I'm not terribly concerned with detail or accuracy. Not really much I personally can do to infuse those into a loudspeaker. What I'm hoping to do is to take away as many layers as possible between the mechanisms of transmission and reception (the speakers and my ears) as I can without spending much money or working at it too hard.
OB and FR seem to be the key ingredients here as they shed the vast majority of the chaff from our sound. That really just leaves us with the bass and geometry as issues.
OB and FR are bass shy methodologies, period. They've got nothing reinforcing, amplifying or even preventing the bass from canceling itself in free air. We see to have the solution with helper woofers and Martin is helping us out on the theory and math side with his work. We've seen it done commercially (Jamo 909, Emerald CS2, et al). Now I think we're just trying to outdo those efforts on a shoestring budget, but I've got absolutely no doubt since my most recent experiments that OB bass is really not going to be that difficult to attain, at least down to 30Hz or so (I'm not sure how viable infrabass is on OB, though I'm not terribly convinced that it is necessary, or even terribly pleasant to have if given for free, even for HT use; just IMO).
That leaves us mainly with issues of geometry. What configurations of drivers are we going to use? What FR? Which side gets to be FR? Do we run well behaved OB compliant midbass drivers with well behaved rolloffs FR with super tweeters capped in? Do we run small FRs up top with woofers crossed in below? If so, do we cross passive or active? Do we shoot for point source geometry or are line arrays the secret? Do we even care? Just slap our chosen drivers on our chosen baffles in a pleasing arrangement and go to town. Since we're obviously not using single drivers now, do we start having to worry about things like phase and time alignment, and if so, how do we get that right?
So many questions, but all I really want is a big feeling sound that puts me where the music is or sticks me inside the movie without resorting tricks or surround speakers or anything that gets my attention as not sounding good. And I'd like all that for maybe another $200 beyond what I already have in gear and maybe an hour or two more effort. Is that too much to ask
Kensai
OB and FR seem to be the key ingredients here as they shed the vast majority of the chaff from our sound. That really just leaves us with the bass and geometry as issues.
OB and FR are bass shy methodologies, period. They've got nothing reinforcing, amplifying or even preventing the bass from canceling itself in free air. We see to have the solution with helper woofers and Martin is helping us out on the theory and math side with his work. We've seen it done commercially (Jamo 909, Emerald CS2, et al). Now I think we're just trying to outdo those efforts on a shoestring budget, but I've got absolutely no doubt since my most recent experiments that OB bass is really not going to be that difficult to attain, at least down to 30Hz or so (I'm not sure how viable infrabass is on OB, though I'm not terribly convinced that it is necessary, or even terribly pleasant to have if given for free, even for HT use; just IMO).
That leaves us mainly with issues of geometry. What configurations of drivers are we going to use? What FR? Which side gets to be FR? Do we run well behaved OB compliant midbass drivers with well behaved rolloffs FR with super tweeters capped in? Do we run small FRs up top with woofers crossed in below? If so, do we cross passive or active? Do we shoot for point source geometry or are line arrays the secret? Do we even care? Just slap our chosen drivers on our chosen baffles in a pleasing arrangement and go to town. Since we're obviously not using single drivers now, do we start having to worry about things like phase and time alignment, and if so, how do we get that right?
So many questions, but all I really want is a big feeling sound that puts me where the music is or sticks me inside the movie without resorting tricks or surround speakers or anything that gets my attention as not sounding good. And I'd like all that for maybe another $200 beyond what I already have in gear and maybe an hour or two more effort. Is that too much to ask
Kensai
I had an idea today, what would you all think of an OB/IB set up?
I was thinking about building a cab that houses 2 IB drivers and have the OB driver in a baffle on top of the IB cab at a perfect ear height to be determined.
The IB cab would vent through the floor or wall depending on position. It would only work if when the speaker cabs were in the best position, where they will stay for good, and you can vent through the floor or to a wall etc.. The lows would be fabo compared to OB bass I would think.. The best of both worlds?
Dave
I was thinking about building a cab that houses 2 IB drivers and have the OB driver in a baffle on top of the IB cab at a perfect ear height to be determined.
The IB cab would vent through the floor or wall depending on position. It would only work if when the speaker cabs were in the best position, where they will stay for good, and you can vent through the floor or to a wall etc.. The lows would be fabo compared to OB bass I would think.. The best of both worlds?
Dave
I'm guessing that IB will have the same sound characteristics as regular sealed enclosures, but much better low end response due to the massive volume of the "enclosure", not to mention the (in most applications, at least) massive baffle surface in comparison to a regular cabinet. I'll admit that I really do like the sound of sealed cabinets, at least in the far field (in the nearfield, I can't really tolerate, let alone really listen to anything other than OB).
My living room rig is a pair of sealed units mounted into an enormous oak entertainment center that doubles as a massive baffle and as a secondary resonator (they sit on the bottom panel which is a single piece of plywood, elevated almost 2 inches from the floor by three edges, leaving the rear edge open to the 4-5inches of empty space between it and the wall). Bass is clear and sharp down to about 35Hz on just one pair of 8" drivers. Now, if I could just be running those as "subs" (build some custom cabinets to fill the space completely and use some 8"-10" subwoofers rather than the higher Fs woofers that are in there now), and then get smaller FR units up to ear height in OB, I could pretty easily get true 20-20k response from just 2 drivers per side while really upping the SQ level due to factors such as getting a higher quality driver for the FR and getting it to the appropriate height and generating more of a natural soundstage in OB.
Crossed low enough, you wouldn't notice that your bass isn't exactly in line with the rest of the range, physically speaking, and I've seen lots of examples of this being done and the owners being really happy. One of the coolest was stereo IB bass arrays consisting of 4x15" IB speced drivers firing into a garage from an HT room, each line placed just outside the area of the HT gear on the front wall. They'd measured that the arrays were flat to 16Hz, and calculated that they were getting like 110-115dB from 1 watt, so they could power the arrays with whatever they wanted, and at normal listening levels, there was no such thing as audible distortion. With that arrangement, they were able to not only experiment with swapping amplification, but they could us any speakers they wanted, placed in space however they chose and get decent integration with minimal effort. I bet some nice freestanding, line source, OB units (likely planar and or ribbon since FR dynamic driver lines are really kinda problematic) would be outstanding in that environment. Next best would be some high quality, smaller FR unit that could extend low enough on a small baffle to integrate well with the bass arrays. That way, the sound stage thrown by the FR would be as large as possible, and the baffle and/or stand could be made in such a way as to present the smallest possible profile to keep from interacting poorly with the bass arrays' wave launch.
Now I'm just jabbering.
Kensai
My living room rig is a pair of sealed units mounted into an enormous oak entertainment center that doubles as a massive baffle and as a secondary resonator (they sit on the bottom panel which is a single piece of plywood, elevated almost 2 inches from the floor by three edges, leaving the rear edge open to the 4-5inches of empty space between it and the wall). Bass is clear and sharp down to about 35Hz on just one pair of 8" drivers. Now, if I could just be running those as "subs" (build some custom cabinets to fill the space completely and use some 8"-10" subwoofers rather than the higher Fs woofers that are in there now), and then get smaller FR units up to ear height in OB, I could pretty easily get true 20-20k response from just 2 drivers per side while really upping the SQ level due to factors such as getting a higher quality driver for the FR and getting it to the appropriate height and generating more of a natural soundstage in OB.
Crossed low enough, you wouldn't notice that your bass isn't exactly in line with the rest of the range, physically speaking, and I've seen lots of examples of this being done and the owners being really happy. One of the coolest was stereo IB bass arrays consisting of 4x15" IB speced drivers firing into a garage from an HT room, each line placed just outside the area of the HT gear on the front wall. They'd measured that the arrays were flat to 16Hz, and calculated that they were getting like 110-115dB from 1 watt, so they could power the arrays with whatever they wanted, and at normal listening levels, there was no such thing as audible distortion. With that arrangement, they were able to not only experiment with swapping amplification, but they could us any speakers they wanted, placed in space however they chose and get decent integration with minimal effort. I bet some nice freestanding, line source, OB units (likely planar and or ribbon since FR dynamic driver lines are really kinda problematic) would be outstanding in that environment. Next best would be some high quality, smaller FR unit that could extend low enough on a small baffle to integrate well with the bass arrays. That way, the sound stage thrown by the FR would be as large as possible, and the baffle and/or stand could be made in such a way as to present the smallest possible profile to keep from interacting poorly with the bass arrays' wave launch.
Now I'm just jabbering.
Kensai
I find IB bass somewhat less satisfying than OB, possibly because
of the different way it interacts with the room.
It's not that difficult to achieve OB bottom end with some simple
equalization, since the rolloff is only 6 dB/oct below the frequency
determined by the baffle size. A decently large woofer with a low
Fs will make it down to 30 Hz or so with only modest EQ and power
requirements.
of the different way it interacts with the room.
It's not that difficult to achieve OB bottom end with some simple
equalization, since the rolloff is only 6 dB/oct below the frequency
determined by the baffle size. A decently large woofer with a low
Fs will make it down to 30 Hz or so with only modest EQ and power
requirements.
Nelson and Kensai, I'm for whatever works best, and if keeping all OB gets the job done then thats where I'm at too.. I just thought IB may be a neat way to go, and kind of different as a IB/OB cab/baffle type of thing.. I have no experience with either methods and really appreciate all you guys that ''get er done'' and share your wisdom
I'm interested in what you eventually end up with as a "full meal deal" set up with the Feastrex drivers you have.. I'm looking to the D5nf driver when funds allow, and I'm considering going OB with them after maybe using the recommended enclosure first, so as to have a reference point etc..
Dave
I'm interested in what you eventually end up with as a "full meal deal" set up with the Feastrex drivers you have.. I'm looking to the D5nf driver when funds allow, and I'm considering going OB with them after maybe using the recommended enclosure first, so as to have a reference point etc..
Dave
tinitus said:
Just to think about:
- The area behind the cones seems to be very much
smaller than the cone area of the three drivers.
This will cause an accelleration of the air in the
pipe behind the driver which in turn introduces a huge
mass load to the drivers, thereby lowering fs and increase Qts.
The mass load will tend to decrease efficiency.
- A dipole source is worst to be located in a corner.
Room excitation by a pressure gradient transducer is difficult
- if not impossible - from there.
I feel not able to predict whether the thing can work, but i feel
it will suffer from some drawbacks.
Cheers
Davecan -
Interesting statement regards the 10" Hawthorne perhaps sounding more accurate than 15" ........ . I may yet end up with those as my Vintage alnico dreams seem too expensive til some rainy day. I personally still don't see a better deal than the Hawthornes in that price range and thats what I was out to beat.
IB Bass ...... My initial plan had me there as well and past posts show A.E. was where I'd been heading. Best bargain out there in my opinion as well for price. Of late I've read too many posts regards IB that bother me concerning both vibration picked up from walls as well as actual structural damage to building due to subsonic vibration. A guy over at P.E. actually poured concrete between studs about 6" deep to stop such and still recommended to others to use plywood across an entire 4' section for baffles as he still is picking up vibration that he's hearing through his drivers as wall is simply not stiff enough with baffle being only width of stud. Another guy is finding his footings for his foundation are actually crumbling. All this has me wondering what IB using stud mounting will do to your roofing system.
Kensai - You and I are uncanningly close in design ideas. I simply draw on quad paper or would send you my latest iteration. Your system idea sounds more 'closed' regards entertainment center whereas mine is more open. We are planning narrow bookshelves near outside walls with open shelving for components on either side of tube about 45" and up with FR/OB and OB bass augmentation below. The OB Line array would be outside of bookcases and at walls farthest point. I've been thinking some Apex Jr. 8" subs in small Onken type enclosures sitting at bottom shelf of bookcases might work just fine for HT Sub duties. So .... from outside in we'd have an OB line array, bookcase with Onken Subs on bottom, open shelving for components with OB/FR and OB bass augmentation below shelving and then TV. All we have is 146" to work with so driver choice is critical. Some guys are using minimal baffles for OB ... yes, much argument, and hanging them free air with good results. There are some good threads regards that concept and science behind it at Hawthornes site but it was not the 1st time idea has been tried. I'm sure not optimum but combo of other drivers can make up for weaknesses. If the right OB bass driver was used I'm not even convinced you'd need independent Subs if you'd be willing to lose those 20hz HT signals. Vive - versa is another thought in that XOed properly a good Sub could handle both HT bass needs as well as low end of music if OB/FR gets down 300 or so without distortion.
Bluto
Interesting statement regards the 10" Hawthorne perhaps sounding more accurate than 15" ........ . I may yet end up with those as my Vintage alnico dreams seem too expensive til some rainy day. I personally still don't see a better deal than the Hawthornes in that price range and thats what I was out to beat.
IB Bass ...... My initial plan had me there as well and past posts show A.E. was where I'd been heading. Best bargain out there in my opinion as well for price. Of late I've read too many posts regards IB that bother me concerning both vibration picked up from walls as well as actual structural damage to building due to subsonic vibration. A guy over at P.E. actually poured concrete between studs about 6" deep to stop such and still recommended to others to use plywood across an entire 4' section for baffles as he still is picking up vibration that he's hearing through his drivers as wall is simply not stiff enough with baffle being only width of stud. Another guy is finding his footings for his foundation are actually crumbling. All this has me wondering what IB using stud mounting will do to your roofing system.
Kensai - You and I are uncanningly close in design ideas. I simply draw on quad paper or would send you my latest iteration. Your system idea sounds more 'closed' regards entertainment center whereas mine is more open. We are planning narrow bookshelves near outside walls with open shelving for components on either side of tube about 45" and up with FR/OB and OB bass augmentation below. The OB Line array would be outside of bookcases and at walls farthest point. I've been thinking some Apex Jr. 8" subs in small Onken type enclosures sitting at bottom shelf of bookcases might work just fine for HT Sub duties. So .... from outside in we'd have an OB line array, bookcase with Onken Subs on bottom, open shelving for components with OB/FR and OB bass augmentation below shelving and then TV. All we have is 146" to work with so driver choice is critical. Some guys are using minimal baffles for OB ... yes, much argument, and hanging them free air with good results. There are some good threads regards that concept and science behind it at Hawthornes site but it was not the 1st time idea has been tried. I'm sure not optimum but combo of other drivers can make up for weaknesses. If the right OB bass driver was used I'm not even convinced you'd need independent Subs if you'd be willing to lose those 20hz HT signals. Vive - versa is another thought in that XOed properly a good Sub could handle both HT bass needs as well as low end of music if OB/FR gets down 300 or so without distortion.
Bluto
Yes please, get me back on track
Got my Dayton APA150 amp last night and was able to play with it enough to see how the whole active cross/biamp thing was going to go.
I'm using the Dayton RS100S-8 as my fullranger and the 8" woofers from a pair of Yamaha NS-6940s as my helpers. I estimate from extended listening and tinkering that these Yamaha units have a Qts somewhere in the .7 to 1.0 range and an Fs around 45.
My baffles are a multipart, jury rigged affair. I've got a pair of bamboo cutting boards that had until recently held my B20s serving baffle duty for the Yamahas. Those are hinge mounted to my desk about ear height. The RS100s are mounted in quick and dirty cardboard baffles with folded back wings meant to allow them to stand up more than to act as U-baffles. These are sitting on top of the carcasses of my titanic old Sansui boxes, with one wing pressed against the edge of the bamboo baffles, though the driver height is a few inches lower.
First, let me say, the continuously variable low pass crossover controlled by the knob on the back of the APA150 is just about the most wickedly cool bit of instantly gratuitous audio kit I've ever worked with. Just put on a very familiar track with lots of low bass, then just turned the knob up from 50Hz till it got decidedly bloated in the upper bass then back down till it just started to lean out too much then a touch back up and voila . . . perfect balance between the two drivers using just that knob and maybe 20 seconds of time. The setting I ended up with was just about 70Hz on the nose, though only 50, 100 and 150 are marked, so I'm just guessing based on assuming the scale is linear.
Second, I'll say that this setup delivered exactly as I had hoped, unreservedly.
I'm getting the fantastic clarity and soundfield of the RS100 (yeah, even after a having them for awhile now, they still sound fresh and involving), and I'm now getting deeper and better controlled bass from the Yamaha 8s than I had been able to before, regardless of EQ. And the kicker is, I'm getting that with 0 EQ. Nothing between source and amp, not even digitally other than the active lowpass on the 8s
That being said, I couldn't leave well enough alone and played with the EQ a bit. Turns out that the Yamaha units could really only handle being pushed a touch more. A +6dB curve starting at 50Hz is pretty stable except for a few exceptionally bassy tracks or an SFX DVD where it would push them to distortion. Not terrible or scary or anything, but unpleasant. EQ would still be an option for drivers that needed some help up top or some problems inbetween, but for what I'm running, no EQ is best, and upsampled to 176.4kHz for music (where the Emu 0404 + Patchmix won't allow any EQ) is even better.
A side note . . . the APA150 is intended for use as a fullrange stereo amp as well as monoblock and/or subwoofer functionality, and it touts a beefy power supply, high quality components and construction, and pretty much universally high review marks. It does sound better than my old, not to mention bottom of the line for its generation Pioneer receiver in the living room. It was almost as good as my Panasonic XR57 receiver and its digital amps, losing out mainly because it has a different character to the sound, and I, personally, had a preference. It is, however immediately and blatantly obvious that its sound quality pales compared to the 2nd Gen SI T-amp. Just another moment supporting the use of digital amps, especially Tripath based ones, for high sound quality. Now I'm interested in hearing some higher quality and/or upgraded examples, and possibly some of the more interesting if not quite as affordable tube amps.
Kensai
I'm using the Dayton RS100S-8 as my fullranger and the 8" woofers from a pair of Yamaha NS-6940s as my helpers. I estimate from extended listening and tinkering that these Yamaha units have a Qts somewhere in the .7 to 1.0 range and an Fs around 45.
My baffles are a multipart, jury rigged affair. I've got a pair of bamboo cutting boards that had until recently held my B20s serving baffle duty for the Yamahas. Those are hinge mounted to my desk about ear height. The RS100s are mounted in quick and dirty cardboard baffles with folded back wings meant to allow them to stand up more than to act as U-baffles. These are sitting on top of the carcasses of my titanic old Sansui boxes, with one wing pressed against the edge of the bamboo baffles, though the driver height is a few inches lower.
First, let me say, the continuously variable low pass crossover controlled by the knob on the back of the APA150 is just about the most wickedly cool bit of instantly gratuitous audio kit I've ever worked with. Just put on a very familiar track with lots of low bass, then just turned the knob up from 50Hz till it got decidedly bloated in the upper bass then back down till it just started to lean out too much then a touch back up and voila . . . perfect balance between the two drivers using just that knob and maybe 20 seconds of time. The setting I ended up with was just about 70Hz on the nose, though only 50, 100 and 150 are marked, so I'm just guessing based on assuming the scale is linear.
Second, I'll say that this setup delivered exactly as I had hoped, unreservedly.
I'm getting the fantastic clarity and soundfield of the RS100 (yeah, even after a having them for awhile now, they still sound fresh and involving), and I'm now getting deeper and better controlled bass from the Yamaha 8s than I had been able to before, regardless of EQ. And the kicker is, I'm getting that with 0 EQ. Nothing between source and amp, not even digitally other than the active lowpass on the 8s
That being said, I couldn't leave well enough alone and played with the EQ a bit. Turns out that the Yamaha units could really only handle being pushed a touch more. A +6dB curve starting at 50Hz is pretty stable except for a few exceptionally bassy tracks or an SFX DVD where it would push them to distortion. Not terrible or scary or anything, but unpleasant. EQ would still be an option for drivers that needed some help up top or some problems inbetween, but for what I'm running, no EQ is best, and upsampled to 176.4kHz for music (where the Emu 0404 + Patchmix won't allow any EQ) is even better.
A side note . . . the APA150 is intended for use as a fullrange stereo amp as well as monoblock and/or subwoofer functionality, and it touts a beefy power supply, high quality components and construction, and pretty much universally high review marks. It does sound better than my old, not to mention bottom of the line for its generation Pioneer receiver in the living room. It was almost as good as my Panasonic XR57 receiver and its digital amps, losing out mainly because it has a different character to the sound, and I, personally, had a preference. It is, however immediately and blatantly obvious that its sound quality pales compared to the 2nd Gen SI T-amp. Just another moment supporting the use of digital amps, especially Tripath based ones, for high sound quality. Now I'm interested in hearing some higher quality and/or upgraded examples, and possibly some of the more interesting if not quite as affordable tube amps.
Kensai
Kensai -
This is good news, I had looked at that Amp awhile back but I'm not sure I'm totally understanding.
I also see you are using a soundcard ( had to Google it) which is a desire I had and mentioned in another thread.
Now I really have questions!
You say 'nothing but lowpass on the 8"s'. Are you referring to lowpass from amp or do you still have some network hooked up to the 8's?
The soundcard itself ...... I know nothing of these as I earlier stated and hoped others would join in as from little I'm told these newer ones can act as entire preamp section for gainclones as well having EQ capabilities. I'd like to own DB2496 for active XO needs but we're talking money again here. I'd also like to play with podcasting as a hobby a bit. Perhaps not as sophisticated as DB2496 but do you see this as meeting the needs? Some of these cards do 7.1 and wondering if EQ has capabilities for each channel? My ignorance regards Computers makes me look a genius regards Audio so that tells you how dumb I am. I would like to put all of my music in a computer library and use a service beyond the free ones to run it all from and I own 2 computers just sitting here that could be upgraded. Why Bluray CD/DVD burners are cheaper for Computers than stand alone units is beyond me. All this and podcast desires make me think the way to go. Can you send me to where I can get a quick laymans understanding to this?
I'd prefer no electronics to drivers themselves with exception to maybe a cap where I think I might want tweets.
Am I understanding you correctly that you believe Gen11 Sonic Amp sounds better than the Dayton? Thats tough to believe but maybe not so when you consider power capabilities.
Your report is good news.
Right now and best luck I've had 'stringing' stuff together is the 10" Marconi FR's I picked up combined with some Pio mids that handle 500-6000 and a pair of the Onkyo buyout tweets.
You're good but I remain the OSB King. Tired of that though, also went through 12 - 4' x 8' sheets in the last year and want to get my mind straight here and build some serious baffles.
Bluto
This is good news, I had looked at that Amp awhile back but I'm not sure I'm totally understanding.
I also see you are using a soundcard ( had to Google it) which is a desire I had and mentioned in another thread.
Now I really have questions!
You say 'nothing but lowpass on the 8"s'. Are you referring to lowpass from amp or do you still have some network hooked up to the 8's?
The soundcard itself ...... I know nothing of these as I earlier stated and hoped others would join in as from little I'm told these newer ones can act as entire preamp section for gainclones as well having EQ capabilities. I'd like to own DB2496 for active XO needs but we're talking money again here. I'd also like to play with podcasting as a hobby a bit. Perhaps not as sophisticated as DB2496 but do you see this as meeting the needs? Some of these cards do 7.1 and wondering if EQ has capabilities for each channel? My ignorance regards Computers makes me look a genius regards Audio so that tells you how dumb I am. I would like to put all of my music in a computer library and use a service beyond the free ones to run it all from and I own 2 computers just sitting here that could be upgraded. Why Bluray CD/DVD burners are cheaper for Computers than stand alone units is beyond me. All this and podcast desires make me think the way to go. Can you send me to where I can get a quick laymans understanding to this?
I'd prefer no electronics to drivers themselves with exception to maybe a cap where I think I might want tweets.
Am I understanding you correctly that you believe Gen11 Sonic Amp sounds better than the Dayton? Thats tough to believe but maybe not so when you consider power capabilities.
Your report is good news.
Right now and best luck I've had 'stringing' stuff together is the 10" Marconi FR's I picked up combined with some Pio mids that handle 500-6000 and a pair of the Onkyo buyout tweets.
You're good but I remain the OSB King. Tired of that though, also went through 12 - 4' x 8' sheets in the last year and want to get my mind straight here and build some serious baffles.
Bluto
Bluto,
"nothing but the lowpass on the 8s" means the adjustable lowpass on the APA150. That is the only filter in the analog domain in my signal chain. And now, since I don't need any EQ (just playing through some music last night, I found batch of dance tracks hidden away in my library that had me thinking about level adjusting the APA150, though the apparently enhanced bass of the current settings is very pleasant for the vast majority of my library.
I'm using the Emu 0404 as my preamp. The basic concern with doing this is that the Windows kmixer that most everything passes through, resamples everything to 48kHz at some point (music is generally 44.1kHz) and does a really poor job of it. Also, the kmixer handles the general software volume control, and the Windows method of volume control involves chopping bits off the end of your bitstream, thus removing detail.
The way around is a sound card that supports ASIO drivers and playback software that has an ASIO out path. I use an old 2.9x version of Winamp and a more current version of the out_asio.dll for it, along with a couple of other choice plugins to play back my harddrive based library. The out_asio.dll is what handles my upsampling when I use it, and if you're going to resample at all, its best to do it in whole number multiples as that keeps the math exact, not to mention much less processor intensive. Anyway, when using the ASIO path, the kmixer doesn't touch the bit stream, so using the software volume control actually just changes the level in the drivers, which instead of altering the bitstream, changes the analog output level of the DAC section of the card.
As for the gross, obvious sound quality difference between the SI T-Amp and the Dayton APA150, well, I can't really address your disbelief. It seems to just be the difference between topologies. Even a really good sand amp still sounds like a sand amp. The Class D stuff is just by its base nature capable of being something different, better. The Tripath based ones, Class T if you will, is so far my favorite representation of Class D kit, and given the proliferation of Tripath based, modded and/or high end units seems to show a similarity of opinion amongst those able to design/build their own. It just really sound fantastic. I'm sure you can do better, but not for the $50 I gave for the SI. I mean I only gave $150 for my XR57, and it was a great deal, but even letting it biamp the mains out giving it insane amounts of headroom, it just sounds different in a way that's inherently less good than the T-amp but also inherently better than the similarly priced, 2 channel only APA150.
Anyway, I'm much, much more satisfied with my solution now. Next up is finding a more permanent, nicer baffling method.
Kensai
"nothing but the lowpass on the 8s" means the adjustable lowpass on the APA150. That is the only filter in the analog domain in my signal chain. And now, since I don't need any EQ (just playing through some music last night, I found batch of dance tracks hidden away in my library that had me thinking about level adjusting the APA150, though the apparently enhanced bass of the current settings is very pleasant for the vast majority of my library.
I'm using the Emu 0404 as my preamp. The basic concern with doing this is that the Windows kmixer that most everything passes through, resamples everything to 48kHz at some point (music is generally 44.1kHz) and does a really poor job of it. Also, the kmixer handles the general software volume control, and the Windows method of volume control involves chopping bits off the end of your bitstream, thus removing detail.
The way around is a sound card that supports ASIO drivers and playback software that has an ASIO out path. I use an old 2.9x version of Winamp and a more current version of the out_asio.dll for it, along with a couple of other choice plugins to play back my harddrive based library. The out_asio.dll is what handles my upsampling when I use it, and if you're going to resample at all, its best to do it in whole number multiples as that keeps the math exact, not to mention much less processor intensive. Anyway, when using the ASIO path, the kmixer doesn't touch the bit stream, so using the software volume control actually just changes the level in the drivers, which instead of altering the bitstream, changes the analog output level of the DAC section of the card.
As for the gross, obvious sound quality difference between the SI T-Amp and the Dayton APA150, well, I can't really address your disbelief. It seems to just be the difference between topologies. Even a really good sand amp still sounds like a sand amp. The Class D stuff is just by its base nature capable of being something different, better. The Tripath based ones, Class T if you will, is so far my favorite representation of Class D kit, and given the proliferation of Tripath based, modded and/or high end units seems to show a similarity of opinion amongst those able to design/build their own. It just really sound fantastic. I'm sure you can do better, but not for the $50 I gave for the SI. I mean I only gave $150 for my XR57, and it was a great deal, but even letting it biamp the mains out giving it insane amounts of headroom, it just sounds different in a way that's inherently less good than the T-amp but also inherently better than the similarly priced, 2 channel only APA150.
Anyway, I'm much, much more satisfied with my solution now. Next up is finding a more permanent, nicer baffling method.
Kensai
Bluto said:
IMO I can't really see listening to a 15'' driver with a tweeter attached to it, and getting a captivating midrange in the like of the smaller Fostex and the Lowthers, AER and Feastrex etc.
I'd bet the 10'' sounds better overall than their 15''.. I know many really enjoy those big drivers and thats totally cool, but ain't my thang.
Also it would seem many like using their 15'' drivers on small little baffles with the SI's just a few inches up off the floor and tilted back towards the listening position stage monitor style, go figure.. It would be neat if Hawthorne would do a nice 8'' driver and work it into a killer OB system
, but make sure to tell people to not mount them at floor level
Here's my meaningDave
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