Yep. The fact we had to clarify that a second time says it all 🙂
It is also not limited to audio. Pretty much any DIY hobby that involves building gear for better performance and to taste has some statement to the effect 'Welcome to xxxxx, sorry about your wallet. etc'
It is also not limited to audio. Pretty much any DIY hobby that involves building gear for better performance and to taste has some statement to the effect 'Welcome to xxxxx, sorry about your wallet. etc'
Thats the main reason I would say diy to save money is a fool's errand. You MAY be lucky enough to save some money (after youve covered your tools at least) on the occasional project, but when you end up with multiples of every device .... not so much.
Though it is possible to design the unit to last long, its practical lifetime depends on the actual stresses (and therefore the accelerated ageing) on the various components of the system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_engineering
For example, the NASA space probes Voyager I and II are exactly identical but have run into different kinds of problems, as they were being subjected to different operating conditions. In fact, the Voyager I has recently also reported erroneous data that the Voyager II has not.
Thus, if the MiniDSP engineers had somehow miscalculated the reliability of their power supply during the design phase, then it's quite possible that their product wouldn't last as long as it was expected to.
Anyone who reads through the entire thread would easily note how many members have actually tried to help this OP. Unfortunately, the OP is only fixated on a particular model of consumer HiFi speaker (Paradigm Premier) and doesn't actually seem to want to build anything, which, by the way, is also exactly what the thread title itself indicates.
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Okay if not MiniDSP then there should be something similar in that range right. See same is the case with PC market. Not all are good and long lasting and one should know and understand what they are spending on. Hence for those who don't there are many PC Communities similar to this DIY Audio community which exists to help to find suitable parts for their project. There are brands which I recommend and some that I advise to stay away from. For example when it comes to PSUs my most recommended brand is Corsair while I say stay away from Gigabyte PSUs.
This thread is me coming in and asking to build a PC with i7-12700K and RTX 3080 on myself instead of buying an Alienware PC or ASUS ROG PC and paying lot more than what is worth it. But then people here recommend to either settle for i5-12600K and RTX3070 PC prebuilt PC for same price or build i5-12600K and RTX3070 PC as it needs less power to run and gonna save me money more while I only need to OC both CPU and GPU to get a little bit closer to what I could have got out of i7-12700K and RTX 3080 combo. Seriously.
Okay yes MiniDSP is not good on QC and has higher than average failure rate. Then please recommend something that is good without me breaking the bank. I just cant believe that there is nothing better than minidsp till I am ready to dish out twice the price or more. That shouldn't be the case right.
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This emphasises one of several of your misunderstandings. PC parts are largely independent of each other with the overall sum being pretty much the sum of the parts. A DIY speaker is different. The design of the speaker contributes to the overall performance considerably to the extent that a well designed speaker using appropriate modestly priced standard range drivers will comfortably outperform a collection of expensive prestige drivers chosen for their individual attractiveness and not their appropriateness to work with the other drivers and then bolted to some sort of box. You need to apply/access significant knowledge about speakers to put together a good DIY speaker in the way you don't with a PC.
The speaker DIY market is very small with few manufacturers supplying hardware for it. Those that do ask high prices. This is quite different to the PC market.
The home audio sector is a low tech one that is primarily marketing lead rather than engineering lead. This is also quite different to the PC market.
If you can DIY signal processing software and hardware then yes there are more cost effective and higher performance alternatives to expensive proprietary minidsp hardware. The fact you have to ask indicates how far away you are from possessing the knowledge to follow such a course. The easy to use options are minidsp and hypex but even these can't be used effectively if you don't know the basics about how to design a speaker. You would need to look to someone else's speaker design and to pick one of the good ones rather than the many OK ones or the few bad ones. However if you cannot identify the characteristic sounds you prefer then even this is unlikely to be successful.
Designing and building a high spec, high performance active speaker system and setting up the associated streamer etc is more akin to someone on one of your PC forums saying that they can design and build a better graphics card than the manufacturers for less. crypto mining and covid has pushed the pricing through the roof, the cost of parts is hardly anything compared to the silly prices they command now. surely I can design and build one, guys, can you give me the cliff notes? Or a more efficient heatsink, its just a lump of metal right?
Several options like dbx and Behringer 2496 were already indicated by various members, several of whom are already using / have used these in their home setups, without any problems. It is you who has been dismissive towards all these opinions.
If you're not able to learn / appreciate the science(s) of sound reproduction, why don't you hire an AV consultant to do it for you ? There are several private cinemas in India that use affordable equipment and acoustic treatments.
It is highly unlikely that anyone on the forum would copy the Paradigm for you, spending their time and effort to get nothing in return.
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It seems like you are waiting for someone to come along and disagree with all of us and say 'its easy with element A+B+C and 25% of brand X retail. these drivers are the best evaAARRR just slap them in a nice looking box and you cant go wrong!!'
Jeah, ain't gonna happen, except now 🙂 One can buy any drivers and slap them to a nice looking box and hookup a crossover to it,tweak the crossover to hearts content, just don't expect them to sound any better than any other speaker you could have bought ready made, otherwise its a disappointment.
Power in DIY is that one can tailor the system to the application but that is not going to happen slapping things together so its no better than buying what is sold by marketing. It can be fun still and sound pretty nice, just don't have too high hopes on it.
Main difference between slapped together and thought out system is from directivity and diffraction management, how the system radiates all around and how well it works in the situation (room and listening setup). Then there can be additional issues like resonances on the box and what not but many things can be made ok like flat on-axis response or getting enough SPL capability and bandwidth. Its not on-axis response we listen to though and chasing things down, like box resonances, might make the whole system evolve and invalidate the driver selection one bought before thinking it all through in the first place 😉
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Slapping a loudspeaker together without thinking too much leaves some amount of trade-offs behind, which may or may not bother, if one doesn't notice them then its a no problem and everything was nice and fun, no disappointment. However if there is disappointment tracing back the issues and trying to fix them will introduce different trade-offs and the system is just a mixed ball of compromises and the performance revolves around but doesn't get too much better. While some aspect is bettered some other aspect might get worse. This is what takes the time to learn and figure out, how to balance the compromises to suit the application!
Power in DIY is that one can tailor the system to the application but that is not going to happen slapping things together so its no better than buying what is sold by marketing. It can be fun still and sound pretty nice, just don't have too high hopes on it.
Main difference between slapped together and thought out system is from directivity and diffraction management, how the system radiates all around and how well it works in the situation (room and listening setup). Then there can be additional issues like resonances on the box and what not but many things can be made ok like flat on-axis response or getting enough SPL capability and bandwidth. Its not on-axis response we listen to though and chasing things down, like box resonances, might make the whole system evolve and invalidate the driver selection one bought before thinking it all through in the first place 😉
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Slapping a loudspeaker together without thinking too much leaves some amount of trade-offs behind, which may or may not bother, if one doesn't notice them then its a no problem and everything was nice and fun, no disappointment. However if there is disappointment tracing back the issues and trying to fix them will introduce different trade-offs and the system is just a mixed ball of compromises and the performance revolves around but doesn't get too much better. While some aspect is bettered some other aspect might get worse. This is what takes the time to learn and figure out, how to balance the compromises to suit the application!
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Indeed. My statement is a statement of fact, as long as you have no expectation of success. Oh well, at least you can keep them for 10 years untouched, if the parts are of high quality {cheeky sarcasm emoji}
Yeah right. Good luck with building a reliable and high performance pc which doesn't end up giving you blue screens and or high temp low performance or be performance limited all the time.
If you think PC building is that easy then I am surprised.
No one says they can build own GPU who says are plainly ignorant and don't know how GPU works. You need access to FAB and have multiple degrees to understand the complexity of layout if even decade old GPU.
No one says that. What they may have said is that working on replacing capacitors or shunt mods etc. Which we regularly do to improve reliability and performance of a GPU greatly specifically when we are watercooling the PC.
Yes dbx is one I have considered. Issue is the AMPs for it. Am figuring that out. Not given up on it.
lol
Sorry, I just think its hilarious how little insight you have. into how you appear to others. ie. just like that
Sorry, I just think its hilarious how little insight you have. into how you appear to others. ie. just like that
Actually I spent a very unenjoyable 6 months building and repairing/troubleshooting PCs professionally last year and i'm a MAC user. it wasnt hard. it was boring but not hard.
With building PCs, for the most part, if you are well researched and read the datasheets, you can chose the right parts to go together; as they are well specified enough and it is fairly straightforward to check if its worked or not. You really dont need a lot of insight into how the components work internally (or how physics play into it), to know whether they should function for your intended application. That is not the case here.
BTW, I was mimicking your attitude and you found that attitude almost offensive. maybe have a think on that.
With building PCs, for the most part, if you are well researched and read the datasheets, you can chose the right parts to go together; as they are well specified enough and it is fairly straightforward to check if its worked or not. You really dont need a lot of insight into how the components work internally (or how physics play into it), to know whether they should function for your intended application. That is not the case here.
BTW, I was mimicking your attitude and you found that attitude almost offensive. maybe have a think on that.
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Building okay repairing and troubleshooting? Why. You know that can be avoided if one does more research into building PC and what components are right and what needs to be avoided. Like if one comes in and asks for MSI Intel Motherboard. I highly recommend staying away from it as the QC in them is extremely poor and have not improved in a decade. Building a good PC is not as easy as yo guys think.
So is the case with Active speaker and I know and understand it.
sure!
but it is completely different from speaker design.
in speaker design you deal with fundamental principles of acoustics and electronics. that's also the interesting and fun part of it.
in PC building you don't care about fundamental physics, you can (and must) rely on standardization.
Wow.
Ummm, because it was a computer and IT sales and support shop? We both specified, built, sold and supported systems (hardware and software) on a company wide contract/'fleet' level, wrote and maintained code for intranet systems and also took walk-ins for straight up repairs (including board level) that we didnt sell; to individuals
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