[
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2008, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]
[ General ] [ Speakers ] [ Tubes ] [ Vinyl ] [ Digital ] [ Hi-Rez ] [ Video Asylum ] [ Cables ] [ Tweaks/DIY ] [ Music ] [ Films ]
68.186.88.59
In Reply to: RE: Digital Loudspeakers posted by rick_m on June 30, 2008 at 18:26:51
PWM is still a digital format being that the amplifier producing it is either on or off for a number of set time durations as determined by the needs of the encoded signal. It is perhaps one of the simpler forms of digital encoding, but it is still digital for its "quantized" state.
"The speaker doesn't do the conversion so much as it does the carrier filtering. It still ends up responding with all it's regular problems to the same signal component that it would if driven by a DAC and amplifier."
For just the speaker, that would be the case with an individual transducer. However, this approach involves the use of an array of transducers working together in a way that no other speaker yet has. Plus, the digital conversion from PCM to PWM is happening right at the amplifier chip, multiple chips each handling only a part of the complex information thus making for a simpler process, rather than everything in a separate DAC with a complex analog component involved. So, if the other issues can be resolved, this approach has the potential of avoiding the sonic artifacts inherent in analog component design. I suppose that one could use a similar argument that there is no difference between a single passive full-range driver and a fully active multi-way loudspeaker, but the sonic effects are noticeable. This has the potential of being a much more significant difference with fewer coherence issues.
Unfortunately, achieving the goal outlined in the patents seems to be rather quite difficult at this point. Even the simplest implementation requires 32 channels of digital amplification per stereo pair, 32 tiny high quality, broad band transducers that somehow are working together coherently over a broad listening region rather than as a simple circular array needing a vice for the head and some manner of complex DSP that is separating out each bit depth (for lack of knowing a better way of saying it). The full implementation in that last patent would require 2048 of those special transducers, 2048 channels of amplification, etc.
Maybe it'd be better to stick with the conventional approaches we have now and just live with the limitations.
Follow Ups:
Top of Page ]
[ Contact Us ]
[ Support/Wish List ]
[ Copyright © 2008, Audio Asylum, all rights reserved ]