you have to insist on the best quality drivers if you apply equalization. And that applying equalization thoughtfully, in moderation to achieve good enough rather than completely flat, is the best approach to avoid taking away from clean peak loudness capability.
If you read the loudspeaker literature you will find that the human ear/brain system adapts to a room when it knows what it is listening to. There are certainly peaks and troughs in my room/loudspeaker response but experience suggests that with careful loudspeaker positioning "flat enough" exists for me without equalization. YMMV for sure and I am certain that equalization (either built-in to the loudspeaker or separate) would make getting there easier to achieve and in a more difficult room might well be essential.
Equalization is a very useful tool but I think, as with almost everything in loudspeaker design, it may come with a price. If you do any form of boost or cancellation I think you will always be using up some part of a drive unit's high-level dynamic range. Even if you just cut peaks the user will turn up the volume to compensate.
My experience is that the drive units in smallish domestic loudspeakers are typically marginal (or worse) on high SPL capability at low distortion. They can sound uneasy to me at even moderate average listening levels if peak levels go too high. Keith Howard wrote a HiFi News article about this a short while ago which very much mirrors my own experience. And reviews of some active and equalized domestic loudspeakers have shown concerning levels of distortion at low frequencies and very moderate listening levels.
So my view is that you have to insist on the best quality drivers if you apply equalization. And that applying equalization thoughtfully, in moderation to achieve good enough rather than completely flat, is the best approach to avoid taking away from clean peak loudness capability.
Mr Underhill
pfm Member
Hi Ste,
Sounds sensible and reasonable to me.
On a side note: I recently moved to SBLs, after my cats killed my Focals. I am blown away by how good they are, they work excellently in my Victorian semi. Such is my admiration that I had the drive units renewed and bought a pair of Avondale XOs, I now feel I am set and see these as my last speakers. Of course this is within the context of the rest of my system, but I won't distract your thread.
Look forward to your thoughts following any demos.
M
sunbeamgls
pfm Member
Have you had the chance to hear Gidders' with Linn Exakt?
Purité Audio
Trade: Purite Audio
Do you have a REW plot of your room?
If your room is large and your speakers bass extension is moderate you may not suffer from room mode based reinforcements , traditionally if your speakers ‘boomed’ you bought a smaller pair with less extension.
If you only ‘EQ’ the minimal phase sections of the FR, you can create a perfect inversion with no delay .
Simply reducing the bass reinforcement down to where it should be, this is completely transparent.
Keith
Not disagreeing with the general theme of your post but am confused by one thing.
You said that by cutting peaks, you drive the speaker harder to compensate and hence you might get driver distortion in poorly engineered speakers.
I don't understand that. If you cut peaks you then ask your preamp/poweramp to do more work to produce the same spl, you're not actually listening to louder music.
So isn't it your pre/power that needs to have the appropriate amount of headroom to cope without producing distortion and not the speaker?
Thanks
Roger Adams
pfm Member
I've heard them yes! And I would love a pair of 150's or Tannoy Westminsters if my room would take them. The bigger the lower frequency driver the better IMHO. They simply have an effortlessness that mirrors that of the musical instrument playing those notes.
When I say the room dictates , unless we are really lucky and wealthy, the room will produce peaks at frequencies that we want to have at a specific place on the roll off as opposed to the advertised frequency range. That's just my experience but it allows us to get a more balanced (and therefore a more timbrally accurate) representation of the original recording.
John Phillips
pfm Member
I think that when you cut peaks in SPL in the room at particular frequencies the total amount of audio energy in the room decreases. I think that may mean a user will compensate for this by turning up the volume a bit - at all frequencies - so driving the loudspeaker a little harder. The pre-power amp may well work harder too, of course. I think that will eat up a bit of dynamic headroom (how much? maybe it's only a little?).
The reason I am interested in this is that I have noted some unusual LF distortion measurements published for active loudspeakers with built-in equalization. I am not saying this matters - it may be inaudible - but it's an oddity that tweaks my inclination to try and understand why. I am speculating and if there's some other good explanation on offer I am all ears.
John Phillips
pfm Member
I have a file of various REW measurements. However with measurements the key is always to understand "what do they mean?" and then "what do you do about them?" Both of these seems often to be unasked.
Speculation about a particular room and how to deal with it seems premature until you understand the answer to "what outcome is sufficient?". I have not yet seen any credible answer to this. Do you have one?
My own experiments have shown (to my ears at least) that human hearing deals very well with still quite large room-induced deviations from the sort of flat frequency response outcomes that get promoted for equalizers. And the Floyd Toole experiments to separate out room from loudspeaker in listener preferences confirm that the loudspeaker is highly significant and the room is much less significant.
I am quite sure equalization is a useful tool in the loudspeaker toolbox. But I am equally sure that applying it carefully is important. If there is a good answer to "what outcome is sufficient?" I would be very happy to understand that.
Purité Audio
Trade: Purite Audio
REW is comprehensive, I would start at looking at any issues caused by the main axial modes, bass reinforcement can be really destructive and it’s removal a revelation.
Use REW to determine the minimal phase bass peaks and create a filter, remeasure and listen, removing large bass peaks is almost certainly the single largest improvement one can make.
Keith
Use REW to determine the minimal phase bass peaks and create a filter, remeasure and listen, removing large bass peaks is almost certainly the single largest improvement one can make.
Keith