These are interesting, don´t know about price though.
Barefoot Sound
They use some interesting concepts that could be applied to diy - force cancellation being one.
Barefoot Sound
They use some interesting concepts that could be applied to diy - force cancellation being one.
The trick, besides using hardy drivers, is to use a limiter somewhere before the power amp(s).
Many active monitors have them built in. With a bit of care they can be configured so as not to be in the signal path until needed. My amps have such limiters in them.
But the most basic consideration is to design plenty of headroom into the system so you rarely and hopefully never have to rely on limiters.
I was merely referring to the technical background on the design of these speakers. KEF know what they do, other manufacturers may too, but goals are not always equal. They indeed do have no name in the modern music recording industry, but classical music recording engineers (who do care about sound quality) do rely on speakers from brands such as these.
This feels a little out of place on a DIY forum but I can recommend the AVI active monitors. Very neutral sound and the ADM-sereis has excellent power handling. They are particularly good for orchestral music.
They are currently in the process of launching a new model (DM10) which means that earlier versions - ADM9 onwards - are something of a bargain second-hand. They also do a smaller model, the DM5, which is similar in that it is active but it lacks the DAC/remote preamp of the larger model.
I've heard most of these and they do what they claim. They sell direct so prices are good but it means they may be hard to source second-hand in the USA.
AVI Hi-Fi | a passion for sound
Hope that's of some use.
They are currently in the process of launching a new model (DM10) which means that earlier versions - ADM9 onwards - are something of a bargain second-hand. They also do a smaller model, the DM5, which is similar in that it is active but it lacks the DAC/remote preamp of the larger model.
I've heard most of these and they do what they claim. They sell direct so prices are good but it means they may be hard to source second-hand in the USA.
AVI Hi-Fi | a passion for sound
Hope that's of some use.
The DM5 also use class d amps while the DM10 use bipolars.
A friend of mine has an older passive AVI system and it is excellent. Their bipolar amps are very good indeed.
The DM5 and the sub are currently sold out though.
A friend of mine has an older passive AVI system and it is excellent. Their bipolar amps are very good indeed.
The DM5 and the sub are currently sold out though.
LS50's are just great. I am not sure that one sub will improve it by default. It will depend on the recording. You need two subs for true stereo music recordings and they have to be each as close as possible to the associated monitor. One sub is for home cinema. This is a common mistake, IMHO.
The reason why you need two subs is to be able to deal with true stereo (i.e. across the full audio range). Since digital arrived all recordings have been stereo down to low frequency, including the anolog ones due to much better performance of modern turntables. If you have true stereo it means that, despite the fact lower frequencies are less directional, the direction of a low-frequency source is still perceptible because of inter-channel phase differences present in such recordings. These phase differences are critical to reproducing the soundstage of the original room. If you sum the bass to mono and try to squeeze it through just one subwoofer, all the out-of-phase information cancels and reduces the level too. That's why adding on sub might not improve on plain LS50's (or any other good monitor with reasonably low frequency response).
Also in the case of mono bass recordings two subs are better because distortion will be generally less than half....
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