I think you should but using different mics and technique of recording.
It's a different subject but let me ask it: is your piano located in the same room as your system? If that's the case you are hearing a kind of cumulative effect of ER.
Our brain is a wonderful thing with many 'real time processing' to adapt itself to the environment it is located in.
Usually it try to keep the room out of the equation (except when there is some very obvious issues) when you listen to something. What you experienced too was because of mic too. We don't listen as mic 'hear' sound, and just by this fact recorded music is an illusion. And it's because of that that recording engineer is a work on his own: trying to recreate as faithfully as possible an illusion of reality.
I think you should but using different mics and technique of recording.
It's a different subject but let me ask it: is your piano located in the same room as your system? If that's the case you are hearing a kind of cumulative effect of ER.
Our brain is a wonderful thing with many 'real time processing' to adapt itself to the environment it is located in.
Usually it try to keep the room out of the equation (except when there is some very obvious issues) when you listen to something. What you experienced too was because of mic too. We don't listen as mic 'hear' sound, and just by this fact recorded music is an illusion. And it's because of that that recording engineer is a work on his own: trying to recreate as faithfully as possible an illusion of reality.
By playing a song I mean a recording, as in a regular CD on my stereo. Sadly I don't have a piano, my son would love that. I only have a bunch of guitars laying around. But true, I actually wanted to hear the cumulative effect of the ER. But I didn't count on it to stick with me for as long as it did. Easier to learn than un-learn. It was an experiment. And I knew what to expect, but not how long it would last!
So, I really don't want to do it again. Record it and listen to headphones is the safer choice. But you're very right in what you are saying. That's what I'm kind of playing with, to teach myself. Not learning to record, but learning what it takes to avoid hearing the room and maximizing that. But it does mean you've got to be aware of what you're trying to avoid in the first place. Hence the experiment.
Do not try this at home folks (lol) or should I say do try it, you might get new respect for the recording chain and be more aware of the part the room plays in your perception. But be warned!
I'm only talking about the reproduction stage, I'm a consumer after all
.Though I take whatever I can learn from that other side (your side of the chain) as valuable information!
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Hahaha, good point, almost makes you wear the Moderator hat, doesn't it?
This all started with me failing to understand what Youknowyou said about the difference in JRiver between "Disabled Volume" and "Internal Volume" turned up to 100%. Hearing a degradation in sound quality in fact. My bad... I'd still like to know more about the "why" part of why that happened to/for him though. But I'll live without an answer. Lets get back on track.
But I kind of think finding that answer might help this discussion about active crossovers as attenuation is definitely a part of that deal.
This all started with me failing to understand what Youknowyou said about the difference in JRiver between "Disabled Volume" and "Internal Volume" turned up to 100%. Hearing a degradation in sound quality in fact. My bad... I'd still like to know more about the "why" part of why that happened to/for him though. But I'll live without an answer. Lets get back on track.
But I kind of think finding that answer might help this discussion about active crossovers as attenuation is definitely a part of that deal.
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Actually One benefit that I don't think that I saw mentioned was cost. Mostly thinking about low crossovers here, like 300 Hz and down.
A lot of people think that active is more expensive, but for low frequency passive crossovers the cost of inductors alone can be very high. Big film caps (if you are phobic of electrolitics) aren't cheap either!!
Tony.
A lot of people think that active is more expensive, but for low frequency passive crossovers the cost of inductors alone can be very high. Big film caps (if you are phobic of electrolitics) aren't cheap either!!
Tony.
One Can build a passive line level crossover to fit .. In Front of.. amplification stages.
Using discrete low voltage circuit parts for V low costs
ie:
TLS.org | Passive Line-Level Crossover
$$ Can have V little to do with it
Of course this still requires separate amps which is where the Real costs surface.
In fact not really because usually versus needs of a passive solution you divide by 2 power needed (thats an average for a 2way or hybrid 3way(bass/medium+high)) for multi amp.
When you compare cost of amplifiers only based on power this is approximately the same to have 2 smaller amp than one bigger 2x more powerful (given they are from the same range).
I assume you are talking about passive line level XO's from what I have read (especially Dave P10's site) the main issue with them is droop with higher orders (ie they don't maintain the correct slope). Also very dependent on amplifier input impedance (I guess you could stick a buffer after the PLLXO to ensure this wasn't a problem)...
Tony.
Tony.
@Pano - high value inductors should be coming down in price as copper's price is astonishingly low right now. I was shocked at how cheap my last 1kg of magnet wire was so I went to see what the spot cost of copper was. If you're going to be winding coils, now looks like a good time to get some wire in....
@Tony - the only way to get inductors with Q high enough is to wind them yourself on gapped ferrite cores. Yesterday I made a couple of 160mH ones, Q was 200 @ 20kHz, shouldn't give a droop problem
@Tony - the only way to get inductors with Q high enough is to wind them yourself on gapped ferrite cores. Yesterday I made a couple of 160mH ones, Q was 200 @ 20kHz, shouldn't give a droop problem
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I had a pair of passive, two-way speakers and decided to experiment with an active setup. I converted one to active and was able to have a (subjective) comparison.
While I thought there may be a difference, I was surprised at the degree of difference. The active speaker had a greater clarity to it. I then converted the passive two-way to active three-way, and it was better again.
At low volumes, there is a little difference but the main advantage is anything thing a bit above background music. I am thoroughly in the active camp now.
While I thought there may be a difference, I was surprised at the degree of difference. The active speaker had a greater clarity to it. I then converted the passive two-way to active three-way, and it was better again.
At low volumes, there is a little difference but the main advantage is anything thing a bit above background music. I am thoroughly in the active camp now.
The thread starter "knew" (from reading) that major benefit of active crossover. If you want to know more about the theoretical benefits (and disadvantages), follow the links in the earlier posts. The Douglass Self presentation about active crossover was almost one and a half hour.
I can assure you that anyone who is not into speaker design, will prefer active crossover A LOT (Just like how the majority will prefer bloated bass than flat response).
I have been building many crossovers, either active or passive, AND I'm not in any kind of "camps". If anyone think that one is better than the other, may be because he isn't being specific, or he doesn't know anything about the subject. It's like choosing BJT or MOSFET for your amplifier implementation.
Things become more objective when we start talking about the best of X versus the best of Y.
Any response can be obtained in a single passive stage at the cost of insertion loss. Simulation can save time.
Or because he/she doesn't have heard a 'state of the art' implementation of both kind for the same loudspeaker set. Which isn't common situation to meet for most.
Tromperie: was your louspeakers diy or from a manufacturer? If diy did you optimise the passive filter to the 'extreme' before switching to active multiamp? Did you changed fc points in active versus passive or used the stock values from passive filter?
Not sure I got what you mean here. I use BJT, mosfet or tube as I see appropriate. Same with active crossover. I have observed that some speaker designers use passive for mid-tweeter and active for woofer-sub. That's what I usually end up with too for my main system.
Unfortunately, If I optimized my passive filter to the extreme, most probably I will not use the same design consideration when I optimize my active crossover to the extreme.
The electronics will be optimized to the extreme, but the transfer function etc. will not follow the passive, most probably.
Just like amplifier design, I will not just throw in a JFET to replace BJT input stage, haha...
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I find this a very "airy" description... many words used without saying anything, except making strange assumptions.
Could you enlighten us what that best would be, viewed from both "camps"? And what is "bloated bass", are you of the opinion the response should be flat?
Would that be flat in room or flat speaker response in an anechoic chamber etc. Much more info is needed to support such a claim.
Another example:
I consider myself very interested in speaker design. At least above average. Could you tell me why I should be more interested in passive? Or isn't that how I should read that. I do have experiences in both camps and even read up on threads trying to find the answers either way.
Like I said before in this thread, reason for me to go with "a version of active" was to use "that version of active" to do things that are impossible to do passively. Does that make me more or less interested in speaker design? I dislike putting things in boxes or camps like that. No way forward if we presume to know everything. I definitely don't have all the answers, which is why I take part in these discussions to begin with. As I do search for anything that can give me a better view on any of these subjects than I have right now.
That doesn't exclude me from having an opinion though. But if someone has info that could make me see things different I'm open to it, or at least try to be.
I will not claim any solution is best. Just last night I stumbled over another thread in another part of this forum, also having some wild claims in it. How an active 4th order Linkwitz-Riley crossover was best and separate DSP was a bad idea. Not once the response of the driver itself was mentioned.
As long as people think either passive or active is as simple as creating a named crossover at a certain crossover point and be fine we didn't make it clear enough what a crossover's job should be. These misconceptions really are true for both camps. Online crossover component calculators even help keep that alive. Both solutions take way more work to make something decent.
But if anyone gets pleasure just by using a named crossover, passive or active, and have the time of his life just by building that speaker who am I to deny him/her that pleasure?
There are also too many mysteries in both solutions to ever get a clear answer.
- Not one clear answer about the audibility of crossover components. And we wont get a clear answer anytime soon. Just opinions.
- No clear answer was found in this thread about the digital attenuation either. Just a lot of assumptions for and against. We did try briefly to get an answer on this thread but this will remain a mystery as well. We could discuss it forever without reaching a satisfying answer.
- many different view points on what a quality driver is supposed to be. Another unsolvable discussion and too many varying view points.
This list could go on forever. So what can we discuss, really...
New threads like this one are started frequently. But they usually end up the same.
Active alone has so many different ways to be called that, can we really throw them on a big pile and say they are all related or comparable?
So how can we solve this? Can we even solve this?
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@krivium,
They were a published design in a Australian Electronics Monthly magazine, now defunct. They measured well in the magazine and I (ab)used them happily for several years. I built them to specs using crossovers made for them. I didn't do any "optimising" of the passive filters.
When converted, I kept the same crossover points but used 24dB active crossovers.
Sorry Jay, this is the same blah-blah-blah of yours that I don't normally read.
They were a published design in a Australian Electronics Monthly magazine, now defunct. They measured well in the magazine and I (ab)used them happily for several years. I built them to specs using crossovers made for them. I didn't do any "optimising" of the passive filters.
When converted, I kept the same crossover points but used 24dB active crossovers.
Sorry Jay, this is the same blah-blah-blah of yours that I don't normally read.
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