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In Reply to: RE: Are my ears really that sensitive? posted by Davey on September 14, 2014 at 07:45:47
We have competing goals in mind. These have to be weighed against each other and I (not so Davy) can't stand mediocre DACs such as those in DSP devices. Using them makes my subjective evaluation useless as I focus on the irritating sound they produce - all I can do is say "I don't want this". I can easily tolerate wow, noise, hum, non linear FR and peaky mids, bloated bass, or overcooked highs, I can take lots of phase issues, I shut down with bad digital.
Though I suggested all along that Davy use REW to do the characterization of the drivers (I did it on spreadsheets a decade ago with manual measurements for my drivers) and work things out on the computer, but he did not want to redesign the speakers from the drivers up, but to tweak them. I knew that is what I would have to do from the get go, Davy did not and still doesn't intend to.
Davy is very sensitive to coherence and has gone back from multiamping to single amping. Your solution is a design tool instead of a tweaking/fine tuning of the FR and phase issues. I don't think that within the limited scope of Davy's goals he would benefit from creating a DSP and multiamp setup he can't listen to. Not to speak of the learning curve in using the measurement and dsp software which would not be in place for his final product.
Neither Davy nor I intend to be professionals in this field but to tweak what we have. I kept an adjustable PLLXO/hybrid XO so that I can change things on the fly for recordings and experimentation with positioning (Limage and Rooze setups that do better with tweaking of the XO to complement them because of timing issues with something so large as the T IV).
I had done the mod TIV/Neo8 with Marchand's XO and had excellent results. I liked what I heard with the naked Neo8 array and attempted to use it that way for a couple of years, but the practical limitations drove me to rework the XO again with the constraint of having a 1st order XO for the midrange.
Davy is trying to iron out a peakiness in the top of the midrange that is the flaw in an otherwise fine speaker that he likes. An all out redesign assault on the speaker is not what he wants to do.
Follow Ups:
Hi Satie,
Sorry didn't see your post until now.
I hear what you say about the DSPs if they do degrade the sound somewhat. I know the older Behringer DXC2946 didgital crossover is very dated compared to modern DSP crossovers but I don't think I could have used that on the Maggie mid and tweeter to make subjective evaluations.
You are right, I am just tweaking what I have right now, and I freely admit that quite a bit of it is a shot in the dark, but I do quite enjoy that and eventually getting to something that works.
I do like single amp drive (being sensitive to coherence as you rightly say). Part of the trouble trying to get the drivers to blend well with biamping and triamping is having to do lots of experimentation with different power amps, crossover setups etc. That can take lot of time to get it to work well. For sound quality above anything else, PLLXO on the mid and treble is better than any active crossover in my view (and also better than single amp drive at speaker level), though it can be harder to blend PLLXOs with active bass due to delay issues etc. I might eventually go back to biamping or triamping in the future and really go for it and try to get something coherent, but for now I'm just tweaking the basic sound I've got with these MGIIIas in single amp drive. Ultimately I'm not sure if you'd ever quite the same degree of coherence of single amp speaker level passive drive with any multi amp setup, but with careful tweaking and matching I am sure you could get very close and also get the big advantages of biamping/triamping such as enhanced clarity and less distortion. I could likely also live with the latter.
Davey is likely right in that it could be easier and quicker to iron out the issue I am having with now, but only if I had the system set up already and knew what I was doing (and know how to transpose it well to passive components). The expensive of buying the DSP and more power amps along with the learning curve and time needed don't really make it viable for my situation right now (especially with single amp drive), but thanks for the advice Davey. It's certainly something I will bear in mind to try out in the future, especially if I do go back to a multiamp setup.
I will try flipping the tweeter polarity with the 18 6 (6 12) setup as per your suggestion now to see how that fares. Then think about the mid LP inductor change.
Yeah, I'm well aware of your sensitive ears and point-of-view on this, but if you can't listen past the sound of some digital circuitry to make relative evaluations it REALLY makes this sort of evaluation tedious and difficult. That's all I'm saying.
I can appreciate the learning curve of measurement, DSP-software, etc, etc, but eventually you get to a point with this hobby that you're forced to learn/utilize this stuff. You two guys are at (beyond) that point and seat-of-the-pantsing experimentation is a real double-edged sword.
If you're going to be a master auto technician, you need a complete set of tools......you can't do everything with a crescent wrench. :)
Cheers,
Dave.
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