I must not be a hi-fi buff then. Fiddling is the last thing I want to have to do. My Meridians just WORK and beautifully too with no fuss and virtually no wiring either.Absolutely. Being honest, no fiddle= no hobby.
I'm sure. I use conventional actives in my main rig. I might have gone down the fully digital route, but I baulked at putting all my eggs in one basket, and I think ATCs look nicer.I must not be a hi-fi buff then. Fiddling is the last thing I want to have to do. My Meridians just WORK and beautifully too with no fuss and virtually no wiring either.
Yes, that’s the true definition, and as such, I’ve used active speakers for the past 15 years or so and have no intention of changing.Active speakers means active crossovers. Single drivers have no crossover!
I must not be a hi-fi buff then. Fiddling is the last thing I want to have to do. My Meridians just WORK and beautifully too with no fuss and virtually no wiring either.
Active speakers means active crossovers. Single drivers have no crossover!
Some may remember A.L.S.O from the early to mid 80's. Active Loudspeaker Standards Organisation. Some did try to make them more popular and IIRC ARC, Linn, BLQ, A&R and a few others were members. Some made "plug in brick" passive crossovers that could be simply unplugged when the owner was ready to upgrade to active.
Fair points, but my crossover (HiFi News plans back when they did some really good DIY) could be any slope from 12-24dB (I chose 24dB for phase reasons), and I used wideband drivers plus variable baffle step equalisation.I remember it and it always struck me as a half-baked idea as the active crossovers of the day were just so crude being little more than fixed 12 or 24db slopes with a gain pot and no real ability to shape for the speaker in question. This also being why I never got on with Naim active systems, they always sound ‘wrong’ to me somehow and I’m sure that is down to such simple slopes that barely match the context. IIRC the same crossver was used for a Kan, Sara and SBL, which is obviously bonkers in the extreme!
The best speakers tend to have very carefully thought-out crossovers that are tailored very tightly to the exact driver and box configuration. I find the idea of a generic mix and match active crossover system as preposterous as thinking you could use say a Tannoy MG crossover on an LS3/5A or whatever. Sure, you could get a very rough and ready fit and maybe not actually blow the drivers, but compensation for baffle step, cone resonance, response quirks, phase and all the other things good crossovers need to deal with are far beyond the scope of this approach and it was no surprise to me the idea failed. I heard a few Nytech/ARC systems and they certainly didn’t convince me active was the way forward anymore than Naim did.
Modern digital technology does make it all far more relevant and useful as you really could tailor not only the drivers and cabinets but the room too. I’ve always been kind of curious as to what I could achieve with my La Scalas, three T-Amps and a load of DSP crossver and time-alignment software. I bet someone who really knew what they were doing could get something truly amazing out of them with this modern technology and all for a few hundred quid.
But don't all competently designed power amps sound the same anyway?If using traditional non integrated active then there is more to "tweak" than with a passive... 2 power stereo power amps for a 2 way speaker and 3 for a 3 way speaker for a start and then if one is deluded enough to think cables make a difference just think of all those interconnects etc!
But don't all competently designed power amps sound the same anyway?
Like cables then.
And are you really happy with the sound from T-Amps? We would have to agree to disagree there.
I remember it and it always struck me as a half-baked idea as the active crossovers of the day were just so crude being little more than fixed 12 or 24db slopes with a gain pot and no real ability to shape for the speaker in question. This also being why I never got on with Naim active systems, they always sound ‘wrong’ to me somehow and I’m sure that is down to such simple slopes that barely match the context. IIRC the same crossver was used for a Kan, Sara and SBL, which is obviously bonkers in the extreme!
The best speakers tend to have very carefully thought-out crossovers that are tailored very tightly to the exact driver and box configuration. I find the idea of a generic mix and match active crossover system as preposterous as thinking you could use say a Tannoy MG crossover on an LS3/5A or whatever. Sure, you could get a very rough and ready fit and maybe not actually blow the drivers, but compensation for baffle step, cone resonance, response quirks, phase and all the other things good crossovers need to deal with are far beyond the scope of this approach and it was no surprise to me the idea failed. I heard a few Nytech/ARC systems and they certainly didn’t convince me active was the way forward anymore than Naim did.
Modern digital technology does make it all far more relevant and useful as you really could tailor not only the drivers and cabinets but the room too. I’ve always been kind of curious as to what I could achieve with my La Scalas, three T-Amps and a load of DSP crossver and time-alignment software. I bet someone who really knew what they were doing could get something truly amazing out of them with this modern technology and all for a few hundred quid.
The little Amptastic I have is very good as long as you ignore the specs. The Tripath TA2020 chipset is often wrongly advertised as a 20 Watt amp, there is huge amounts of lying to be found in modern audio specs, my feeling is it is a far less honourable game than it was back in say Harold Leak or Peter Walker’s day, and the real figure at say 0.1 distortion is more like six Watts. Six Watts into La Scalas can provide permanent hearing loss in a matter of seconds, so that is plenty! Viewed as a high quality 5 Watt amp I’d recommend the Tripath amps to anyone, they sound surprisingly good into high-efficiency speakers and show none of the grit, harshness or switching distortion of some solid state designs into speakers that run on fractions of a Watt. I use it with a decent quality 13.5V bench PSU rather than the supplied switch-mode device. It is also one of very few amps I have tried with the La Scalas that is acceptably quiet! The game changes entirely once you get to over 100db sensitivity, you need a whole different set of priorities!
I would never under any circumstances even consider eq-ing a room. It doesn't work and cannot work... and no I'm not going to discuss that statement.
Absolutely. Being honest, no fiddle= no hobby.