Cat5e/6 works very well for digital signal.
I think for the limited data rate audio puts on a network, it's about the network topology that maintains end-to-end sample timing (iow, the right managed switch capability, etc).
Unless very long runs...like hundreds of meters....then sure, fibre is needed for SNR.
Wireless will be great...when all timing issues get resolved, which i guess means when someone comes up with a great economical wireless syncing method ...
I have been using Dante to connect multiple PCs. It works flawlessly, but in my setup 48K max. Dante is becoming an industrial standard, and many products supports Dante protocol.
Audinate | Dante Audio Networking, AV'''s Leading Technology
Audinate | Dante Audio Networking, AV'''s Leading Technology
Hi Charles just me being existential and on reflection probably best left alone
Tony.
It does, but SFP modules have a certain charm for me and gives me a freedom from ground issues and the ability to stick whatever I want down them. A degree of future proofing, albeit with extra up front effort.
I buy speaker cable from Amazon Basics. Wish they sold thinner cheaper speaker cable than 16 gauge. I use 20 gauge doorbell wire for amplifier interconnects.
Architecture: amplification after an active crossover. I'll never have a beautiful McIntosh amplifier to keep my room warm in the winter.
That was easy for me. I wanted something really good, but also knew from a design perspective, that mixing all kinds of hardware, can lead to unknown problems.
That why I love my DCN28. Cause it's a 8 channel preamp, with the DAC, DSP and fully digital controlled seperate analog volume for each channel. First and only one of it's kind that I know of, that has ever been build.
First I wanted to build in the amp's in the speakers to make a more clean and elegant look. But by building them myself, I chose to make two 3 channel amp's that I could place close to each speaker, for shorter cable runs and to be able to experiment with different speakers. Later I used the last 2 channels to add subwoofers with an extra and even more powerful amp.
The DCN28 made it possible to have a fully integrated solution, where the combination of DAC, DSP and volume control, could be fully optimized and easily accesed every day.
The 4 trigger outputs, makes it a no brainer, when powering on 3 amp's, by simply turning on the preamp.
And the software that comes with it, has a logic apporach from measuring, to optimizing and loading the filters in the DSP. Full of helpful and fully customized settings for limits and values, presets, seperate input and output filter blocks and many choices of views, to better understand the process.
Also I have had this equipment with me in my car and traveled all over the country, to both demonstrate and experiment with friends, how it would work with their speakers.
For example. When two of my friends used behringer and minidsp. They often had humm, hiss, distortion or other kinds of weird noises from the speakers, that should simply not be there and was very annoying. That's why we tried with my pre and amp's..... which proved to remove all those pesky problems everytime - even on big 110dB horns
I also have way more processing power than most other DSP's and more freedom to dial in more detailed values, when adjusting Q, gain and frequencies.
Alot of what this hobby is about, is the fun of fiddling with something - but sometimes kinda ignoring hardcore facts. We want to build something unique and personal, but it should also change somehow, when we are in a different mood, bacause we as humans are dynamic of nature. Further - I think we dont really trust specifications, reviews or ourselfs that much. We can suddenly one day think, that even though a given products has a noise level 120dB below .... maybe something new could be better, maybe a new study that shows that the current 40 year old study was wrong. It's like a constant battle between progress and knowing when something is good enough.
So maybe a seperate solution is cheap and doable right now and you feel the freedom to change components along the way. Maybe you just like the process - even though someone else already know your not getting good results with what you specifically are doing.
If you know eaxctly what you like and want a more simple, elegant and nice look. Go for the build in types.
If you want to experiment and do all kinds of stuff - go for seperates.
But again - it all boils down to what you want.
I looked at the marked 10 years ago. Behringer and minidsp - noise, low specs, ugly and not really that much freedom in adjusting.
DEQX - super expensive and still just the same chip as in any behringer, little freedom to change anything and only 6 channels - aaaand I have still - to this day - not heard any system with any kind of implementation of FIR, that sounded better. So no reason to choose this products for that feature.
Then there was a few products with some automated room-eq solutions. But they were usualy automated, very few adjustments and often no user iterference.
On a exhibition I saw the Von Sweickert VR11. Sounded fine. But still something that looked like a 200$ plateamp on the rear, with very few adjustments.
So as you can read.... I'm also fully caught up in looks, price, this chip that chip.... and what have you.
So I decided to take the few things I for sure new, that I did not like.
Hum, hiss, annoying usability, lack of freedom, bad specs and low power.
So out goes - LP's, tubes, tapes, most typical hifi-products and alot of pro-gear because of the cooling fans.
Things change and I know respect for example minidsp more - because they seem to have fixed their noise problems and kept the flexibilty - and I actually heard them play pretty good in many different combinations.
But as long as my Groundsound preamp keeps going - why should I change it - when we all know that mostly - it's the speakers and the room, that gives us trouble
The DCN28 is hardly a looker either!
I've posted the noise plots for the minidsp several times and none of the minidsp haters have posted a comparison with their favourite. It's frustrating as doesn't help get to the bottom of what is going wrong in those cases. I like tying up loose ends and finding if it's really a noise problem or a gain problem. If the latter I agree a multichannel analog volume control is the way forwards.
Jan Didden did a really nice remote controlled multichannel volume control for active speakers a few years back. Of course no one was interested so he only built 2 of them...
Haha... yeah... it's pretty bland... gotta admit that
But it works and does not try to be anything more than precisely what it is - neutral in it's looks. And do you know how extremely expensive it is to make a nice design - compared to the cost of great audio?Great points. I will look into these measurements and google the DSP you meantioned
All I can say, is that I have never heard a minidsp with less noise than my DCN28. Always some pesky noise or hiss/humm issue.
DIY Active Multi-Way Set Up
Hi
A bit late I noticed this article, been going active since 1982, started with a Crimson DIY Set Up, 4 way, used it 20 year, loved it, got a 4 way THEL AUDIO Cross-over, build several TL speaker cabinets, using all sorts of combinations, changed the THEL Crossover to 3 Way, to make life easier..setting it up.
Still use that, got into digital cross-overs in 2010, first modded Behringer DCX2496, later Najda, love to experiment with those units....using Yamaha RX-V receivers as power and preamps, cheap and cheerfull, bought secondhand, RX-V2500 and RX-V3800
Cheers, Tom.
Hi
A bit late I noticed this article, been going active since 1982, started with a Crimson DIY Set Up, 4 way, used it 20 year, loved it, got a 4 way THEL AUDIO Cross-over, build several TL speaker cabinets, using all sorts of combinations, changed the THEL Crossover to 3 Way, to make life easier..setting it up.
Still use that, got into digital cross-overs in 2010, first modded Behringer DCX2496, later Najda, love to experiment with those units....using Yamaha RX-V receivers as power and preamps, cheap and cheerfull, bought secondhand, RX-V2500 and RX-V3800
Cheers, Tom.
I haven't tried SFP yet. My impression has been SFP is for when distance, or perhaps more precisely when transmission rate at distance, becomes limited for plain copper ethernet. Is there more to it?
Oh, and what do you mean by ground issues?
I have a near crazy amount of ethernet wiring in and around the house, with several switches and access points. It's all worked perfectly so far.
I use a temporary 200ft Cat6 run down the driveway when measuring speakers.
One q-sys 4-channel network amp that has routable mic/line inputs built into it is all the gear i have to take out to make measurements...well, other than a mic and AC power to the amp.
It's kinda cool to measure multi-way speakers from my desk inside the house, build the FIR files, load them, remeasure and verify, then set levels and timings for complete speaker tuning.
And i never even hear what's going on...
Yep, Dante or AVB or who knows what eventual protocol will be our signal flow i think. Dante sure has the traction right now.
Audio, video, and control....all over ethernet under one protocol...i can't see it going any other way. AES is history already i think....
It is frustrating. Because i have to believe until hard evidence exists otherwise, that hiss issues with certain minidsp products, have been about improper gain staging not working with the units' I/O voltage specs.
I started with a minidsp opendrc DA-8. Yes, it had hiss when using >110dB compression drivers .... until I dropped amp gain for proper gain staging.
Then no hiss at all. Great sound.
I'm very happy with digital attenuation when the internal processing bit rate is high. In fact, prefer it over analog, completely so when 32bit or higher, and 24bit is still fine in my book.
I think where digital attenuation gets a bad rap, and rightly so, is when folks try to lower the output of a 16bit source signal for volume control....no worky
Who said I was sending ethernet packets down it? I'm more interested in multiple I2S streams down a single fibre. But that's in the future
Gotcha
Nice!
Is RXV 6-channel amp's clean? mine RXV-800 says "small / large speakers" and some other fishy things on the surrounds del and more.
Do you get the same quality with the amps as with the pre amps?
I've heard a bunch of Kinoshita's Rm inspired loudspeakers (which are two ways 2x15 ( sometimes mtm) + horn loaded 2" or 1,5") processed with fir crossover and found them to be overall 'better' sounding to me than passive equivalent.
These design ask for 24db slope even in passive that may be a reason, it is easier to time align the drivers and ask a bit 'more' to the CD/horn combo too which plays a role imho.
Looking for asymetric filter slope. Are you gonna use a coax in the end?
I'm waiting to hear the last 12" BMS and could push the trigger on this one.
Similar to this?
Steep(er) slopes are often mandatory for the high pass of compression drivers, especially when crossed below the recommended XO.
I put the coax on hold for a while, because ideally you need separate subs, which, for various OT reasons, I prefer to avoid.
In the future I might clone the OB Horn system to which I referred earlier.
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Yes this one ( Rm7/8) but Rm4 too ( juxtaposed 15" below the horn).
Already described this in Camplo's thread.
Yes three way minimum for coax i came to same conclusion too.
Your idea is close to what Docali implemented if i don't mix up pictures you posted.
Ro808, have you heard the latest Bms coax? I'm interested in 12c382 but no one own one around me and Bms changed distributor and it seems they are difficult to find in France atm. I would appreciate some review about it: i liked the 362 but the newer should be able to withstand 1khz xover which is nice to me.
Already described this in Camplo's thread.
Yes three way minimum for coax i came to same conclusion too.
Your idea is close to what Docali implemented if i don't mix up pictures you posted.
Ro808, have you heard the latest Bms coax? I'm interested in 12c382 but no one own one around me and Bms changed distributor and it seems they are difficult to find in France atm. I would appreciate some review about it: i liked the 362 but the newer should be able to withstand 1khz xover which is nice to me.
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