That's pretty much what I do 🙂. I still get plenty of bass but these movies do use that bottom end contrary to (most) music.
This certainly could be a discussion unto itself. I have read a number of discussions on the topic. You can get 250w x2 as cheap as $400 or pay $10,000 or more. Usually these discussions devolve into one camp saying all those extra $$$ are snake oil and you wont hear the difference (between a cheap amp and very expensive one) and the other camp laughing. IMO, power amps DO sound different. Certainly, the benefit/cost ratio flattens out after a certain price point. My approach is that you get the best amp for the amount of money your willing to spend. Once you determine your maximum price point, begin research on all acclaimed amps in that price range. Unless you are at the very bottom (price range) of whats available for what you need, there will always be folks that will say your spending more than you need and a lesser amp will sound just as good. I personally dont believe this. Just like listening room measurement data cant tell you what your room sounds like, a spec sheet cant tell you what an amp sounds like.
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My amp will clip before I reach x-max, x-mech is quite a bit higher on my drivers...
A sub (or three) is the only sensible option though. But I'll never get that trough the WAF certification here.
I just wanted to bring forward reasonable expectations of these arrays. They do more than good but do have limits. My current signal chain has more limits than I want to have. We always want more, don't we? 😀
I'd love to try a bigger amplifier. But I'm not going to buy a bunch of them just to satisfy that curiosity.
I guess I could always loan my next door neighbours PA amplifier and hook it up with balanced cables. That should have plenty of juice. My other neighbour has some sort of exotic tube amp, I haven't seen or heard it yet.
Even if I am in the science camp I do believe there are differences. My trusty old amp has a pretty high class A bias and has a sound I like. That's what makes it so hard to get a grip on this.
For a long time I figured I'd buy the First One "Large". I may still do that.
Allen seems pretty stoked about the "M" version.
For what its worth, the 250w amp I would buy now would be: Model Halo A 21 « Parasound Their not cheap though $2500. A used on can be had for about $1500.
to Sub or not Sub
I was dis-heartened to hear your limitations with your arrays when playing movies, but I am indeed in the same situation at the moment - having only one stereo DAC. I just can not get the sub-woofers "in time" with the arrays with just the plate amp cross-over and no cross-over on the arrays. There is a lot of unnecessary low going to the arrays. But it sounds like in your case, the power output of your amp is holding you back, in terms of running your arrays all the way down to 30 Hz. There is Hope still... 🙂 It would be interesting to try your neighbor's pro amp to see if it is possible, although I am thinking your Pioneer has better sound quality.
I am indeed very stoked - and my build has no exotic wire or binding posts. I used 22 gauge copper for my signal wiring and the solid Dayton Audio binding posts, which I think are very nice. I have been told that 24 gauge wire would have lower distortion and there are measurements on that, which I have not looked up yet. For the $900 I spent for the build, I believe I got a lot of amp for the money. Bear in mind, it was a significant upgrade from my 40 watt LM3875 mono block amps.
I have heard the higher powered Holten amps compare pretty well to the First One, and are pretty comparatively priced for the builds. Of course they have not gone up against the First One "L" yet... 😀
I wish I could fly over to the Netherlands and let You have a listen, it is so hard shopping for amps without listening to them. I picked the First One based off listening impressions and I do not feel I went wrong at all. A leap of faith for sure.
Of course, the other option for You, Ronald, with I am sure is looming in your mind, is whether You would be better off with sub-woofers. In that case, You could keep your Pioneer - which it sounds like You are very happy with, and add a second amp for the subs. I am sure You remember that I was pretty happy with that arrangement when I was using the Chip amps on the arrays. It did indeed change a little when I upgraded to the First One. For some reason, I could not quite get the subs "in sync" even with delay on the arrays. At least that is how I perceived it. I just could not "hear" it with the Chip amps. Now I am realizing it is room influence of the different speaker locations: The subs are across my front wall and the arrays are 3 feet in front of them on the side walls. I am sure this can be over come with room treatments and DRC. So I will keep You posted on that. I downloaded DRC, but can not find the set-up file to install it. Maybe I used the wrong zip program to extract it?
What I can say, since I am mostly listening to my Avebury system for now, is there is something special about the unity and coherency of a full-range system, especially with music. The bass from the Avebury is not quite as defined as the subs, but the impression of lightening fast impact is there (given the room delays of the back horn). There is no question the bass is coming from one source. I would like to hear this aspect of your arrays, because all the sound is coming from one plane (front of your line source). I find the time alignment with the subs is not as critical with movies, as I preferred the lesser distortion sound of those sub-sonic sweeps thru the subs. Avebury sounds weird with stuff like that. Like You, with movies, I must cross my Avebury at 44 Hz to keep the bass in line. This is not a power issue for me, Avebury is good to about 40 Hz, I go 44, to tame the peak there. 🙂
So You may prefer your arrays as they are for music, and may add in a sub or two or three for movies. 😀
One reason I am keeping a 2-way array design in the back of my mind, is I would like all the sound to come from one plane. But I have a lot of exploring to do before committing to something like that.
I used 7zip to unzip DRC, should I use something else? (Win Opener did not work at all.)
I was dis-heartened to hear your limitations with your arrays when playing movies, but I am indeed in the same situation at the moment - having only one stereo DAC. I just can not get the sub-woofers "in time" with the arrays with just the plate amp cross-over and no cross-over on the arrays. There is a lot of unnecessary low going to the arrays. But it sounds like in your case, the power output of your amp is holding you back, in terms of running your arrays all the way down to 30 Hz. There is Hope still... 🙂 It would be interesting to try your neighbor's pro amp to see if it is possible, although I am thinking your Pioneer has better sound quality.
I am indeed very stoked - and my build has no exotic wire or binding posts. I used 22 gauge copper for my signal wiring and the solid Dayton Audio binding posts, which I think are very nice. I have been told that 24 gauge wire would have lower distortion and there are measurements on that, which I have not looked up yet. For the $900 I spent for the build, I believe I got a lot of amp for the money. Bear in mind, it was a significant upgrade from my 40 watt LM3875 mono block amps.
I have heard the higher powered Holten amps compare pretty well to the First One, and are pretty comparatively priced for the builds. Of course they have not gone up against the First One "L" yet... 😀
I wish I could fly over to the Netherlands and let You have a listen, it is so hard shopping for amps without listening to them. I picked the First One based off listening impressions and I do not feel I went wrong at all. A leap of faith for sure.
Of course, the other option for You, Ronald, with I am sure is looming in your mind, is whether You would be better off with sub-woofers. In that case, You could keep your Pioneer - which it sounds like You are very happy with, and add a second amp for the subs. I am sure You remember that I was pretty happy with that arrangement when I was using the Chip amps on the arrays. It did indeed change a little when I upgraded to the First One. For some reason, I could not quite get the subs "in sync" even with delay on the arrays. At least that is how I perceived it. I just could not "hear" it with the Chip amps. Now I am realizing it is room influence of the different speaker locations: The subs are across my front wall and the arrays are 3 feet in front of them on the side walls. I am sure this can be over come with room treatments and DRC. So I will keep You posted on that. I downloaded DRC, but can not find the set-up file to install it. Maybe I used the wrong zip program to extract it?
What I can say, since I am mostly listening to my Avebury system for now, is there is something special about the unity and coherency of a full-range system, especially with music. The bass from the Avebury is not quite as defined as the subs, but the impression of lightening fast impact is there (given the room delays of the back horn). There is no question the bass is coming from one source. I would like to hear this aspect of your arrays, because all the sound is coming from one plane (front of your line source). I find the time alignment with the subs is not as critical with movies, as I preferred the lesser distortion sound of those sub-sonic sweeps thru the subs. Avebury sounds weird with stuff like that. Like You, with movies, I must cross my Avebury at 44 Hz to keep the bass in line. This is not a power issue for me, Avebury is good to about 40 Hz, I go 44, to tame the peak there. 🙂
So You may prefer your arrays as they are for music, and may add in a sub or two or three for movies. 😀
One reason I am keeping a 2-way array design in the back of my mind, is I would like all the sound to come from one plane. But I have a lot of exploring to do before committing to something like that.
I used 7zip to unzip DRC, should I use something else? (Win Opener did not work at all.)
Attachments
This is what it looks like... just a bunch of tools in a folder. It's an executable you can run with a batch script to set options...
DrcDesigner could be helpful to get a head start. It's a GUI around DRC which makes it a bit more visible what you're doing. I'm mainly using home made batch files these days that do what I want.
The thread: http://www.diyaudio.com/forums/full-range/275730-convolution-based-alternative-electrical-loudspeaker-correction-networks.html also offers a lot of help to get started...
That does look like an "all business" amplifier from the description. Thanks for mentioning it.
Ideally I'd like to do both. Once I make up my mind about an amplifier I trust, the next part will probably be subwoofers. As a lover of Sd area I'd like to use something big, but that won't fit my room without noticing. So I'll probably have to try a couple of long throw 12".
This is all long term thinking though. I'm perfectly happy with what I have but even in music it's apparent the low end does bring something worthwhile to the table. I have played with a rolled off low end around 40 Hz (sort of a PA cut-off). I started to miss the ambience of those lower parts can bring.
The movie playback showed I'm on the edge with music. (movie being just over that edge). I think it will be good to have some reserve built in.
Theoretically one array is comparable to a 12" sub with 7mm x-max. So I'd actually need quite a bit more to really gain some headroom.
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For subwoofer I am considering this:
Lilmike's Picowrecker - AVS Forum | Home Theater Discussions And Reviews
I have tried a couple of non-horn solutions, but they all sounded slow compared to the arrays.
Lilmike's Picowrecker - AVS Forum | Home Theater Discussions And Reviews
I have tried a couple of non-horn solutions, but they all sounded slow compared to the arrays.
Did you ever check the timing out in the room with a tool like APL-TDA? With Acourate + APL you should be able to get it close, at least that's what I'm thinking. This is very hard to read on phase and frequency curves due to the room reacting/influencing the results. In APL_TDA you can see what and where it's lagging.
I would love to find the space in the living room (and the go-ahead vote from the wife) for some nice 15" sub beauties!
The Dayton Audio, like the RSS390HF-4, look like they might be up to the task, and then some. 500W, Fs=19.5, XMax=14mm... It looks like Dayton is taking over a lot of business in the speaker world, especially subs. Lots of companies have called it quits making big subs.
No love for the NuPrime amps? They seem to offer a lot for the price asked.
The Dayton Audio, like the RSS390HF-4, look like they might be up to the task, and then some. 500W, Fs=19.5, XMax=14mm... It looks like Dayton is taking over a lot of business in the speaker world, especially subs. Lots of companies have called it quits making big subs.
No love for the NuPrime amps? They seem to offer a lot for the price asked.
The speed mismatch between a slow sounding subwoofer and fast Arrays has nothing to do with timing IMHO.
Koldby
Thanks, Ronald
Expectation can really get us into trouble sometimes. 😱 With my work schedule, I was hoping to up right in with a GUI. Note to self: Read the manual. 😉
I think I will learn DRC before getting into APL_TDA. 🙂 They want real $$$ for that one. 😛 I can really see the benefit of having it thou, especially in regards to setting up the subs.
Expectation can really get us into trouble sometimes. 😱 With my work schedule, I was hoping to up right in with a GUI. Note to self: Read the manual. 😉
I think I will learn DRC before getting into APL_TDA. 🙂 They want real $$$ for that one. 😛 I can really see the benefit of having it thou, especially in regards to setting up the subs.
Koldby, is your horn sub more directional?
If it is indeed more directional, it would be less influenced by the room. If that is the case, it would be easier to set-up to have fast impact. Just thinking aloud here...