Active vrs passive

[wintermute]

Actually although I've not heard it on vinyl, I suspect the same can be said about Pink Floyd's Animals... maybe it is just a Pink Floyd phenomenon....

Tony.

[Charles Darwin]

Originally Posted by CopperTop

If my life depended on anyone here really being able to tell the difference between low cost and hyper-expensive DACs, I'd be very worried. Ditto 192 vs. 44.1.

Question: do any of you vinyl addicts hear a difference between music at the outer tracks of an LP vs. music on the inside?

I think 192 may well be pointless, see Dan Lavry's white papers on his site.
And then the difference between 96k and 44.1 or 48k is a fair bit smaller than the difference between 16 and 24bit.

With DACs money thrown at it is not necessarily a deciding factor.
There used to be a post (now sadly gone) on another site where somebody posted otherwise identical recordings but one file was recorded through a cheap ART, one through a £350 Echo Audio AF12 while the third through a £8000 Apogee Rosetta.
While everybody of the dozens of people who tried to identify the three could easily identify the ART as the cheapest/worst the differences between the Echo Audio and the Apogee were way to close to tell. There were very, very subtle differences but slight majority preferred the Echo unit in the end if I remember correctly. Either way not enough to draw any conclusions about quality or accuracy between the two.

To my ears the differences between convertors is smaller than those between different amplifiers which leaves speakers/drivers as THE major determinant of sound quality.

[puppet]

Originally Posted by terry j

I get your point, and see your horror, but tbh I think it about time this angle WAS raised.

I am not sure about the 40k bit (see above) but I do think, as a general guide, most of the projects and discussions on this forum DO revolve around the bang for the buck end, and that is NOT being dismissive.

So, maybe every once in a while, and it does seem appropriate maybe in a thread like this, let's at least look at this rarely mentioned approach. Not quite 'cost no object' (mine prob owes me around 20k) but hey, I'd put mine up against any of the 'big boys' and then some.

So anyway, personally I think it fine and cool that we also throw the expensive systems into the mix, even on the same basis as the budget projects...'bang for the buck'.

Sure, lot's of bucks, but when you look at the idiotic cost of 'hi end' and compare results....

I don't have a problem including the "cost no object approaches" ... just the inference that it would take stacks of cash to go toe to toe with a Passive system. That's absurd to me. (if Jack wasn't implying that, then I stand corrected)

However, getting the most out of a DSP is more than twisting a couple knobs. One can fail to produce satisfactory results with a cheap unit just as well as with the best on Earth if you don't spend some time with it. (thinking that there's more of this going on in this threads' posted opinions than anything else)

What I like about the active approach is that you aren't limited in driver selection. Combining drivers, that one wouldn't normally care to make the effort for, can be done with satisfactory results.

The guys with cradle to grave control over their components and/or intending to use low order xo's will, most likely, choose passive and have outstanding results. The additional complexity (manufacturer) or expense (avg. diy guy/*manufacturer wanting a simple audio solution) isn't worth it to these folks.

Getting the drivers to work together is the important part ... the rest is "cAke DeCoration". Sky's the limit for sure. .. but the users decision to use active/passive when assembling their system shouldn't include the notion of a second mortgage.

[5th element]

192 for digital delay, for time aligning/phase aligning drivers is somewhat necessary. The minimum you can delay by is one sample period and 96 and 48 don't quite give you the precision required.

[flavio81]

Originally Posted by planet10

I disagree. There is always context. And a very important contextual variable is budget.

dave

Yes, and sometimes active is cheaper... Particularly when instead of needing 1 ultra-high quality 300W/channel amplifier ($$$$) you can get away with one cheap, budget 150W/channel amp for the bass driver, and one homebrew 10-20W class A amp´for the highs, also taking advantage of no more power lost at the (passive) crossovers.

Really good passive crossovers are very expensive, btw. A DIY class-A discrete crossover wouldn't be so expensive to make, comparatively.

[flavio81]

Originally Posted by Pano

Most DAC chips are better than folks give them credit for. It's the analog circuits after them that suck. Been true since the 1980s, but I don't know why.

Well, because the analog part can be more expensive than the digital part, if it is to be realized correctly.

For example there's a lot (LOT) of things written on the net about the "horrible brick-wall filters", but when correctly realized they can sound allright. And to correctly realize one, it is an expensive affair (lots of precision inductors). The first digital multitracks had non-oversampling DACs coupled to classic brickwall (i.e. 9th order) filters and top mastering engineers of the day compared them favorably to their golden analog multitracks...

The key -as always- is on the implementation.

[flavio81]

Originally Posted by CopperTop

Question: do any of you vinyl addicts hear a difference between music at the outer tracks of an LP vs. music on the inside?

We're steering off-topic but since i've spent the last 3 years learning everything related to vinyl playback, let me answer shortly and as simple as i can:

On the inner grooves there is less linear groove speed available. Thus, the highest frequencies get more difficult to read by a conventional stylus. In consequence, most mastering engineers intentionally reduce the HF energy (i.e. by equalization) at the inner grooves, to prevent this. Thus, limited HF extension available. Or they choose to not do this, and the high frequencies at the inner grooves may be a bit harsh if they're not read with the narrowest elliptical (.2x.7 mil) *

Another choice is to significantly reduce the cutting level at the inner grooves.

Most of these choices will make the audio on the inner grooves different from the outer grooves, unless the record has been mastered with great care and your cartridge has a narrow-side-radius stylus, and your TT system is perfectly aligned.

* Harmonic distortion skyrockets at the inner grooves because of increased groove modulation curvature, which may reduce so much that the stylus does not correctly fit in the groove but ride up and down (pinch effect). This increases distortion.

[Wavebourn]

Why off-topics, why needles and grooves? Because the topic was not well defined.

Let's still start from definitions.

1.) Active: design, build, fine tune the system, enjoy the music.
2.) Passive: Discuss on forums endlessly classifications of systems and of their parts, which one is better and why.

Conclusion: I prefer active.

[Drewan77]

Well said Wavebourn. With my properly implemented DEQX, multi-amp system I have finally achieved EXACTLY what I wanted after years of randomly trying off the shelf passively crossed speakers. I am sure there are people out there who accidentally or technically hit on a perfect amp-speaker-room combination. I never did and all I ever wanted to do was listen to recorded music as close as possible to a real live event. I now have that and I have been EXTREMELY fussy in my pursuit

[tinitus]

Originally Posted by Drewan77

Well said Wavebourn.

I think its flaming calculated rubbish to get you going again

1) and 2) are only different depending on who says it