Hi Yoke,
I like Audioweaver but I agree the interface is not as easy to use as some...
Check out DriveRack PA2 | dbx Professional Audio
at £399 RRP its a steal with great sound.
Anyone designing UI can learn a lot from how the DBX / Harman guys do it, so easy to set up and the graphics teach you a huge amount about how different filters / slopes / crossover points actually affect the sound... Plus you can see on screen the shape of the curves changing as you slide the crossover points / gain and Q points up and down... Amazing stuff for under £400!
David, Can you customise Audio Weaver graphics to give you some of information on the DBX units?
If you can it would make a massive difference/ upgrade to the usability and desirability of your unit.
I like Audioweaver but I agree the interface is not as easy to use as some...
Check out DriveRack PA2 | dbx Professional Audio
at £399 RRP its a steal with great sound.
Anyone designing UI can learn a lot from how the DBX / Harman guys do it, so easy to set up and the graphics teach you a huge amount about how different filters / slopes / crossover points actually affect the sound... Plus you can see on screen the shape of the curves changing as you slide the crossover points / gain and Q points up and down... Amazing stuff for under £400!
David, Can you customise Audio Weaver graphics to give you some of information on the DBX units?
If you can it would make a massive difference/ upgrade to the usability and desirability of your unit.
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It's not just a DAC. For God's sake Read the specs. There are many separate threads on here that address DACs only. This is not one of those threads.I'm absolutely convinced people don't read anything beyond the last 5 comments on here.
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I will read this whole thread after work. This is definitely an impressive piece of engineering.
But the minidsphd measures quite well by AudioScienceReview and it’s not just a DAC.
Chill out dude.
I used to have miniDSP 4x10 HD and it was a toy compared to David's DSP.
Mine have ES9028PRO, and I compare it to some stand alone DAC with AK4490 which is in like 2000Euro price range and I could not tell the difference. It was on pair with it.
I would say that I liked old behringer DCX2496 more than miniDSP 4x10 HD...sound wise.
DIY Najda with 6 channel AYA II DAC (TDA1541A) at the output did sound better than DCX and miniDSP by far.
Mine have ES9028PRO, and I compare it to some stand alone DAC with AK4490 which is in like 2000Euro price range and I could not tell the difference. It was on pair with it.
I would say that I liked old behringer DCX2496 more than miniDSP 4x10 HD...sound wise.
DIY Najda with 6 channel AYA II DAC (TDA1541A) at the output did sound better than DCX and miniDSP by far.
You mean a pro-audio unit like this ? Lake LM 44, Loudspeaker Processor, Loudspeaker Management and System Control | eBay
When I was originally going to sell boards for substantially less, people whinged about the price then, which is what put me off selling boards in the first place !!! The same old excuses got wheeled out once again. "You can buy brand X for price Y etc etc."
If I sold this for 2 dollars I am sure one of you would say it was too dear and brand Y was better value which is exactly what you are doing now ! It would have been a race to the bottom for which I know of one casualty here who was selling a completed DSP product and is no longer selling it ! This is the sort of thing I have tried to avoid by making this product stand out from the pack.
I don't expect to sell a lot of units at this price but that doesn't mean there are people not willing to pay extra for the additional quality and features that I have incorporated. I can't help everyone here who wants a bargain. Stick to the bargain basement for this and there is no need to come here and whinge about it if you think you can find a better deal elsewhere.
cheers
david
Yes this is possible but we wanted to offer our flagship products first and then maybe work back from that with a cheaper version with reduced features and performance etc
Had we done this first then people would start whinging about how they need these extra inputs/outputs etc etc so we have thrown in everything bar the kitchen sink on this one to make it a universal product cheers
david
If our preamp only offered 4 output channels with 96K internal processing then you would come here whinging about how you needed 6 outputs or 8 outputs and 192 K processing etc and brand Y has this for this price etc. Our price might be higher but we made sure we crossed all of the t's and dotted all of the i's and have got all of the features you will ever need and the performance to match. We didn't cut costs on anything
When you have finished playing with the toys come and see us
cheers
david
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Any audio processing software that can run on a PC or MAC can be used with the UP Plus via the USB audio interface. Then you should have no problems using the software that best suits your needs and does not limit you to using Audioweaver
However you may want to run a convolution software on a PC that does room or group delay correction whilst still using the DSP on the preamp to do the crossover functions. In this case it is very easy to build a crossover in Audioweaver. Alternatively you may want to do all of your DSP processing on an external PC. This is also possible cheers
david
Tranquility Bass,
I'm not about to debate price point of your product or compare prices with competing product. Looking at other digital products I found this KV2 processor that uses 20MHz PDM digital conversion process
SDD3 | Processors | Products | KV2 Audio
how does this conversion process compare to the Ultimate Preamp 24 bit ADC?
I'm not about to debate price point of your product or compare prices with competing product. Looking at other digital products I found this KV2 processor that uses 20MHz PDM digital conversion process
SDD3 | Processors | Products | KV2 Audio
how does this conversion process compare to the Ultimate Preamp 24 bit ADC?
It's a digital delay line for live sound installations (delay towers & cardioid sub alignment etc). There is no information on it's DA / AD conversion architecture, although conventional wisdom would suggest it's PCM (or you can't do delay), also that they are using a standard PCM chip set to do the conversions.
It is not comparable to the UP in any way really. The UP uses ESS DACs I think, and maybe an AK ADC - I have not checked the specs recently.
The Ultimate Preamp uses a TI PCM1863 ADC which is probably very similar to the other part you quoted.
cheers
Any audio processing software that can run on a PC or MAC can be used with the UP Plus via the USB audio interface. Then you should have no problems using the software that best suits your needs and does not limit you to using Audioweaver
cheers
david
Thats interesting... I like the ability to start with the on board Audioweaver and then explore / compare other software packages... Your super high quality DAC / A to D and analog preamp combined with this... .Juice Hifi Now that would rock!
On the business / ROI front, I have a suggestion that might help you:
Partner with high end loudspeaker manufacturers and power amplifier manufacturers to do a few audio shows.... Its not that difficult or expensive if you do your research, which is what you are great at!
You know what a massive upgrade your tech will bring to any passive loudspeaker ie take a pair of high end passive 3 way loudspeakers (ATC's are a good example) add your tech plus 6 channels of good power amplification and you have a system that will blow away any £100K pair of passive "Wilson ultimate snake oil" or whatever brands are selling to the "more money than sense" brigade these days.
Research high end loudspeaker manufacturers, really trawl through the endless stream of boring audio show reports and look for the £15,000 to £50,000 RRP PASSIVE crossover (or the guys using DEQX / Mini DSP / re-badged Pro DSP etc) models/ manufacturers who aspire to the super high end....
Contact them and offer to demo to them what your tech can do for them.... Also do the same for suitable power amp manufacturers...
Get all three of you together for a demo and if everyone is suitably impressed you are in the big league!
You provide your hardware and set it up at the show and you get more face to face plus post show reviews from the professional media plus the public in one weekend than you will if you spend the next 100 years on a dead end DIY forum where everyone is a penny pinching critic (like me!)...
It will cost you one third of a solo show, (or even free depending on how you structure the deal and how mindblowing your tech actually is....?) and will launch you into the high end audio market.
One caveat, you will have to build up your show unit in a suitable high end case and maybe a nice pair of old school VU meters... So cool!
These will only cost you a few hundred bucks but make ALL the difference as high end manufacturers will NEVER put your existing casework into their rack at a show... Fine for a private demo but you must have a high quality computer render brochure to show them what you will do.
These changes might cost you £500 but they will pay you back thousands down the line.... Good luck!
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Yes this is possible but we wanted to offer our flagship products first and then maybe work back from that with a cheaper version with reduced features and performance etc
cheers
david
Thanks for the reply, David!
Another question, please - if I use only 2-way speakers will there be enough resources in your unit to do BOTH (FIR?) X-over and some (basic?) EQ room correction?
I just don't want to use too many boxes for audio playback and don't want to mess with external PC/Software.
In that case will UP2 be up to the task, please?
Thanks!
Ivo
All the comments on the price where to be expected. I think the price is reasonable except for import duties which ads 21% to the price but hey I'll take it if it is a top notch product.
I'm still in the considering phase. I'm busy looking into audioweaver at the moment to see if this is the thing I'm looking for.
There are still a couple of things unclear to me.
First the gain structure. If I understand correctly the volume control on the front panel and on the remote control is the digital volume control of the ESS DAC and is independent of the DSP processing or anything I do in Audioweaver, right? This is important to me because I always want to be very very sure that whatever I do in DSP can't blow up 4000 dollars worth of loudspeaker drivers. This happened to me ones, and believe me, you don't ever want that to happen in your life. As far as I have looked into Audioweaver a tiny mistake is easy to make, so yeah I want to be the master of the master volume at all times.
Second, what I really like about my DEQX crossover at the moment is the implementation of linear-phase crossovers (FIR). The software treats it just the same as Linkwitz or Butterworth crossovers. Just choose it from the list, that simple. All other DSP solutions so far expect you to be a DSP expert to be able to implement linear phase crossovers. I was looking for this in audioweaver but so far have not found it yet. Maybe I'm missing something. Now before anyone likes to discuss the downsides of linear phase crossovers and why I would want them but there is only one simple answer: Because it sounds better in my system and except from linear phase crossover I can't think of anything why I would need the amount of DSP power that is on offer in the Ultimate Preamp
Third, remote control.
I have read the UP is compatible with the apple remote. Can it be used with other remotes as well? I ask this for two reasons. First, the apple remote is too small that it vanishes here in my household. How do I know? Please don't ask, ouch, I already had three of them. Never lost any other remote though.
Second, since I also control my playback software with the same remote that I use for volume control I would like a remote with some more buttons. My DEQX remote has lots of useless buttons that can be used for other purposes.
Fourth, is there a possibility to store presets/profiles that can be recalled in a way my family can understand? I always use one profile for music and one for movies for instance. Besides that, since this unit is much of a DIY loudspeaker toy it comes in very handfull to be able to directly compare different crossover/DSP settings
All in all some nitpicking things but all of them are quite important to me to justify replacing my DEQX.
I'm still in the considering phase. I'm busy looking into audioweaver at the moment to see if this is the thing I'm looking for.
There are still a couple of things unclear to me.
First the gain structure. If I understand correctly the volume control on the front panel and on the remote control is the digital volume control of the ESS DAC and is independent of the DSP processing or anything I do in Audioweaver, right? This is important to me because I always want to be very very sure that whatever I do in DSP can't blow up 4000 dollars worth of loudspeaker drivers. This happened to me ones, and believe me, you don't ever want that to happen in your life. As far as I have looked into Audioweaver a tiny mistake is easy to make, so yeah I want to be the master of the master volume at all times.
Second, what I really like about my DEQX crossover at the moment is the implementation of linear-phase crossovers (FIR). The software treats it just the same as Linkwitz or Butterworth crossovers. Just choose it from the list, that simple. All other DSP solutions so far expect you to be a DSP expert to be able to implement linear phase crossovers. I was looking for this in audioweaver but so far have not found it yet. Maybe I'm missing something. Now before anyone likes to discuss the downsides of linear phase crossovers and why I would want them but there is only one simple answer: Because it sounds better in my system and except from linear phase crossover I can't think of anything why I would need the amount of DSP power that is on offer in the Ultimate Preamp
Third, remote control.
I have read the UP is compatible with the apple remote. Can it be used with other remotes as well? I ask this for two reasons. First, the apple remote is too small that it vanishes here in my household. How do I know? Please don't ask, ouch, I already had three of them. Never lost any other remote though.
Second, since I also control my playback software with the same remote that I use for volume control I would like a remote with some more buttons. My DEQX remote has lots of useless buttons that can be used for other purposes.
Fourth, is there a possibility to store presets/profiles that can be recalled in a way my family can understand? I always use one profile for music and one for movies for instance. Besides that, since this unit is much of a DIY loudspeaker toy it comes in very handfull to be able to directly compare different crossover/DSP settings
All in all some nitpicking things but all of them are quite important to me to justify replacing my DEQX.
There are/were some boutique audiophile companies offering similar, operating at 192KHz, and their pricing was in the $10,000+ range.
Similar small production runs I'd guess, but audiophile industry fancy casing.
Who knows if they still exist (and therefore giving no support). I was searching for such a thing a couple of years ago to see what was about and found one or two (think it was a Swedish company - can't find it now).. and then came across this thread on our very-own diyaudio.com!
High prices can also flourish in the right market. Nothing is dead in the water when marketed well. That may well grate, feel like a moral outrage and push things out of many people's grasp, but it's perfectly legitimate for anyone to chase those markets and prices with any product.
If this one is as good as the users of the previous version indicate, then Dave could easily go that way too but I suspect that in terms of his personality, that's not what he wants.. at the moment. I get the feeling though when a manufactuer does market to the high-end they get a LOT less hassle and stick about the costs and that's part of the reason they abandon customers who quible over the previous lower pricing.
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