German Physiks & Marten Coltrane

[shygon]

Hello, i am a newbie in the audiophile society and i would like to ask a question that bothers me for the last few weeks.

By searching the web, I came accross these speakers:

a) Marten Coltrane Supreme
b) German Physiks "The Gaudi"

The first ones, have two towers per channel, one for the bass and another one separately for the midrange and tweeters. So they need two (2) monoblock power-amplifiers per channel, one for each tower.

The second ones, they need three (3) monoblock power amplifiers per channel, one for each section (DDD, Woofer, Subwoofer).

So, my question is how on earth they should be configured in order to create a stereo system? Assuming that you have the following components:

Burmester CD Transport 969
Burmester D/A Converter 970 SRC
Line preamp: Mark Levinson No. 32

4x (or 6x for Gaudi's case) VTL Siegfried 800-Watt Reference Monoblocks -or Vitus Audio SM-101 Monostage-

If the Mark Levinson No. 32 should take a pair of Sigfrieds into his output, how can the other poweramplifier pair(s) should connect? And if more than one pre-amplifiers should be used, how can they be connected to the sources? I cannot understand the connection architecture of such complex systems. Can someone explain to me? Thank you in advance.

[lovechild]

Hi,

you will need an active crossover to be placed between the preamp and the poweramps.
Or even better, a digital loudspeaker management system - something like this: http://www.behringer.com/DCX2496/index.cfm?lang=en.

hope that helps,
LC

[shygon]

thank you for your reply.
I checked the internet for the behringer and other
"digital loudspeaker management" devices, and i saw that all of them are priced between 500-1.500 Euros. Given the factor that those speakers i mentioned in my post (and the other componets as well) are extremely high priced, i wonder if a device of this price range, "scales down" the overall "audiophile performance" structure. A device like the behringer you gave me, is a solution that an open-budget audiophile would preffer for his system?
Imagine a 15.000$ preamplifier on one end and a 40.000$ monoblock poweramp on the other, and in between a device of 500-1500$ splitting the signal. Hmm, something is not right

[janneman]

Originally posted by lovechild
Hi,

you will need an active crossover to be placed between the preamp and the poweramps.
Or even better, a digital loudspeaker management system - something like this: http://www.behringer.com/DCX2496/index.cfm?lang=en.

hope that helps,
LC

If you can afford German Physics, go for a DEQX as speaker management and digital xover, forget the Behringer.

The DEQX can be had in several options. In your case, you iether take the 3-channel stereo analog balanced output option or you go for total digital until the speaker by using a DEQX with 3 stereo digital outputs and digital (class D) amps. That would be my choice.

You DO realise that the DDD driver works on a totally different principle than other drivers, and therefore has a unique sound character and also needs gobs of power.

Jan Didden

[Tenson]

Actually, would you not want to forget all that rubbish and use the crossovers designed by the manufacture?!

I mean seriously... they may be passive but on a $250,000 speaker you are more likely to mess it up by designing your own crossover.

I think the answer you want is that you use splitter cables to drive 3 power amps per side all at the same time from the same signal. Much more simple.

If the pre-amp doesn’t like to drive 3 power amps per side then you might make a little device to duplicate the output and drive each power amp separately. But you would have to make it very high quality so you don’t ruin the signal.

That’s what you get for asking this question on a DIY forum