I'm currently running a pair of Alpair 10.2's crossed at 80hz (2nd order active) to a pair of powered subs. The Polk PSW10's sound good as long as they are crossed very low. I'm using a miniDSP to handle the 80hz crossover on the Alpairs and the built in crossover on the subwoofer. That leaves me with extra outputs on the miniDSP for a tweeter.
The Dayton AMT mini-8 doesn't have the flattest response but it has the best off axis response I've ever seen for anywhere remotely near this price. According to the spec sheet it only drops 3db out to 20khz when you get 30 degrees off axis. That's just increadible. It also fits well in the remaining space above the Alpairs in the pensil design. My goal is to cross it over around 6khz using a 4th order LR active crossover.
This is a budget system for sure but I have high hopes. The Alpairs already sound outstanding with the cheap subwoofers but that terrible off axis response offers only one seat that sounds good. I need to do better than that because I often listen to music and movies with other people.
This configuration offers a lot of flexibility too. Ever since I built my pensil speakers I've felt trapped because there's not much to tweak. Now I can alter the DSP settings on the fly!
Here's the crazy part. I'm running a Line out converter on the left and right channels of my receiver, from there its RCA to the DSP and then to the amps. My center channel and surrounds are just running off of the receiver normally. My brain didn't want to accept that this conversion would sound acceptable but let me tell you, that Line out converter (PAC SNI-35) does not seem to degrade the sound at all. I cannot say the same for the miniDSP because that adds a slight background hiss, but that is inaudible to me beyond 3ft from the speakers. The situation improves when I unplug the USB cable and power the DSP with a dedicated 12v LCD monitor adapter that seems to have a nice clean regulated output.
I think that using the miniDSP this way would make it fun to modify cheap speakers , bypassing their BS crossovers and playing around with an active setup. I get all of that preamp functionality of the receiver too including Audyssey calibration which can be bypassed on the mains in the settings if I choose to do so.
Once get the tweeters installed, I'll run a series of measurements from the calibrated Mic in REW and we'll see.
I ran a test with spare dome tweeters off the shelf and the results were very promising to my ear. The Alpairs really sound good with a 4th order LR crossover @6khz.
The Dayton AMT mini-8 doesn't have the flattest response but it has the best off axis response I've ever seen for anywhere remotely near this price. According to the spec sheet it only drops 3db out to 20khz when you get 30 degrees off axis. That's just increadible. It also fits well in the remaining space above the Alpairs in the pensil design. My goal is to cross it over around 6khz using a 4th order LR active crossover.
This is a budget system for sure but I have high hopes. The Alpairs already sound outstanding with the cheap subwoofers but that terrible off axis response offers only one seat that sounds good. I need to do better than that because I often listen to music and movies with other people.
This configuration offers a lot of flexibility too. Ever since I built my pensil speakers I've felt trapped because there's not much to tweak. Now I can alter the DSP settings on the fly!
Here's the crazy part. I'm running a Line out converter on the left and right channels of my receiver, from there its RCA to the DSP and then to the amps. My center channel and surrounds are just running off of the receiver normally. My brain didn't want to accept that this conversion would sound acceptable but let me tell you, that Line out converter (PAC SNI-35) does not seem to degrade the sound at all. I cannot say the same for the miniDSP because that adds a slight background hiss, but that is inaudible to me beyond 3ft from the speakers. The situation improves when I unplug the USB cable and power the DSP with a dedicated 12v LCD monitor adapter that seems to have a nice clean regulated output.
I think that using the miniDSP this way would make it fun to modify cheap speakers , bypassing their BS crossovers and playing around with an active setup. I get all of that preamp functionality of the receiver too including Audyssey calibration which can be bypassed on the mains in the settings if I choose to do so.
Once get the tweeters installed, I'll run a series of measurements from the calibrated Mic in REW and we'll see.
I ran a test with spare dome tweeters off the shelf and the results were very promising to my ear. The Alpairs really sound good with a 4th order LR crossover @6khz.
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