Active vrs passive

[davidsrsb]

Active does not solve beaming problems of running drivers too high and used rashly encourages sudden changes in polar response, even though on axis measurement is ruler flat. It does allow better designs with already well chosen drivers

[mondogenerator]

my experience is different. Audacity sucks eggs. CoolEdit pro is good and I use it frequently, though it doesnt do 24bit DSP as it renders in 16bit of 32bit floating and I dont have a 32bit soundcard. Do you? Dont get me wrong 16bit is OK, but its got a long way to go until i buy in.
Personally I dont think the DSP VSTI plugins are in general that hot, and theyre far from modern since CEPro must be a decade old now. That being said, I will have to search out those Aurora. The pessimist in me doesnt have that much confidence in them though.

[Barleywater]

Cool Edit Pro 2.1 certainly does 32 bit; and 32 floating point; user bit depth conversion with dither options. I do all filter work from editor; but multitrack will do 32bit integer mix. Sourceforge Convolver works 32bit, 24bit, 16bit.

Convolver in Windows Media Player, and under VST host will operate bit perfect.

Regards,

Andrew

Active does not solve beaming problems of running drivers too high and used rashly encourages sudden changes in polar response, even though on axis measurement is ruler flat. It does allow better designs with already well chosen drivers

What? With steeper crossover filters, it is possible to safely cross tweeter much lower, reducing beaming issues of mid/woofer.

[mondogenerator]

interesting...im still discouraged by 16bit being the best my 24bit SFX card will output. Im certain 32bit would be worth the effort, IF i had a capable card. Although my home studio efforts have sounded great so perhaps 16bit is sufficient? Damn now i have to buy another amp and/or soundcard to try that VST...

[Barleywater]

I'm not sure how you are coming to 16bit limit with 24bit card. 32bit processing makes sense for computation, but 32bit output is waste, and nobody to my knowledge is achieving this sort of performance. Thermal noise of most resistors at room temperature result in dynamic range less than 24bits; speaker drivers are much worse than this. Most speaker systems don't effectively show better than 12bits. Most people don't have clue as to how much sound is on a well produced CD.

Regards,

Andrew

[mondogenerator]

true. I doubt anyone can hear 2^16 amplitude levels in a 80dB dynamic range.

[dewardh]

Originally Posted by Barleywater

Thermal noise of most resistors at room temperature result in dynamic range less than 24bits; speaker drivers are much worse than this.

And then there's microphones . . .

I used to obsess about the last half dB of microphone noise . . . until I realized that once the orchestra was seated and breathing I couldn't hear it . . .

24 bit is good for capture . . . it makes life much easier setting gains and avoiding impulse overload. 32 bit is necessary for processing. 16 bit is plenty for delivery . . . anything more is wasted overhead or lost in the noise.

[puppet]

Originally Posted by davidsrsb

Active does not solve beaming problems of running drivers too high and used rashly encourages sudden changes in polar response, even though on axis measurement is ruler flat. It does allow better designs with already well chosen drivers

The beaming aspect is true of both types of XO's ... and if used rashly, both will hurt polar responses. ... but as Barleywater pointed out, correctly chosen steeper filters will/should improve polar response both on and off axis. That that should allow for better designs with even not so well chosen drivers.

[davidsrsb]

Originally Posted by Barleywater

What? With steeper crossover filters, it is possible to safely cross tweeter much lower, reducing beaming issues of mid/woofer.

Within reason, yes, but not for cheap tweeters or something like the Tekton 10" thread in this forum.

[flavio81]

A lot of discussion about DSPs, A/D and D/A around here, but most of the advantages of going active will also be realized by using analog crossovers too, particularly 4-th order ones (or steeper)