That is rather simple minded question. Evetybody knows that even the transmission was analog, it transmited discrete (digital) amount of lines, which was rather small for modern era.
Radiosmuck, I did almost exactly what you did (minus Bluetooth) for the same reasons. And they are very good reasons.
However, after living with that for a few years, I missed the ritual of playing the LP. Nothing to do with sound quality, really. More about the experience. And I managed to find a lot of fun music on used vinyl for cheap, cheap. Like 10 for a dollar cheap. A record cleaner help immensely there. 🙂 The tangibility of the LP was missing from the streaming setup. It was all too easy, too detached. I didn't feel involved enough.
At work, streaming was great. I worked the night shift alone and built speakers for streaming radio. No way I'd want to mess with vinyl or tape or even CDs there. Pandora came online about that time and it was perfect for me.
Oh yeah. Efficient speakers. 10 watts was more than enough.
However, after living with that for a few years, I missed the ritual of playing the LP. Nothing to do with sound quality, really. More about the experience. And I managed to find a lot of fun music on used vinyl for cheap, cheap. Like 10 for a dollar cheap. A record cleaner help immensely there. 🙂 The tangibility of the LP was missing from the streaming setup. It was all too easy, too detached. I didn't feel involved enough.
At work, streaming was great. I worked the night shift alone and built speakers for streaming radio. No way I'd want to mess with vinyl or tape or even CDs there. Pandora came online about that time and it was perfect for me.
Oh yeah. Efficient speakers. 10 watts was more than enough.
Here is a second shot at it:
TV sets and the transmission system of yesteryears did not have much bandwidth for the job in hand, so a lot of compromises were made in order to just get the system to work, perhaps similar to AM radio.
Then we had VHS, betamax, V2000 and eventually DVD's (digital), but they did not improve matters all that much, because the playback system, was still the equivalent of an AM receiver!
Only when HD TV monitors were commonplace, the broadcasters (and DVD producers) were finally free to use the extra bandwidth to improve picture and sound.
For music, quality playback systems of 50's and 60's, were very capable, so from the word go! music publisher's hands were not tied to low quality.
LP was designed, originally, to be a high quality music medium.
A fairer comparison would be, the old school cinema film vs the new all digital cinema system.
I take the old film and projector, over new all digital system on picture quality alone, any day.
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to continue our discussion ,here is a little history of the matter.
JPEG ( Joint Photographic Experts Group) was a lossy standard for compressing pictures, that was devised in the early days of computers because storage space was at a premium.
When video was introduced into computers, they simply used (at first) MJPEG (or moving JPEG) to compress individual frames in order to reduce the total size. but it wasn't enough, so the MPEG (moving pictures experts group) standard was devised to further reduce the size, even more lossy than JPEG, but it was deemed sufficient. The very early version MPEG1 used a lossy audio channel to complete the job, it was called MPEG1 layer3 or in short Mp3!
Then came MPEG2, . . . . and now adays we use variances of H264 AVC with lossless digital audio.
Mp3's came to be used massively in the 80's (for the lack of competition) in order to carry enough music on a low-capacity memory card so that portable media players could use it.
Mp3 is old, very lossy and storage space is now very cheap!
Better compressions are various Mp4's or even the humble apple AAC, I use flac (lossless) even on my mobile phone (cellphone) these days.
But hey, if it still works for some, that's all you need to know!
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Aaaaaw 'Active' !
Then the total going into one channel is 800W, that explains it.
I actually made an active pair of speakers back in the 80's, still functioning (at a friends house) still sounding good. I used a modified mono Meridian 105 (150W into 4R) for my two bass drivers, and a modified stereo Meridian 103D (60W per amp) for my mid and treble, and a discrete active crossover.
But I noticed then that for 270W total power into efficient drivers without an intermediate passive crossover, the system only sounded as loud as a say average 100W+ system.
I hypothesized that it was because each amp was not carrying the full bandwidth, so in reality it was really 100W+, I just used three amps to do the job of one.
So in my belief, although active systems are the way forward, but they are not efficient in any way (power, electricity , cost, bulk).
What do you think?
I could tell you what I think but it is a lot quicker and easier to just post a link to an article that pretty much nails it and goes into sufficient detail:
BiAmp (Bi-Amplification - Not Quite Magic, But Close) - Part 1
BiAmp (Bi-Amplification - Not Quite Magic, But Close) - Part 1
I took a quick look, and the article seems to be full of flaws.
Have you read it?
I'll read it again when I get the time, thanx.
If I hadn't read it I wouldn't have posted it.
It gels almost perfectly with everything else I've learned about active systems although Billy Woodman, founder of ATC, claimed that passive xovers lose up to 9dB compared to active.
It gels almost perfectly with everything else I've learned about active systems although Billy Woodman, founder of ATC, claimed that passive xovers lose up to 9dB compared to active.
I still haven't read it completely, but here is my initial frown!
- bi amping is one thing, active is another, the article seems to confuse the two.
- since mucic power spectrum is closer to pink noise than white, the argument for quadrupling the power by using two 100W amps is flawed.
e.g. at midrange frequencies the average level is about 15dB down from bass frequencies, so if we have 100W available for bass driver, we gonna need only a few watts for midrange, say 3-5W , so eventhough we may have allocated a 100W amp for it, in reality the bass amplifier would reach its max. way before the midrange amp does - so in reality at about 105W we are running out of power, and not 400W as the article seems to suggest.
Just my initial thoughts!
Bi-amping changes meaning if you travel to other english speaking countries.
It is not difficult to figure out what he means.
If you need two 100W amps depends on where you cross over. He suggested crossing at the equal power point in which case he is correct.
It is not difficult to figure out what he means.
If you need two 100W amps depends on where you cross over. He suggested crossing at the equal power point in which case he is correct.
I guess I did not know, thanks. What I do know is, I'll never play vinyl again, even if I thought it sounded better, which I don't.
So, my TD 124/II, TD125, Technics SL-110A and Ariston RD-11 need to find new homes. So you can see, I did enjoy vinyl, once.
The dry winters here cause too much static and using a brush just makes things worse. Please don't offer remedies.
But not in practice!
Again for the aforementioned argument.
An active system with 3X100W amplifiers, sounds as loud as a passive system with one 130-150W amplifier allowing for passive crossover deficiencies, since at least two of the 100W amps. full capability would never be utilised, in practice.
Why on earth would you use three 100W amps?
Something like 100, 60 and 30 would make much more sense for a 3way.
ATC for example use 200, 100 and 50W for the SCM100ASL Pro with xover points at 380 and 3800Hz, the lower being pretty much at the theoretical equal power point. With that they reach a claimed 115dB/1m continuous.
I use 400, 250, 200 and 50W amps. The last one being a different make but at least roughly the same type (bipolar classAB). Could have gone smaller but these just happen to be the ones I got hold of cheaply s/h.
Something like 100, 60 and 30 would make much more sense for a 3way.
ATC for example use 200, 100 and 50W for the SCM100ASL Pro with xover points at 380 and 3800Hz, the lower being pretty much at the theoretical equal power point. With that they reach a claimed 115dB/1m continuous.
I use 400, 250, 200 and 50W amps. The last one being a different make but at least roughly the same type (bipolar classAB). Could have gone smaller but these just happen to be the ones I got hold of cheaply s/h.
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I certainly wouldn't, but the article was suggesting that hypothetically.
Even at mid-crossover frequency each amp would be outputting half or quarter of available output because of the slope of the crossover frequency, so again the article's argument is flawed, even the graph it is displaying is wrong.
My observation circles around the fact that at 0-100Hz most of the power of the amplifier is needed, so if you use one 150W amp in a passive system, compared to 100W+50W+30W+20W active system, when it comes to music, both would be as powerful as each other.
Hence my argument that active systems are not (were not) meant to beat the passive in efficiency terms.
That's all.
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You missed the point that the higher frequencies 'ride' on the lower ones as AM which he covers fairly well in those articles (figure 2). Some would argue ( and have on this forum) that his ready reckoner is not quite accurate, but is close enough unless you are say designing an active speaker to a budget and every cent counts.
It is confusing to get your head around, particularly when you then realise that 3dB is just about noticably louder, but not 'wow that's loud' louder.
You continue to fail to account for the inevitable losses in a passive xover.
The minimum I have experienced was 3dB with the simple low pass in my Tannoys.
If your speakers have BSC they may well be much greater.
The minimum I have experienced was 3dB with the simple low pass in my Tannoys.
If your speakers have BSC they may well be much greater.
I don't think I did!
1- in an active system the voltages would not be mixed, so the graph is wrong.
2- we need to add the loudness of two or more drivers in an active system, not the voltages.
3- In practice (i.e. music) the system would start to clip (run out of power) in the bass amplifier first, hardly in mid or treble amplification eventhough they may have half the power capability of the previous amplifier.
Active systems are meant to be made on a budget, be efficient or otherwise, they are meant to be more accurate and less distorted (as far power is concerned).
Please read my previous reply, I did mention 'passive crossover deficiencies'
passive crossovers do not waste that much power anyway.
What's a BSC?
Baffle Step Compensation - in many XOs, the correcting EQ can be a source of at least 3dB "net insertion loss"
Baffle Step Compensation
and depending on the relative sensitivities of individual drivers, as well as impedance compensation, passive XO's can certainly "waste" power - how much you deem "that much" is perhaps a matter of interpretation
Baffle Step Compensation
and depending on the relative sensitivities of individual drivers, as well as impedance compensation, passive XO's can certainly "waste" power - how much you deem "that much" is perhaps a matter of interpretation
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BSC = Baffle Step Correction.
Passive crossovers do waste power. How much depends on their complexity and components used.
Once you start pricing up high quality inductors for the low pass(es) active operation quickly becomes very viable indeed financially.
Passives do however completely waste any control the amp may have had over the drivers otherwise. As a result an actively driven bass tends to stop quicker than one passively driven. At least to my ears.
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