I asked the question some months back: How do our loudspeakers compare to expensive, high end, HIFI brand loudspeakers?"
I have answers.
The Short of it:
For those of you who do not want to read this entire write up I will be kind and put my summary up top in a bullet list. There was 3 of us who went. One musician, one loudspeaker builder, and one wife who only ever listens to the system the former two have and doesn't know how any of it works. We listened to 60 systems in one day. Back to back to back. We then came home and listened to my systems.
The BAD
The good
Lets go through one by one now (I am not going to include most of the bad ones. They sounded so bad I had to just get out of there. If it isn't listed below here and it was at the show, it sounded like crap):
This 4 way was great. It had dynamics and a lightness. Lows were washed out but it was still good
This was ATC. I hear people praise their old mid dome here so I checked them out.
This two way was horrendous. One of the worst speakers at the show. The driver on the table is what they were showing off. Do not buy this thing. It was sticky, like someone covered it in honey. I would guess in your house it'd be covered in dust within a couple weeks. Bad, just all bad.
Morel
These were great. The mid is the one up top and is ported. The woofers down below are also ported. These were REALLY good. I spoke with the engineer about how they don't measure or simulate well. He explained their motor design in detail. It will not simulate right because their design is so different. They have special software they have to use for their motor designs. The price point of morels now looks very attractive to me.
This one wasn't playing. I just thought it was a fun design with the dual AMTs in front of the woofer
MTM Illuminator design. What's not to like? Horrendous upper mid range. So sharp and attacking. Not good. Lows were good, not very dynamic. No idea what they cost but its too much. Feel like the designer dropped the ball here.
I will now never build a line array. This thing just sounded odd. Like a blade of people singing on the left and then a blade of instruments on the right. It was all washed out vertically. Hard to explain. Not a fan. None of us liked this, all of us thought it was just strange sounding. And not strange in a good way.
Full range driver build by Songer. Second best sounding full rang behind a Voight pipe Alpair 11 build. This thing was great. Good dynamics, good upper mid range, very nuetral, good dyanmics. It had it all. It is a giant full range so it beamed like crazy. Move your head left or right and the tone changes. But still very good.
I think these are called frugal horns? Big woofer and a compression driver. Engineer was in the room. Not my cup of tea but the BEST compression driver I have ever heard. He crosses these to the woofer at 700 hz. Pretty impressive and fluid, natural sound out of these. The big woofer lacked dynamics to say the least.
Triangle Art
These were bad. Like just plain bad. Maybe they would sound good if you were 60 feet back in a big room? Crazy directional. Everything sounded muddy. All looks, no beauty.
AudioVideo Artistry
******* AMAZING. What do the Accuton driver's sound like? ******* AWESOME. End game design right here. Nothing topped these except their big brother which will be on this list somwhere. These Accuton drivers are insane. I think he has at least $7k, at LEAST, worth of drivers and crossover components in each of these.
Do expensive drivers sound better? In this case, YES YES YES, they ******* do. I had to shake this man's hand. Can't stop gushing over these.
Alright, we need to chat about these domes. This dome was, BY FAR, the best mid at the entire show. Everything else pales in comparison to these. I asked him if I could buy a set of the mids and he said I could. I just have to call Playback Distribution and ask for a replacement pair. I will be buying a set. Maybe we can get a group buy together? I'm telling you, you haven't heard ANYTHING like this before. These are like sorcery. I will be making a second post where I try to buy these. This is a game changing driver.
As a speaker in totallity these were AWESOME. They are small, but they blow out of the water almost everything else at the show. Another one where the engineer was in the room. I spoke with him 3 times today. Kept coming back.
These were ok. Harsh upper mid. Tweeter were good but they ran them too low. A lot of expensive stuff to sound like garbage. Crazy.
26" dual opposed woofer. It shakes the building. Sounds no different from my coffee table subwoofer in my office. This doesn't hit as low as my coffee table. Impressive...... if you don't have a coffee table that hits to 11 hz.
Tannoy
You like jazz? These are for you. Grainy, poor imaging, you are hyper aware that the sound is coming from the speaker. No low end dynamics. Great for trumpets and a saxophone. Pretty sure they were made for that.
My first taste of open baffle. My buddy liked them. I did not. Sounds all washed out. Someone moved a table and the guy had to jump on the dsp to correct the room again. Not for me. Zero bass
More open baffle. More of the same, washed out and not defined. These had bass because of the horn. That was even a little washed out.
Harsh upper mid. Looks cool, doesn't sound very good.
PS Audio
These are some of the best at the show. If you can tame a mid planar, nothing really compares for silky smooth vocals. Paul did it right. I have half a mind to use a planar mid for every mid I do even though I just gushed over those mid domes.
I have answers.
The Short of it:
For those of you who do not want to read this entire write up I will be kind and put my summary up top in a bullet list. There was 3 of us who went. One musician, one loudspeaker builder, and one wife who only ever listens to the system the former two have and doesn't know how any of it works. We listened to 60 systems in one day. Back to back to back. We then came home and listened to my systems.
The BAD
- Most of them do not sound good
- Most of them have a roughness to the upper mids that just sounds terrible. They use these great drivers but drive them straight into their cone resonances. This was the #1 thing we all found wrong with about 80% of the systems
- I swear they pick their crossover points at random. Their crossover networks are pretty goofy
- A lot of them have phase issues. You stand up and it just sucks. You move to the left and it sucks. You have to sit directly center
- Some of them were amazing. These were generally ones where the loudspeaker designer was right there in the room and you could ask him questions. I will get to these units in a bit
- Anything with DSP had a roughness to it. Every single one of us, by the 3rd floor, could walk into a room blind folded and tell you if it was a DSP system or a passive system. Passive ALWAYS sounded better. We listened to about 60 systems back to back throughout the course of a day. DSP to the 3 of us = no good. Was not really subjective. It was objective.
- A lot of them beam really badly. The ones that don't, have a harsh upper mid range
- Do more expensive drivers sound better? Yes, if you use them properly. Saw some $400 drivers implemented horrendously and some implemented properly. And everything inbetween. But mostly the former.
The good
- A couple of systems were just incredible. All of these except two had the loudspeaker designer in the room.
- The better systems used either bespoke of expensive drivers.
- There were a couple mid tier systems that sounded really good.
Lets go through one by one now (I am not going to include most of the bad ones. They sounded so bad I had to just get out of there. If it isn't listed below here and it was at the show, it sounded like crap):
This 4 way was great. It had dynamics and a lightness. Lows were washed out but it was still good
This was ATC. I hear people praise their old mid dome here so I checked them out.
This two way was horrendous. One of the worst speakers at the show. The driver on the table is what they were showing off. Do not buy this thing. It was sticky, like someone covered it in honey. I would guess in your house it'd be covered in dust within a couple weeks. Bad, just all bad.
Morel
These were great. The mid is the one up top and is ported. The woofers down below are also ported. These were REALLY good. I spoke with the engineer about how they don't measure or simulate well. He explained their motor design in detail. It will not simulate right because their design is so different. They have special software they have to use for their motor designs. The price point of morels now looks very attractive to me.
This one wasn't playing. I just thought it was a fun design with the dual AMTs in front of the woofer
MTM Illuminator design. What's not to like? Horrendous upper mid range. So sharp and attacking. Not good. Lows were good, not very dynamic. No idea what they cost but its too much. Feel like the designer dropped the ball here.
I will now never build a line array. This thing just sounded odd. Like a blade of people singing on the left and then a blade of instruments on the right. It was all washed out vertically. Hard to explain. Not a fan. None of us liked this, all of us thought it was just strange sounding. And not strange in a good way.
Full range driver build by Songer. Second best sounding full rang behind a Voight pipe Alpair 11 build. This thing was great. Good dynamics, good upper mid range, very nuetral, good dyanmics. It had it all. It is a giant full range so it beamed like crazy. Move your head left or right and the tone changes. But still very good.
I think these are called frugal horns? Big woofer and a compression driver. Engineer was in the room. Not my cup of tea but the BEST compression driver I have ever heard. He crosses these to the woofer at 700 hz. Pretty impressive and fluid, natural sound out of these. The big woofer lacked dynamics to say the least.
Triangle Art
These were bad. Like just plain bad. Maybe they would sound good if you were 60 feet back in a big room? Crazy directional. Everything sounded muddy. All looks, no beauty.
AudioVideo Artistry
******* AMAZING. What do the Accuton driver's sound like? ******* AWESOME. End game design right here. Nothing topped these except their big brother which will be on this list somwhere. These Accuton drivers are insane. I think he has at least $7k, at LEAST, worth of drivers and crossover components in each of these.
Do expensive drivers sound better? In this case, YES YES YES, they ******* do. I had to shake this man's hand. Can't stop gushing over these.
Alright, we need to chat about these domes. This dome was, BY FAR, the best mid at the entire show. Everything else pales in comparison to these. I asked him if I could buy a set of the mids and he said I could. I just have to call Playback Distribution and ask for a replacement pair. I will be buying a set. Maybe we can get a group buy together? I'm telling you, you haven't heard ANYTHING like this before. These are like sorcery. I will be making a second post where I try to buy these. This is a game changing driver.
As a speaker in totallity these were AWESOME. They are small, but they blow out of the water almost everything else at the show. Another one where the engineer was in the room. I spoke with him 3 times today. Kept coming back.
These were ok. Harsh upper mid. Tweeter were good but they ran them too low. A lot of expensive stuff to sound like garbage. Crazy.
26" dual opposed woofer. It shakes the building. Sounds no different from my coffee table subwoofer in my office. This doesn't hit as low as my coffee table. Impressive...... if you don't have a coffee table that hits to 11 hz.
Tannoy
You like jazz? These are for you. Grainy, poor imaging, you are hyper aware that the sound is coming from the speaker. No low end dynamics. Great for trumpets and a saxophone. Pretty sure they were made for that.
My first taste of open baffle. My buddy liked them. I did not. Sounds all washed out. Someone moved a table and the guy had to jump on the dsp to correct the room again. Not for me. Zero bass
More open baffle. More of the same, washed out and not defined. These had bass because of the horn. That was even a little washed out.
Harsh upper mid. Looks cool, doesn't sound very good.
PS Audio
These are some of the best at the show. If you can tame a mid planar, nothing really compares for silky smooth vocals. Paul did it right. I have half a mind to use a planar mid for every mid I do even though I just gushed over those mid domes.
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Oh, you thought I was done? Nope, more...
More Master Artist
These were the BEST speakers at the show. Unanimous. No question. The best. I don't even think this is subjective. Designer was in the room. There is over $10k worth of Accuton drivers and Xover components in EACH of these units. Endgame speakers. The BEST of the BEST.
Wharfedale
Pretty basic except for the ribbon. The ribbon is exceptional. High were incredible. I asked about buying the tweeter alone and was told I could. He gave me a number to call to buy them. Probalby going to pair this ribbon with that PMC mid dome and maybe and Accuton Woofer for my end game speaker. Yup, I'm going to pull the best drivers from the best speakers in the world and make the ultimate loudspeaker. I don't even care how long it takes me to get it right.
I forget who made these.
Voight Pipe with Alpair 11. These are crazy good. For just one driver and a piece of plywood this is insane. These blows away 90% of the 3 way systems in the place and every single 2 way system. Engineering taken to an extreme but so simple. Beautiful. I had to shake this man's hand as well.
Mofi
Boring looking right? #2 best speaker at the place. Insane sound out of a very ugly speaker. I love this. This guys spent all the time and money perfecting the design and didn't really care what they looked like. Thats two 10" woofers crossed at 140hz and dual passive radiators. It has the sd of a 16" woofer. Bass is perfectly in phase. I may have underestimated the possibilities with a PR. The coaxial is awesome too.
Alright, that was a lot. Now lets compare with two of my builds.
This is my 3 way I listen to every day. This sounds sweeter and more relaxed than anything at the show. Outside of the one using all the accuton drivers mine wins in our book. My bass is more dynamic. The mids are sweeter and more musical. The tweeter is tighter but not harsh like a lot of them. We all agree these are within the top 5 from the show. So how does it compare? Above 95% of the speakers there and it is being driven by a little 20w class A amplifier with a fosi dac/preamp. Not too shabby.
Lets do one more
This one might be a little unfair as it is designed for your head to sit right inbetween the speakers. This is the best one. Nothing beats this for silky smooth and dynamic everything. If I can manage to get this sound to fill a room and not just a 10 degree listening window, this will destroy everything.
I did get to show the other audio engineers my stuff and they were very impressed. I had pics of my distortion and FR graphs and waterfall to show them. Let me tell you, these guys are doing exactly what we are. In exactly the same way. Those of you who followed along with my desktop monitor build know all the stuff I did with hemholtz resonators and port designs and all of that mess. They do exactly the same stuff. Don't think for a second that these guys do anything different from us.
The main difference between them and us is that we all talk to each other. It seems most of them live in their own little engineering world and only talk to their coworkers. We have the advantage of a larger swath of knowledge. My loudspeakers are better only because all of you help. It is not just me designing a loudspeaker. It is our community building the loudspeaker. That is our advantage. Our community builds the speakers together and this is what makes us so good at this.
More Master Artist
These were the BEST speakers at the show. Unanimous. No question. The best. I don't even think this is subjective. Designer was in the room. There is over $10k worth of Accuton drivers and Xover components in EACH of these units. Endgame speakers. The BEST of the BEST.
Wharfedale
Pretty basic except for the ribbon. The ribbon is exceptional. High were incredible. I asked about buying the tweeter alone and was told I could. He gave me a number to call to buy them. Probalby going to pair this ribbon with that PMC mid dome and maybe and Accuton Woofer for my end game speaker. Yup, I'm going to pull the best drivers from the best speakers in the world and make the ultimate loudspeaker. I don't even care how long it takes me to get it right.
I forget who made these.
Voight Pipe with Alpair 11. These are crazy good. For just one driver and a piece of plywood this is insane. These blows away 90% of the 3 way systems in the place and every single 2 way system. Engineering taken to an extreme but so simple. Beautiful. I had to shake this man's hand as well.
Mofi
Boring looking right? #2 best speaker at the place. Insane sound out of a very ugly speaker. I love this. This guys spent all the time and money perfecting the design and didn't really care what they looked like. Thats two 10" woofers crossed at 140hz and dual passive radiators. It has the sd of a 16" woofer. Bass is perfectly in phase. I may have underestimated the possibilities with a PR. The coaxial is awesome too.
Alright, that was a lot. Now lets compare with two of my builds.
This is my 3 way I listen to every day. This sounds sweeter and more relaxed than anything at the show. Outside of the one using all the accuton drivers mine wins in our book. My bass is more dynamic. The mids are sweeter and more musical. The tweeter is tighter but not harsh like a lot of them. We all agree these are within the top 5 from the show. So how does it compare? Above 95% of the speakers there and it is being driven by a little 20w class A amplifier with a fosi dac/preamp. Not too shabby.
Lets do one more
This one might be a little unfair as it is designed for your head to sit right inbetween the speakers. This is the best one. Nothing beats this for silky smooth and dynamic everything. If I can manage to get this sound to fill a room and not just a 10 degree listening window, this will destroy everything.
I did get to show the other audio engineers my stuff and they were very impressed. I had pics of my distortion and FR graphs and waterfall to show them. Let me tell you, these guys are doing exactly what we are. In exactly the same way. Those of you who followed along with my desktop monitor build know all the stuff I did with hemholtz resonators and port designs and all of that mess. They do exactly the same stuff. Don't think for a second that these guys do anything different from us.
The main difference between them and us is that we all talk to each other. It seems most of them live in their own little engineering world and only talk to their coworkers. We have the advantage of a larger swath of knowledge. My loudspeakers are better only because all of you help. It is not just me designing a loudspeaker. It is our community building the loudspeaker. That is our advantage. Our community builds the speakers together and this is what makes us so good at this.
I 'd have to say that on a more general level I've had some of the same experiences, although I find myself less able to draw conclusions from what I hear.
You can take a good speaker.. and this is only part of the story, but if presented with setup problems it can sound bad in ways that make you doubt what you know. Voicing is the first thing that comes to mind here since it's often done for the wrong reasons.. eg. to overcome acoustic problems or to make a first impression.
It makes me wonder if maybe there is a real speaker underneath 😉
Next, room setup is more than a person can properly do overnight in my opinion. To some degree we can hear past it, though certainly not all.. it's just part of the puzzle.
I tend to size up speaker design goals visually.. Eg. has the choice of directivity been made deliberately and sensibly? I can't account for the frequency cuts though. Some decisions seem to be made because the designer saw someone else do it.. leaving some doubt about the engineering behind it.
I also find myself taking your driver observations with a grain of salt. I don't find it as easy to make a clean judgement due to these reasons. Different if I work with it myself..
Keep in mind that if you make it known that you are a DIYer, people tend to lose their voice. Thanks for sharing your experiences 🙂
You can take a good speaker.. and this is only part of the story, but if presented with setup problems it can sound bad in ways that make you doubt what you know. Voicing is the first thing that comes to mind here since it's often done for the wrong reasons.. eg. to overcome acoustic problems or to make a first impression.
It makes me wonder if maybe there is a real speaker underneath 😉
Next, room setup is more than a person can properly do overnight in my opinion. To some degree we can hear past it, though certainly not all.. it's just part of the puzzle.
I tend to size up speaker design goals visually.. Eg. has the choice of directivity been made deliberately and sensibly? I can't account for the frequency cuts though. Some decisions seem to be made because the designer saw someone else do it.. leaving some doubt about the engineering behind it.
I also find myself taking your driver observations with a grain of salt. I don't find it as easy to make a clean judgement due to these reasons. Different if I work with it myself..
From my own experiences, the difference between these is much smaller than many people often say (present company excluded, these are other peoples designs), so with a modicum of observation I'm forced to draw some rationalisations. It's firstly essential that DSP is not used as a shortcut to get around the great deal of knowledge and experience needed to properly design a crossover.. which after all is an issue greater than the electrical network itself. Secondly there's the possibility that a small number of participants might try to use DSP as a simple gimmick, without having solid engineering behind it or in other areas.
Keep in mind that if you make it known that you are a DIYer, people tend to lose their voice. Thanks for sharing your experiences 🙂
I think Chris Brunhaver does all the real work on their speakers.
Thanks for the show review and photos. I will likely never attend as I would probably get kicked out on my facial expressions alone hearing all the bad speakers. It really is something that companies keep pouring hundreds of thousands into speakers and just end making junk. Half the stuff on this site is better because DIY'ing a speaker tends to mean you have to actually learn how they work.
You're the first person I've heard say the LX521 were meh. I haven't heard them myself but haven't been a fan of what I've heard in OB, what I have heard lines up with your words.
It was quite clear talking to them that they think DSP is God's gift to loudspeakers and nothing else need to be done on the design. They were talking about making loudspeakers like people talk about making a movie: "oh, don't worry, we'll just fix it in all in post with DSP and CGI"
This happened multiple times. The BS would stop and they would talk to me on a person to person level. This is not what I expected. They definitely do not underestimate us. That was very clear. They show a great deal of respect to us DIYers.
Once they know you're a builder they start talking to you about motor designs and such. Nobody talked down to me at all. I showed the same respect back.
With the bad designs I just left the room and said "thank you for showing me your designs"
I spent a couple of hours at AXPONA today.
I didn’t make it around to the whole show, but I thought Dutch and Dutch, Volti, and Danville Signal all had impressive demos.
Danville signal had an excellent AB comparison between traditional passive crossover Magnepans versus active DSP xover Magnepans. The DSP version was far superior.
Personally, I think the part of the speaker industry that’s not stuck in the 20th century is the DSP designs. Outside of that, high-end audio is mostly stuck in a 1980s time warp with few fresh ideas. It pains me to see, for example, a $500,000 system with huge ribbon speakers and the bass ribbons are shimmering from turntable rumble. It seems the designers have zero common sense if they can’t even put a 20Hz high pass filter on their phono preamp.
I agree that a lot of rooms throughout the show sounded shrill and edgy.
If you spent five or $10,000 to rent a space at that show and took your own speakers you have at home and showed them off there, what are the chances that they would sound as good in that hotel room as they do in your room?
It’s only fair to cut the show a little slack because a trade show hotel room is a far less than ideal acoustic situation.
My designs here at home (and posted on DIYaudio) are better than 95 to 98% of the speakers at AXPONA. More generally, if you go to the parts express annual speaker design competition, the top 10% entries rival the very best designs you can buy in Stereophile magazine. There’s usually one or two entries that are very ambitious and unconventional and have no equal in the commercial world.
For example, in 2017 one guy brought a very elaborately designed set of Keele style shaded arrays. I think each side had eight or ten 7” inch woofers and 20+ tweeters. They had more “slam” than almost anything I’ve ever heard.
I still agree with a statement Speaker Builder magazine made in one of their ads in the early 1980s: “your dream speaker may only be possible if you build it yourself.”
Two years ago, my son was with me and we walked a great deal of the show. I asked him, “how many rooms sounded better than what you are used to at home?”
He said “Hmmm…. maybe two.”
I didn’t make it around to the whole show, but I thought Dutch and Dutch, Volti, and Danville Signal all had impressive demos.
Danville signal had an excellent AB comparison between traditional passive crossover Magnepans versus active DSP xover Magnepans. The DSP version was far superior.
Personally, I think the part of the speaker industry that’s not stuck in the 20th century is the DSP designs. Outside of that, high-end audio is mostly stuck in a 1980s time warp with few fresh ideas. It pains me to see, for example, a $500,000 system with huge ribbon speakers and the bass ribbons are shimmering from turntable rumble. It seems the designers have zero common sense if they can’t even put a 20Hz high pass filter on their phono preamp.
I agree that a lot of rooms throughout the show sounded shrill and edgy.
If you spent five or $10,000 to rent a space at that show and took your own speakers you have at home and showed them off there, what are the chances that they would sound as good in that hotel room as they do in your room?
It’s only fair to cut the show a little slack because a trade show hotel room is a far less than ideal acoustic situation.
My designs here at home (and posted on DIYaudio) are better than 95 to 98% of the speakers at AXPONA. More generally, if you go to the parts express annual speaker design competition, the top 10% entries rival the very best designs you can buy in Stereophile magazine. There’s usually one or two entries that are very ambitious and unconventional and have no equal in the commercial world.
For example, in 2017 one guy brought a very elaborately designed set of Keele style shaded arrays. I think each side had eight or ten 7” inch woofers and 20+ tweeters. They had more “slam” than almost anything I’ve ever heard.
I still agree with a statement Speaker Builder magazine made in one of their ads in the early 1980s: “your dream speaker may only be possible if you build it yourself.”
Two years ago, my son was with me and we walked a great deal of the show. I asked him, “how many rooms sounded better than what you are used to at home?”
He said “Hmmm…. maybe two.”
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They would sound exactly the same. I live in Chicago. My living room is the same size as a hotel room
When and where is this happening this year? Now this I would like to go see.
Nah, see I've played these in multiple rooms in my house, in my shop, they lived into the pool room for a bit, they lived at the shop for 3 weeks.
They sound good everywhere. They sound the same. More bass when in a larger room but that's as expected. No room will turn a good speaker into a crappy one. Not on the level I heard today.
I call BS on this statement. If your speaker sounds bad because you moved it into a different room then it's a bad design. You shouldn't need to EQ it every foot you move it. Not one of my designs have EQ on them at all.
Voigt. Pearl Sibelius with custom Alpair 10 metal.
Not a Frugel-Horn, which are 1-way and not a monkey coffin.
dave
It is in Dayton (technically Springboro) Ohio, August 1st and 2nd. Its is free. Come and observe, or even better enter one of the DIY speakers you have built. It is a fun time! They have a "tent sale" with some dirt cheap prices, and then usually 20% off on everything PE carries. (It used to be a literally huge tent in the parking lot before COVID when it was Midwest Audio Fest (MWAF), but now its just in the warehouse.)
https://www.parts-express.com/speaker-design-competition
I redesigned the HPM900 midrange crossover and woofer (none) to be phase and frequency aligned. These now will beat all but the very top end sounding (not looking) audiophile speakers. I put a new mosfet amp in 780, a tube preamp, new phono with sub filter, iphone smoothing circuit , and FM sound quality chip.
Now it sounds the way I like it. Full Soundstage, tube presence, sparkling top end when desired and great bass to 30hz.
Lots of work but worth it !!
Now it sounds the way I like it. Full Soundstage, tube presence, sparkling top end when desired and great bass to 30hz.
Lots of work but worth it !!
Did you get a chance to hear Dutch & Dutch, Silentpound, Revel 328, or Kii 3+BXT or 7? Those along with the MoFi V10 you list above were my top 5. I'd have to do 6 because both the Kii's were really good. Honestly MoFi and Revel 328 were the only really good monopole speakers I heard. Maybe Javad's (ScanSpeak room) would've been up there too, but for some reason I don't have any notes. I think the program was at issue there - nothing interesting was playing when I was in the room.
Having heard a few of @perrymarshall's designs at his home when did did the Chicago Audio Society meet I agree that Bitches' Brew at least is better than most of what was shown.
The new MoFi Sourcepoint 10 Master-whatever crossover, assuming it performs like the V10, will transform that speaker. This is the third time I've heard it, and I've always found an unpleasant rasp in the treble. Totally gone in the V10 monster.
Did not get a chance to hear Vivid, ATC, PS Audio (heard last year; respect Chris but can't can't past the odd looks), the Accuton driver ones you mention above, Frugalhorns, or the ones with the mid driver you liked,Skipped over all the single driver stuff because I didn't have time to waste.
Was a little surprised that the Linkwitz LX521's got congested-sounding on big-boy orchestral crescendos. I like them but from this experience their dynamic headroom is likely bested by a pint-sized JBL 705 monitor (damn good speaker, that - same with the larger 708, speaking of great-sounding compression drivers). Grimm also surprised me in a bad way - the bass seemed disconnected from the rest of the sound. Could've been an odd modal thing at my seat.
A real stinker and my worst of show (that I spent more than 2 seconds listening to) was the Altec Lansing (?) planar (???) panels with GR research style foam lined H-frame woofers (????) - presumably the from AE given the trademark dildo-like polepiece extensions). Filled the room physically, but lifeless sound and no imaging whatsoever. I would add as to the Credo line arrays you reference the bass was absurdly boomy where I sat. Maggie 2.7i was also a disappointment. So were Bayz and MBL, which both had treble issues IMO.
PS: What you list as a Tannoy is actually a Fyne Audio speaker. Get the confusion though - basically a bunch of Tannoy's engineers left when Behringer bought the company and founded Fyne. I thought the one in the room was pretty good, honestly. A little colored but enjoyable. The ones in the hallway weren't really set up for imaging, but like the vintage-inspired Tannoy line these are designed for nostalgia and not hifi. There's a upfiring supertweeter firing into a lens, which strikes me as a very ca. 2005 design choice and odd for this kind of spaeaker.
Having heard a few of @perrymarshall's designs at his home when did did the Chicago Audio Society meet I agree that Bitches' Brew at least is better than most of what was shown.
The new MoFi Sourcepoint 10 Master-whatever crossover, assuming it performs like the V10, will transform that speaker. This is the third time I've heard it, and I've always found an unpleasant rasp in the treble. Totally gone in the V10 monster.
Did not get a chance to hear Vivid, ATC, PS Audio (heard last year; respect Chris but can't can't past the odd looks), the Accuton driver ones you mention above, Frugalhorns, or the ones with the mid driver you liked,Skipped over all the single driver stuff because I didn't have time to waste.
Was a little surprised that the Linkwitz LX521's got congested-sounding on big-boy orchestral crescendos. I like them but from this experience their dynamic headroom is likely bested by a pint-sized JBL 705 monitor (damn good speaker, that - same with the larger 708, speaking of great-sounding compression drivers). Grimm also surprised me in a bad way - the bass seemed disconnected from the rest of the sound. Could've been an odd modal thing at my seat.
A real stinker and my worst of show (that I spent more than 2 seconds listening to) was the Altec Lansing (?) planar (???) panels with GR research style foam lined H-frame woofers (????) - presumably the from AE given the trademark dildo-like polepiece extensions). Filled the room physically, but lifeless sound and no imaging whatsoever. I would add as to the Credo line arrays you reference the bass was absurdly boomy where I sat. Maggie 2.7i was also a disappointment. So were Bayz and MBL, which both had treble issues IMO.
PS: What you list as a Tannoy is actually a Fyne Audio speaker. Get the confusion though - basically a bunch of Tannoy's engineers left when Behringer bought the company and founded Fyne. I thought the one in the room was pretty good, honestly. A little colored but enjoyable. The ones in the hallway weren't really set up for imaging, but like the vintage-inspired Tannoy line these are designed for nostalgia and not hifi. There's a upfiring supertweeter firing into a lens, which strikes me as a very ca. 2005 design choice and odd for this kind of spaeaker.
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Hey Perry! The reason the DSP version sounds "better" is that it uses different crossover filter functions than the passive MFG crossover, but this is not openly disclosed by Danville. So it is not all that surprising (and it is a bit of a ruse) because it is not an apples to apples comparison.
Surely the primary point of using a DSP crossover is to use the flexibility to provide a better crossover? Personally I would always assume a DSP crossover was closer to whatever the designer wants than a passive crossover unless it is explicity stated the DSP crossover has been designed to closely follow the passive crossover. Even then the nonlinear distortion of a passive crossover is almost certainly going to be absent. But I would agree with the comment earlier that a well designed passive crossover and a well designed active crossover should sound reasonably close unless the active crossover is being used in ways that are impractical for a passive crossover.
PS It's good to read write-ups like this even if one's views aren't that well aligned with that of the OP.
You could also design a "better" passive crossover I suppose. But, yes, DSP has much much more capability and flexibility than even a very good commercial passive crossover and can get the best out of the drivers, and potentially use them in ways that are not all that practical or even possible with a passive network. But active crossovers have their own drawbacks, too. I didn't intend to flame the old passive vs active war, only to point out that it would be more fair if the DSP and passive versions did the exact same thing WRT the driver outputs (e.g. filtering was exactly the same) and that you were judging each as to their sonic performance, which is what I think Danville is hinting at in their presentations. They are, after all, trying to sell you something!
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So basically nothing changed since the '90s. Out of curiosity, which was the system preferred by the wife?
