I mistyped earlier... This one is Andrew Jones.... from KEF, TAD, Pioneer, Elac and now MoFi.
The one I typed, Phil Jones, is the one from Acoustic Energy, Platinum Audio and now Phil Jones Bass. He's the one that designed the AE1 and the Airpulse.
As it just so happens, I have two pairs of AE1s and two pairs of Elacs. Both designers are outstanding...
I'm currently driving a pair of AE1s with a CJ ET3SE and DIY F4. In my office system. You ought the hear this set up. The AE1s are ruthless and you can not hear the amp.... all you hear is the music coming out of the preamp.
My wife, lucky her, is running a pair of Elac UniFi2 UB52 with a Nuforce DDA120 in her office. For a while I ran them with the CJ PV9 (Teflon cap'd) /F4 combo.... truly outstanding too with pin point imaging.
Oh, I also run a second pair of AE1s with a Nuforce DDA100 off my PC... in the very near field. It's outstanding too.
I've also used the AE1s to hear the difference between the different amps at home. The little suckers, with Entec woofers, are all the speaker you need.
And I bought a pair of Elac BS41-BK purely as an impulse buy when they went on sale at Amazon a while back. It's the speakers I use on my bench. They are cheap enough not to cry, too much, if I blow them, but they are good enough to really hear what I'm doing on the bench.
On my radar are the Elac Carina BS243.4 and used Pioneer SP-BS22-LR. And, of course, the Mofi Source Point 10. I got some DIY Pass amps just waiting for those suckers...
I'd also like to get a pair of Platinum Solo, but I'm quite sure how easy it would be to maintain them. Or a pair of AE-2, which are still supported by the factory.
Then you got Phil Jones' AAD. You don't hear much from them... but the 7000i looks very good, but too much for my pocket and I've never seen one in the used market.
Hey!
https://reverb.com/item/63694483-aad-by-phil-jones-7000i-passive-hifi-speakers-studio-monitors-pair
That show must have been fun.
My wife, lucky her, is running a pair of Elac UniFi2 UB52 with a Nuforce DDA120 in her office. For a while I ran them with the CJ PV9 (Teflon cap'd) /F4 combo.... truly outstanding too with pin point imaging.
Oh, I also run a second pair of AE1s with a Nuforce DDA100 off my PC... in the very near field. It's outstanding too.
I've also used the AE1s to hear the difference between the different amps at home. The little suckers, with Entec woofers, are all the speaker you need.
And I bought a pair of Elac BS41-BK purely as an impulse buy when they went on sale at Amazon a while back. It's the speakers I use on my bench. They are cheap enough not to cry, too much, if I blow them, but they are good enough to really hear what I'm doing on the bench.
On my radar are the Elac Carina BS243.4 and used Pioneer SP-BS22-LR. And, of course, the Mofi Source Point 10. I got some DIY Pass amps just waiting for those suckers...
I'd also like to get a pair of Platinum Solo, but I'm quite sure how easy it would be to maintain them. Or a pair of AE-2, which are still supported by the factory.
Then you got Phil Jones' AAD. You don't hear much from them... but the 7000i looks very good, but too much for my pocket and I've never seen one in the used market.
Hey!
https://reverb.com/item/63694483-aad-by-phil-jones-7000i-passive-hifi-speakers-studio-monitors-pair
That show must have been fun.
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I really think that the design is the culprit here rather than the DSP itself. I've heard many good DSP speakers. I design my crossovers with DSP then implement passive and as long as the curves are the same, I can't really tell a difference. DSP has so many advantages, but I can see how it would be misused and misunderstood. I see people using wayyyyyyy too much EQ rather than getting the design right, then getting the crossover right to match. I think people get a flat on-axis frequency response and don't do much more after that. I think this happens both actively and passively. But their in-room response (directivity) is not smooth and therefore we hear the flaws. Obviously, I wasn't there to hear them and I'm guessing but I have enough experience with DSP to know that it can sound very good. And, of course, anything can sound bad if it's designed and or implemented improperly.
I really think the hifi community is just way behind the Pro Audio community when it comes to DSP.
The show was really well attended and well run. I got to meet a few from the DIY crowd and see some of their projects.
One of them was a pair of giant brand W clones in a stunning auto paint finish. The DIY crowd certainly can make some great stuff.
I don't get a chance to hear much at shows but some of it can be not great. Our room was interesting, no Diana Krall at least. Often times borrowed unknown equipment in poor rooms. If your selling speakers people are interested in the amps or cables and the other way around. The days are long and hard on the voice. Still it was good since I haven't been in years.
Andrew Jones latest was impressive but the amps didn't hurt.😉 He is a class act and does a great demo. I have spent my own money on his work and may again.
One of them was a pair of giant brand W clones in a stunning auto paint finish. The DIY crowd certainly can make some great stuff.
I don't get a chance to hear much at shows but some of it can be not great. Our room was interesting, no Diana Krall at least. Often times borrowed unknown equipment in poor rooms. If your selling speakers people are interested in the amps or cables and the other way around. The days are long and hard on the voice. Still it was good since I haven't been in years.
Andrew Jones latest was impressive but the amps didn't hurt.😉 He is a class act and does a great demo. I have spent my own money on his work and may again.
He was one of the judges at SDC last year. He has come to the DIY events in Fort Wayne and Grand Rapids (I think) in the past.
I have not heard them directly, but I can compare the sound quality via YT when it is properly recorded, as is the case here. Great sound. Obviously, demos often use recordings and music that sound good with the demo system.
In my second audio system, with the PC as the source, I have KEF Q100 5.25" coaxial speakers (usually in nearfield) that sound very great after the modifications I made (1st-order filter with MiFlex as bypass, wires, cabinet, and non-aggressive convolution filter via rePhase -> JRiver DSP), much better than the originals. The coherence of an all-band or coaxial speaker with first-order filters is marvelous; it is a before and after. That is why I have threads on X/Twitter about the Pearl Acoustic Sibelius and the MoFi Sourcepoint (the one I am interested in is the 8" with an upgradeable filter, which has been fixed in the V10) to my first audio system (classical, baroque, opera, vocal, folk... very good recordings with DR > 12dB with real instruments and voices without Autotune).
Yesterday
Pearl Acoustics: Time Out - The Dave Brubeck Quartet. A masterpiece that changed jazz forever
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Damn what advanced technology Andy Payor has used, pure spaceship technology!
Completely clean from screws and epoxy encapsulated xover 😳
In response to:
CharlieLaub said:
Hey Perry! The reason the DSP version sounds "better" is that it uses different crossover filter functions than the passive MFG crossover, but this is not openly disclosed by Danville. So it is not all that surprising (and it is a bit of a ruse) because it is not an apples to apples comparison.
I am not going to get sucked into hyperbole about what products sound best etc at the show. As an industry participant, I will leave that to others.
However I will address the specific Danville demo and some of the issues that have been brought up.
We did not clone the passive crossover and we were very upfront about this. Our implementation was substantially more complex than the first order passive crossover used in the Magnepans. This is one of the reasons to use DSP. Most speaker designs benefit from better EQ and in many cases sharper crossovers. This is practical with DSP and not so easily accomplished with analog techniques. With modern DSPs you can actually go overboard with too much filtering, but IMHO, analog implementations never really have enough.
In additional to EQ corrections, we used 8th order LR filters with the Maggies. Maggies are good loudspeakers but work much better when each section of the panel "Stays in it lane". You can improve the dynamic range and linearity with sharper crossover filters. The choices might and are different when you use another loudspeaker target. We also high-passed the Maggies when we added the subwoofers and added time alignment. since the woofers were further than the mains. We used some bass management to deal with room modes.
As the designer of the Danville dspNexus, I paid a lot of attention to the details of the analog portion of the design. Whether you have a full DSP system or not, chances are you will rely on at least good DACs most of the time.
Active crossovers, both analog and DSP have a number of architectural advantages.
Here are a few:
1. Drivers are driven directly. This is easier for the amplifier and improves damping for the woofers (the amplifier provides a near short circuit for back EMF)
2. Intermodulation products in the amplifiers are eliminated (greatly reduced) since you can't get them if there is nothing to mix). This means that all amplifier are better since they have an easier job to perform. You certainly pick different types of amplifiers if you choose for different drivers. For example you could use a 300B triode for tweeters and a Class D for woofers if you wanted.
3. No amplifier sounds good when clipping. If the low frequency content of an signal drives a full range system into clipping, the high frequency content pays.
With DSP you can have as much complexity as you want from a practical point of view. You get time alignment for free and if you want you can use FIR filters for things like impulse response corrections that you cannot do with analog filters. This was apparent to me as a designer long before I started my personal DSP journey (35 years ago). I have been an analog engineer for 50 years.
DSP is not perfect and implementations like everything else are uneven.
Al Clark
Danville Signal
3 * 60 * subjective = objective? C'mon ...
Nevertheless it's an interesting observation. You obviously all three preferred the passive vs. the DSP systems. Ok then. My guess: We all have our habits, also listening habits. Your home system as shown on your picture is a 3-way passive one? So you are used to a more or less typical phase response pattern of a passive 3-way system. The phase is always and typically blurred within these passive 3-way (multiway) xover setups, showing a quite wild step response. Instead, within a well applied DSP setup you can reproduce a near perfect phase response. I assume that many Axpona DSP speakers had theirs phase linearized. Because it comes for free, as mentioned before:
But, and it's a well known and widespread everyday and anyforum's fact, technically better solutions not always suits one's subjective demands and preferences. Think e.g. of all the tube lovers living with and cherishing more or less some extra 2nd harmonic distortion products. These people will blame solid state devices for their lack of "musicality". OK, then ...
So what? I think it might be an interesting experience for any passive 3-way-system listener to build a small auxiliary DSP device which does nothing but linearizing the overall phase of theirs system. Simply using DPS to make theirs system to overall behave correctly in terms of the step response. A rpi running linux/camilladsp hooked to a correct DA converter will do. Toggle then the the corrective filter and the linear pass-through (=non-corrected) pathway. Do it blinded, or even better double-blinded. I guess some will appreciate and endorse this kind of DSP linearization, and some will not. And some will fail to perceive any difference.
It's all about and nothing but subjectivity.
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I've attended the last three years and I would saw the crowds have been similar each time. Some of the rooms are so packed you need to squeeze in sidways, give em the ol Midwest "Ope, just gonna sneak past you real quick", other rooms can be quite comfortable.
I've never found the actual listening experience to be the real draw. I've heard some of the same equipment in different venues with much better results. It seems like you need to try and "imagine" what the system would sound like in a better setting. Getting eyes on the equipment, meeting similarly-minded people, and just the excitement of a convention are the reason I keep going.
The marketplace was great if you like digging for vinyl, otherwise it has never knocked my socks off.
The cost and complexity of outfitting a room definitely kept me away. The $5k Axpona charges only covers the room. No furniture or treatment included. Want a place to sleep? That costs extra.
Tom
Tom
Every CD ever recorded has used DSP, and the majority of currently released vinyl records have used DSP in the recording process.
If a speaker system used DSP and did not sound better than it would using passive filters, the DSP was not properly implemented.
That would be a clear indication they did not know how to design a speaker system.
There are several things that can be done with FIR DSP impossible to do passively, but DSP is no substitute for good design.
It was around 2009 after measuring and doing listening comparisons of a two-way active Mackie HD1521 compared to a passive two-way DSL SM100 that I understood that an inexpensive speaker using properly implemented FIR DSP and built in class D amplifiers had reached the point where in most respects it could outperform the best available that were not using similar technology.
There is satisfaction in getting the best possible performance from the same technology and similar components to those used more than a century ago, similar to competing and winning in a low displacement naturally aspirated engine racing class.
That said, race cars that are running circles around a 2025 Ferrari are not using Ford Model T parts.
Each technology used imparts it's own performance limitations.
Art
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Art,
I thoroughly enjoy projects where a specific limitation is imposed. I do like the challenge of designing a speaker that HAS to have passive crossovers, or only X liters box size, or has to use a particular woofer, or whatever. It's a game and it's fun.
One of my best buddies, when he comes over and sees a new project, always asks me "So what was the constraint on this one?"
But as far as I'm concerned any endgame speaker has to be digital. (Unless you're a pure analog-o-phile with a vinyl front end, in which case I understand why all the above would go out the window.)
If your source is digital, you've already crossed that Rubicon. Now the game is to execute a great speaker design with all the tools at your disposal. But not "over-execute" any tool beyond what's appropriate. It should be elegant. Not throwing everything you've got at it. There should be an economy of moves made.
Whenever possible, I design for linear phase. A linear phase speaker delivers an incisiveness and fine-grained texture that can be a little bit like when you go to the optometrist and when he's got the prescription almost dialed in, one choice is just a little on the soft blurry side and the other is on the "over-focused" side. And you back it down to the soft side and that's the lens they grind for you. I think linear phase speakers tilt towards analytical, more like the over-focused lens. Which I prefer. May not be everyone's cup of tea.
I like the sensation that the speaker can zoom in on the finest details and reveal them. Especially in high dynamic range recordings where you can turn up the volume and it's not super loud but you're hearing nuances you wouldn't even be privy to if the musician was playing right in your living room.
I thoroughly enjoy projects where a specific limitation is imposed. I do like the challenge of designing a speaker that HAS to have passive crossovers, or only X liters box size, or has to use a particular woofer, or whatever. It's a game and it's fun.
One of my best buddies, when he comes over and sees a new project, always asks me "So what was the constraint on this one?"
But as far as I'm concerned any endgame speaker has to be digital. (Unless you're a pure analog-o-phile with a vinyl front end, in which case I understand why all the above would go out the window.)
If your source is digital, you've already crossed that Rubicon. Now the game is to execute a great speaker design with all the tools at your disposal. But not "over-execute" any tool beyond what's appropriate. It should be elegant. Not throwing everything you've got at it. There should be an economy of moves made.
Whenever possible, I design for linear phase. A linear phase speaker delivers an incisiveness and fine-grained texture that can be a little bit like when you go to the optometrist and when he's got the prescription almost dialed in, one choice is just a little on the soft blurry side and the other is on the "over-focused" side. And you back it down to the soft side and that's the lens they grind for you. I think linear phase speakers tilt towards analytical, more like the over-focused lens. Which I prefer. May not be everyone's cup of tea.
I like the sensation that the speaker can zoom in on the finest details and reveal them. Especially in high dynamic range recordings where you can turn up the volume and it's not super loud but you're hearing nuances you wouldn't even be privy to if the musician was playing right in your living room.
When you write about designing with DSP, digitizing, etc.... I think you are not looking at all aspects of the system. I think you're getting close with "high dynamic range"... but you seem to assume that to get there, you must be playing "loud". How about if you can get "high dynamic range" when NOT playing loud?
Harry Pearson used to write about "stickyness"... that is, the ability of something to start moving quickly. In Physics we call that static friction which is always much higher than sliding friction.
A speaker system with low static friction is like an electronic system with very low background noise.
If a speaker can move on a dime and the electronics have low background noise you can listen to music at lower levels and still get wide dynamic range. When the "compression" between 70 to 90 db is the same as 80 to 100 db... then you gain the ability to "turn it down"... while you still hear all of the nuances of the music.
I think this is sort of where Nelson Pass is going with his First Watt electronics....
Right now behind me I got a 24/192 signal playing over the little AE1s with a little bit of bass reinforcement... and I can hear details in the music, and nuances of tone, guitars, voices, harmonies, percussion.... I can hear clearly how the guitars are being picked, details in the voices, the humming tones from Simon different than Garfunkel.... and I don't have to turn it up.
And there is bass...
It's an amazing performance... all because the entire system is very low noise, the drivers are all small and of high quality that they stop and start on a dime. Sure, they will play loud but I don't need to do that to hear the music.
Maybe, maybe, that's also important, huh? Speakers that can play softly with tons of detail and dynamic range.
The best thing... this little system will also play Black Sabbath... pretty loud too if I want it. It has a huge amount of dynamic range.
Harry Pearson used to write about "stickyness"... that is, the ability of something to start moving quickly. In Physics we call that static friction which is always much higher than sliding friction.
A speaker system with low static friction is like an electronic system with very low background noise.
If a speaker can move on a dime and the electronics have low background noise you can listen to music at lower levels and still get wide dynamic range. When the "compression" between 70 to 90 db is the same as 80 to 100 db... then you gain the ability to "turn it down"... while you still hear all of the nuances of the music.
I think this is sort of where Nelson Pass is going with his First Watt electronics....
Right now behind me I got a 24/192 signal playing over the little AE1s with a little bit of bass reinforcement... and I can hear details in the music, and nuances of tone, guitars, voices, harmonies, percussion.... I can hear clearly how the guitars are being picked, details in the voices, the humming tones from Simon different than Garfunkel.... and I don't have to turn it up.
And there is bass...
It's an amazing performance... all because the entire system is very low noise, the drivers are all small and of high quality that they stop and start on a dime. Sure, they will play loud but I don't need to do that to hear the music.
Maybe, maybe, that's also important, huh? Speakers that can play softly with tons of detail and dynamic range.
The best thing... this little system will also play Black Sabbath... pretty loud too if I want it. It has a huge amount of dynamic range.
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