Hi Everyone,
I just thought about something and I'm wondering now if I'm missing some inherent horn / PA speaker goodness. I have been over at Audiogon discussing the pro's and cons of active vs. passive. I'm not religious, but I found myself with a bias which may be due to building multi-way home speakers. That bias is that designing an active crossover well is still difficult.
One thing I always have to incorporate into a crossover is some EQ. Usually to extend the bass ( baffle step ) or to extend the treble and get flat past 20 kHz, not to mention get great phase matching. All of this, of course, can be handled by an inexpensive unite like a miniDSP. Bear with me a little longer please.
Then I was reminded of my brief exposure to theater speakers and professional line- level crossovers, and I realized how utterly simple they were. You had frequency and level, and that was it. I mean, the level of care, and fussing I put into a crossover design just kind of vanished! It was never there.
I'm asking those of you with experience in the pro world, is there something about horn loaded pro speakers which made them much more active x-over friendly??
Thanks,
Erik
I just thought about something and I'm wondering now if I'm missing some inherent horn / PA speaker goodness. I have been over at Audiogon discussing the pro's and cons of active vs. passive. I'm not religious, but I found myself with a bias which may be due to building multi-way home speakers. That bias is that designing an active crossover well is still difficult.
One thing I always have to incorporate into a crossover is some EQ. Usually to extend the bass ( baffle step ) or to extend the treble and get flat past 20 kHz, not to mention get great phase matching. All of this, of course, can be handled by an inexpensive unite like a miniDSP. Bear with me a little longer please.
Then I was reminded of my brief exposure to theater speakers and professional line- level crossovers, and I realized how utterly simple they were. You had frequency and level, and that was it. I mean, the level of care, and fussing I put into a crossover design just kind of vanished! It was never there.
I'm asking those of you with experience in the pro world, is there something about horn loaded pro speakers which made them much more active x-over friendly??
Thanks,
Erik
Modern PA speakers usually have volume / Gain and sometimes Bass & Treble controls. Yamaha DXR series for example has EQ settings for Monitor / Main. The problem is if they are from a reputable manufacturer, they incorporate some kind of DSP in order not to damage drivers from abuse. So perhaps they are not so linear as we think.
With big horn PAs i am sure that digital/DSP XOs are being used to tailor the FR and to adjust each band for time delay (that last a big thing with different length horns).
I used the analog PA ones in the early 80s. Crude, simple assemblies of pampas, but a passive XO would have been impossible.
dave
I used the analog PA ones in the early 80s. Crude, simple assemblies of pampas, but a passive XO would have been impossible.
dave
Because it was - and some of it still is. On a classic pro active crossover you got to pick crossover frequency and channel gain. That's it. A little fancier and you'd get CD horn EQ.
No picking the slope or filter order, no spread or overlap, no different orders. Simple. And also not so great. But fast and easy to use. So many pro amps now have built in DSP that those simple days are behind us.
No picking the slope or filter order, no spread or overlap, no different orders. Simple. And also not so great. But fast and easy to use. So many pro amps now have built in DSP that those simple days are behind us.
eriksquires, Do you mean multi-way PA speakers having a horn?
PA speakers, in general, are designed first for loud output not for sound quality. Proper PA speakers are designed for sound quality as well. Active crossover is simpler to manufacture (DSP or surface mount analog, I guess it is DSP nowadays), doesn't care if there is 10W or 10000W of power fed to drivers, properties don't drift with temperature or between production runs, less weight, each speaker can be tuned to sound like all the others in the production line (DSP), customers are generally aware of snake oil so different marketing hooks for PRO market than hifi etc. In addition, DSP allows some other tricks like time delay and possibly phase manipulation (FIR), nowadays signal is distributed already digitally so plate amp with DSP eliminates expensive copper cabling, speaker protection... To me DSP crossover seems to have only positives over passive in the pro market.
In my opinion home hifi speakers would benefit from DSP crossovers over passive, but it adds complexity (wiring, more amplification), so gets to religious side a bit as well as on the wallet. Although, passive crossovers can get very expensive as well. Of course depends on the signal source and all sorts of things such as driver and horn selection and all other design parameters, yada yada
Hope there was an answer somewhere. In general, it is mostly economics, products must be profitable. A DIY person can set their own design goals and budget, so it is always the best product they can have if the goals are met within the budget Disclaimer: I'm not professional PA guy, just an enthusiast
PA speakers, in general, are designed first for loud output not for sound quality. Proper PA speakers are designed for sound quality as well. Active crossover is simpler to manufacture (DSP or surface mount analog, I guess it is DSP nowadays), doesn't care if there is 10W or 10000W of power fed to drivers, properties don't drift with temperature or between production runs, less weight, each speaker can be tuned to sound like all the others in the production line (DSP), customers are generally aware of snake oil so different marketing hooks for PRO market than hifi etc. In addition, DSP allows some other tricks like time delay and possibly phase manipulation (FIR), nowadays signal is distributed already digitally so plate amp with DSP eliminates expensive copper cabling, speaker protection... To me DSP crossover seems to have only positives over passive in the pro market.
In my opinion home hifi speakers would benefit from DSP crossovers over passive, but it adds complexity (wiring, more amplification), so gets to religious side a bit as well as on the wallet. Although, passive crossovers can get very expensive as well. Of course depends on the signal source and all sorts of things such as driver and horn selection and all other design parameters, yada yada
Hope there was an answer somewhere. In general, it is mostly economics, products must be profitable. A DIY person can set their own design goals and budget, so it is always the best product they can have if the goals are met within the budget
Disclaimer: I'm not professional PA guy, just an enthusiast
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Hi, my two-fold, 2 cents, take...
With regard to any inherent simplicity to achieve flat response with horns vs domes or cones, I'd say horns, or rather waveguides, are more difficult.
This is just from looking at response curves of domes and cones vs CD's and horns. (And knowing what it takes to properly tune the latter)
With regard to things being simpler with pro-audio, I don't know how pro-audio was before say 2000 (when i started transitioning from home to pro gear, but i would have to say that today pro-audio is more sophisticated and often more complicated than home gear.
Nearly every pro-sound box made today comes either self-powered, multi-amped with internal processing, or requires an outboard speaker management processor to feed an amp rack.
This has extended down to the lowest price points with brands like Yamaha, Turbosound, JBL etc, making entry level boxes that often have presets for various placements / uses / configurations with different subs etc.
Entry level subs are showing up with cardiod capability / presets.
I have a $500 IQ-12 self-powered two-way that even has presets to emulate a variety of popular similarly sized boxes.
But I'm finding the sound of pro-sound boxes seems to be converging. I guess it's because everyone is getting better flat tuning to start (because it's so much easier with dsp and a little FIR) and then tailoring that flat start with their traditional sound or their 'in-house curve')
It does feel like there is movement away from such tailoring though, that folks are starting to expect to be able to achieve a flat downward sloping output on whatever speakers they are using, with nothing more than a little shelving on each end of the spectrum.
It's nice, there's much less variability in how decent pro-sound boxes sound imo/ime.
With regard to any inherent simplicity to achieve flat response with horns vs domes or cones, I'd say horns, or rather waveguides, are more difficult.
This is just from looking at response curves of domes and cones vs CD's and horns. (And knowing what it takes to properly tune the latter)
With regard to things being simpler with pro-audio, I don't know how pro-audio was before say 2000 (when i started transitioning from home to pro gear, but i would have to say that today pro-audio is more sophisticated and often more complicated than home gear.
Nearly every pro-sound box made today comes either self-powered, multi-amped with internal processing, or requires an outboard speaker management processor to feed an amp rack.
This has extended down to the lowest price points with brands like Yamaha, Turbosound, JBL etc, making entry level boxes that often have presets for various placements / uses / configurations with different subs etc.
Entry level subs are showing up with cardiod capability / presets.
I have a $500 IQ-12 self-powered two-way that even has presets to emulate a variety of popular similarly sized boxes.
But I'm finding the sound of pro-sound boxes seems to be converging. I guess it's because everyone is getting better flat tuning to start (because it's so much easier with dsp and a little FIR) and then tailoring that flat start with their traditional sound or their 'in-house curve')
It does feel like there is movement away from such tailoring though, that folks are starting to expect to be able to achieve a flat downward sloping output on whatever speakers they are using, with nothing more than a little shelving on each end of the spectrum.
It's nice, there's much less variability in how decent pro-sound boxes sound imo/ime.
No. We DIYers are just likely to have higher standards. Of course there may be other reasons why you may prefer active in this situation, but knowing what to actually do with the speaker isn't one of them.
No 2019 diyFEST this year. We have had to sell the venue (my dad’s property). Hopefully something next year.
dave
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