passive set up v active set up

[thewinelake.]

Well said, but I feel that there has been light as well as heat in this thread.

I'm well on my way to seeing the light, and just hope that I can be satisfied with my ADM9RS without feeling the need to go to DM10... ;-)

 

[Frank Harvey]

Andrew - the problem is that previous discussions have left a bad taste in the mouths of many here. Attacks have never been a one sided thing with these discussions, so it is a little unfair to point the finger at any one side. Once one of these discussions start, silent members crawl out of the woodwork - 'strength in numbers'. It's like being attacked by a zombie - it starts off with one, but pretty quickly you have a whole horde trying to take a bite out of you. There's the usual personal attacks and character assassinations to try and render any opposing discussion null and void, and plenty of descriptive sensationalism. Apparently, records have "horrendous distortion", for example. They may well have more distortion than digital files, but that doesn't mean they sound naff, because they don't.

An example from earlier:

With passive speakers, the upper end of bass driver's break up is masked by the crossover and the inevitable overlap HG sees as desirable. It isn't, it sounds bloody horrible.

So do all passive speakers sound "bloody awful"? No, they don't. Manufacturers do things differently, and two-way speakers can have crossovers wildly varying between just over 1,000Hz to almost 4,000Hz. That gives manufacturers a wide window to work with.

There's a vast history of all this here, and 'over there', so all you need to do is a bit of research, which might help explain for you the animosity between both sides.

No single loudspeaker designer can get everything right, otherwise it would wipe out the rest of the speaker industry. That'll never happen. Partly because there is no perfect loudspeaker out there (and never will be), and partly because preference plays a role for the majority of people.

 

[Frank Harvey]

duplicate

 

[Electro]

The original purpose of this thread was to see if an active speaker set up in this case Avi dm10 could sound as good or better than a passive set up (my hegel h360/atc)

The reason i chose avi dm10 qas because fellow forum member already owned atc scm11s, scm19s, and active scm40s (over 6grand)

Now he must have liked atc to upgrade so many times but ince he heard the dm10s it for him was an eye opener. He then got rid of the active scm40s in favour of dm10s.

Thats why i went to his place to see for myself.

NOW HERES MY POINT in my opinion what makes a better speaker is NOT bass bloat/boom or thickness or fullness BUT

whats the more Neutral/clear/precise

Imo the avi clearly won that battle.

BUT now we have people on here attacking the owner of Avi and trying to tell him how bad his speakers are designed. Thats stupid

For all you with the design questions: how many successful speakers have you all designed? If the answer is none then please just shut up. Its only hifi and music not a war for nerds.

Edit. I almost forgot why are not you all contacting tannoy, wharfedale, kef, monitor audio and the like for putting in cheap cr appy £20 drivers in speakers costing over a grand?

I can understand your point and I agree that bad uncontrolled flabby bass is truly awful.

But deep bass done well opens up a whole new dimention of realism in music, one that allows you to feel the music in a similar way to live music, there is so much information to be heard in the lower bass frequencies especially about the music venue acoustics and the texture and resonance of instruments that allows the music to sound real.

It is the difference between looking outside through a beautiful framed widow and going outside for the full experience of the landscape . *smile*

 

[Andrewjvt]

The original purpose of this thread was to see if an active speaker set up in this case Avi dm10 could sound as good or better than a passive set up (my hegel h360/atc)

The reason i chose avi dm10 qas because fellow forum member already owned atc scm11s, scm19s, and active scm40s (over 6grand)

Now he must have liked atc to upgrade so many times but ince he heard the dm10s it for him was an eye opener. He then got rid of the active scm40s in favour of dm10s.

Thats why i went to his place to see for myself.

NOW HERES MY POINT in my opinion what makes a better speaker is NOT bass bloat/boom or thickness or fullness BUT

whats the more Neutral/clear/precise

Imo the avi clearly won that battle.

BUT now we have people on here attacking the owner of Avi and trying to tell him how bad his speakers are designed. Thats stupid

For all you with the design questions: how many successful speakers have you all designed? If the answer is none then please just shut up. Its only hifi and music not a war for nerds.

Edit. I almost forgot why are not you all contacting tannoy, wharfedale, kef, monitor audio and the like for putting in cheap cr appy £20 drivers in speakers costing over a grand?

I can understand your point and I agree that bad uncontrolled flabby bass is truly awful.

But deep bass done well opens up a whole new dimention of realism in music, one that allows you to feel the music in a similar way to live music, there is so much information to be heard in the lower bass frequencies especially about the music venue acoustics and the texture and resonance of instruments that allows the music to sound real.

It is the difference between looking outside through a beautiful framed widow and going outside for the full experience of the landscape . *smile*

 

That why i wanted to build kit k100s with 12 inch bass driver.

I have a feeling lindsayts large speakers will show this

 

[Andrewjvt]

Andrew - the problem is that previous discussions have left a bad taste in the mouths of many here. Attacks have never been a one sided thing with these discussions, so it is a little unfair to point the finger at any one side. Once one of these discussions start, silent members crawl out of the woodwork - 'strength in numbers'. It's like being attacked by a zombie - it starts off with one, but pretty quickly you have a whole horde trying to take a bite out of you. There's the usual personal attacks and character assassinations to try and render any opposing discussion null and void, and plenty of descriptive sensationalism. Apparently, records have "horrendous distortion", for example. They may well have more distortion than digital files, but that doesn't mean they sound naff, because they don't. 

An example from earlier:

With passive speakers, the upper end of bass driver's break up is masked by the crossover and the inevitable overlap HG sees as desirable. It isn't, it sounds bloody horrible.

So do all passive speakers sound "bloody awful"? No, they don't. Manufacturers do things differently, and two-way speakers can have crossovers wildly varying between just over 1,000Hz to almost 4,000Hz. That gives manufacturers a wide window to work with.

There's a vast history of all this here, and 'over there', so all you need to do is a bit of research, which might help explain for you the animosity between both sides. 

No single loudspeaker designer can get everything right, otherwise it would wipe out the rest of the speaker industry. That'll never happen. Partly because there is no perfect loudspeaker out there (and never will be), and partly because preference plays a role for the majority of people. 

I can see the passion from both sides but trying to bring a balance as some are trying to show design faults and they have not even heard them and then going on to try rip the design apart and they have not even made any of there own speakers.

 

[lpv]

But deep bass done well opens up a whole new dimention of realism in music, one that allows you to feel the music in a similar way to live music, there is so much information to be heard in the lower bass frequencies especially about the music venue acoustics and the texture and resonance of instruments that allows the music to sound real.

It is the difference between looking outside through a beautiful framed widow and going outside for the full experience of the landscape . *smile*

precisely.. and that's why we have subs.. subs you can tune in to the room opposite to some floorstanders ( ie ATC SCM40A) where bass output is what it is ( fixed) and you need perfect room to avoid boom etc.. subs are far more flexible.

 

[hg]

That one from the top of the SB Acoustics range starts going into cone break up at around 2-3kHz. That's a fair bit below the 4kHz that the DM10 driver will reach to.

Errr... There seems to be a bit of a reality bypass here. The Sartori driver response has a few 2 dB wiggles that require no treatment when pulled down by the midwoofer low pass filter. The response you show has a +15 dB resonance that needs serious attention in the crossover with significant impact on the performance that can be achieved with a 2 way. The Sartori response is to be strongly preferred in a 2 way design but less so in a 3 or 4 way design.

Can you provide a link to any 6.5" mid/bass driver that can reach to 4kHz before it starts going into cone break up?

Pretty much any reasonable metal driver such as this one.

No. It is a budget driver configuration at a fairly high price and so of little interest.

Not true.

A 6.5" midwoofer with a 1" tweeter and a port in a simple box is the classic budget speaker configuration. It simply isn't possible to argue otherwise if we are to remain ever remotely connected to reality. It has a nicely balanced set of compromises for a speaker tightly constrained by budget to a cost of a few hundred pounds. If the price constraint is loosened higher performance will be obtained for the budget by using a separate woofer and midrange.

Sinar Baja told AVI that they will only make the DM10 drivers if they are bought a very large batch. SB said this because the DM10 drivers are so much more expensive than every other 6.5" driver they make and they don't think that they'd be able to sell them to anyone else because they're too expensive.

I feel a bit guilty puncturing your illusions but AVI is too small a business to order anything other than small batch sizes and it will limit the manufacturers that are prepared to deal with them directly rather than through their local distributor. The cost of custom drivers in small batch sizes is higher than it would be for the normal batch sizes from larger manufacturers. That is where the relatively high cost per driver is coming from and not from using special parts. If AVI lack the skills to reliably choose a set of parts for a driver it is service SB would probably offer and so this might be added to the cost of the drivers. The parts themselves are very standardised these days and an individual can design their own driver and have it assembled for not much outlay. Here is an example of an ex-DIY speaker enthusiast doing precisely that based on interest generated by his website before moving on to other interests.

You should give the DM10s a listen before judging them. They really are rather special.

I have no need to hear them to know they do not meet the requirements I want in a speaker. That doesn't mean they don't meet your requirements or that they cann't be special for you. They don't look special to me to the extent some of the design decisions I feel able to judge appear rather poor in terms of technical performance. But then those decisions are for AVI to make and they will make them in the light of a range of other considerations such as cost, what their target audience finds attractive, etc... Good luck to them.

 

[Ashley James]

I think it is a huge mistake to get hung up on "deep bass" because you're ears aren't very sensitive at low frequencies and usually when we think it's lacking, it's because the mid and treble are accentuated/distorted for some reason.

The vast majority of speakers that sell in the UK are under £300 a pair and often quite small, yet they sound extremely good. Various subs are available and most are happy with them too, yet they're pretty grim.

Any speaker's bass extension is dictated by the size of the cone and how much air it can pump. This means that all 6" drivers have very similar amounts. What few realise is that more expensive drivers with bigger magnets appear to have less until you realise it's still there, but more detailed.

As I've also explained, active speakers are far better damped, there's no loss of bass, but the quality is obviously much better. Bass in recorded music varies hugely, so as IPV says, with a Sub you can adjust it to suit your room, your tastes and your music. We recommend not buying one till you had our speakers for a month or so and know you need it, because most do not.

Big old seventies speakers will have lossy crossover components, especially three ways and they'll have poorly damped drivers with limited linear travel. They'll boom and be lots of fun on some music, but not to modern tastes IMO. They may also excite room nodes and boom unacceptably.

Your ears don't have a flat amplitude response at normal listening levels. They aren't very sensitive till about 200Hz (just below middle C) and from then on up they get more so until at about 3-5kHz when they peak and start to roll one off. Therefore it is this region where a speaker's performance matters most. If it isn't right, you'll find them fatiguing, irritating even.

 

[Ashley James]

HG

Why don't you go back to PF, where that sort of smug put down is de rigour. No need to bring it here.

I doubt anyone wants to hear from a chap devoted to knocking a successful product that isn't up to his exacting standards and that he has no interest in, not even to the extent of checking a pair out to make sure he's not talking nonsense.

Pushy forum warriors like you and a few others ruin most forums because their dogmatic and narrow views discourage more able (and more helpful) people from getting involved.

 

[spiny norman]

Why don't you go back to PF, where that sort of smug put down is de rigour. No need to bring it here.

The irony is almost jaw-dropping.

 

[ID.]

Not that I'm expecting it to be any kind of conclusive or definitive answer, but the addition of lindsayt 's kit makes this even more interesting.

While not at all practical for most, im sure it sounds great and I don't think many of us get to experience full range speakers with big drivers. Sure to be a good read and looking forward to the opinions and perspectives of all involved.

 

[shadders]

Hi,

Does anyone have the technical measurement data of the AVI DM10 which includes those figures as per Hifi News, who provide THD at 100Hz, 1kHz, and 10kHz?.

Do the DM10's have a class A/B amplifier or a class D amplifier?

Thanks and regards,

Shadders.

 

[thewinelake.]

Answer to 2 is AB

 

[Ashley James]

This shows how the sensitivity in our ears decreases at higher frequencies.

 

[Ashley James]

I couldn't find the THD measurements but I did find you a picture of the CNN Tower in Toronto.

 

[hg]

BUT now we have people on here attacking the owner of Avi and trying to tell him how bad his speakers are designed. Thats stupid

For all you with the design questions: how many successful speakers have you all designed? If the answer is none then please just shut up. Its only hifi and music not a war for nerds.

The first speaker I designed was in the late 70s and was not too dissimilar to the DM10. It used the venerable KEF B110 and T27 with an external active analogue crossover (well before DSP) and a cast cabinet enabling it to be curved to minimise diffraction effects from the edges. There were significant issues with the manufacturing process and so it probably could not be classified as wholly successful (hindsight has given me a fair idea of what I should have done) but it was ahead of its time in using an the active crossover and considering the acoustics of the cabinet. I dropped the project and any serious interest in home audio part way through the redesign when I accepted home audio had abandoned high fidelity and gone audiophile.

I have a current project on the side to see what can be done to design speakers to work with the acoustics of a small room. Again I am pottering with unusual aspect like aggressive directivity control and distributing active sound absorption to control the reflections and so there is fair risk it will be unsuccessful but that goes with having a punt at interesting things. The project requires DSP to function and so passive crossovers are a non-starter.

If you wish me to stop responding in your thread then I am happy to do so. My main interest is people's response to AVI's unusual marketing and I can get most of that without posting.

 

[Ashley James]

Hi,

Does anyone have the technical measurement data of the AVI DM10 which includes those figures as per Hifi News, who provide THD at 100Hz, 1kHz, and 10kHz?.

Do the DM10's have a class A/B amplifier or a class D amplifier?

Thanks and regards,

Shadders.

I did post them on Pink Fish some years ago. They were for an earlier model, but they do show a typical THD for speakers (they don't vary much) and also that it is lower than in passivespassives, particularly so around the crossover. Search and you'll find it.

TBH it's a meaningless measurement because speakers don't vary much in THD and the dominant harmonically related stuff is higher than and masks nasties. you have to add an awful lot of harmonic distortion to a signal before you hear it.

The stuff that makes drivers sound different is in the Time Domain. Typically resonances in structure, or in air gaps and of course cone break up. This time related stuff isn't as loud as harmonic distortion, but it is a lot more obtrusive, which is why had a special driver designed.

Ours sounds much cleaner because cone distortions and bucklings are postponed to an octave above the crossover point and so anything that is suspect is 48dB down.

 

[lpv]

the tower's getting bigger every year

 

[lpv]

so to answer Andrew's question you haven't put any succesful loudspeaker together?

just like these bedroom dj's criticisning big name dj's for bad selection

 

[shadders]

Hi,

Does anyone have the technical measurement data of the AVI DM10 which includes those figures as per Hifi News, who provide THD at 100Hz, 1kHz, and 10kHz?.

Do the DM10's have a class A/B amplifier or a class D amplifier?

Thanks and regards,

Shadders.

I did post them on Pink Fish some years ago. They were for an earlier model, but they do show a typical THD for speakers (they don't vary much) and also that it is lower than in passivespassives, particularly so around the crossover. Search and you'll find it.

TBH it's a meaningless measurement because speakers don't vary much in THD and the dominant harmonically related stuff is higher than and masks nasties. you have to add an awful lot of harmonic distortion to a signal before you hear it.

The stuff that makes drivers sound different is in the Time Domain. Typically resonances in structure, or in air gaps and of course cone break up. This time related stuff isn't as loud as harmonic distortion, but it is a lot more obtrusive, which is why had a special driver designed.

Ours sounds much cleaner because cone distortions and bucklings are postponed to an octave above the crossover point and so anything that is suspect is 48dB down.

Hi Ashley,

I searched for the pink fish media posts, and if they are the photobucket site graphs, they are of such low resolution that I could not determine what was being presented.

So, you are stating that the THD of the AVI systems are the same as passive speakers of a reasonable design, but the AVI speakers use of active crossovers provide an 8th order filter, which reduces the speaker time domain specific distortions significantly more than a passive filter. Are we to assume that the passive filter is 4th order?

Thanks and regards,

Shadders.

 

[Ashley James]

Hi,

Does anyone have the technical measurement data of the AVI DM10 which includes those figures as per Hifi News, who provide THD at 100Hz, 1kHz, and 10kHz?.

Do the DM10's have a class A/B amplifier or a class D amplifier?

Thanks and regards,

Shadders.

I did post them on Pink Fish some years ago. They were for an earlier model, but they do show a typical THD for speakers (they don't vary much) and also that it is lower than in passivespassives, particularly so around the crossover. Search and you'll find it.

TBH it's a meaningless measurement because speakers don't vary much in THD and the dominant harmonically related stuff is higher than and masks nasties. you have to add an awful lot of harmonic distortion to a signal before you hear it.

The stuff that makes drivers sound different is in the Time Domain. Typically resonances in structure, or in air gaps and of course cone break up. This time related stuff isn't as loud as harmonic distortion, but it is a lot more obtrusive, which is why had a special driver designed.

Ours sounds much cleaner because cone distortions and bucklings are postponed to an octave above the crossover point and so anything that is suspect is 48dB down.

Hi Ashley,

I searched for the pink fish media posts, and if they are the photobucket site graphs, they are of such low resolution that I could not determine what was being presented.

So, you are stating that the THD of the AVI systems are the same as passive speakers of a reasonable design, but the AVI speakers use of active crossovers provide an 8th order filter, which reduces the speaker time domain specific distortions significantly more than a passive filter. Are we to assume that the passive filter is 4th order?

Thanks and regards,

Shadders.

What I thought I said clearly was that THD measurements of speakers don't tell you anything useful because the drivers all have similar amounts of harmonic distortion to one and other and this will dominate the measurement.

What I don't understand is if everyone who's heard or owns them says they're incredibly good including Sinar Baja who also says that they sound like the best headphones and not like any other speaker, even they've heard, you don't just go and listen a pair for yourself.

Once you know they're as described you can ask me why they are so different. Otherwise it sounds as though you're looking for the magic bullet that proves everything so many people have been saying for ten years is wrong. It's not going to happen.

The distortion plots were large and clear and of active and passive versions.

 

[shadders]

Hi,

Does anyone have the technical measurement data of the AVI DM10 which includes those figures as per Hifi News, who provide THD at 100Hz, 1kHz, and 10kHz?.

Do the DM10's have a class A/B amplifier or a class D amplifier?

Thanks and regards,

Shadders.

I did post them on Pink Fish some years ago. They were for an earlier model, but they do show a typical THD for speakers (they don't vary much) and also that it is lower than in passivespassives, particularly so around the crossover. Search and you'll find it.

TBH it's a meaningless measurement because speakers don't vary much in THD and the dominant harmonically related stuff is higher than and masks nasties. you have to add an awful lot of harmonic distortion to a signal before you hear it.

The stuff that makes drivers sound different is in the Time Domain. Typically resonances in structure, or in air gaps and of course cone break up. This time related stuff isn't as loud as harmonic distortion, but it is a lot more obtrusive, which is why had a special driver designed.

Ours sounds much cleaner because cone distortions and bucklings are postponed to an octave above the crossover point and so anything that is suspect is 48dB down.

Hi Ashley,

I searched for the pink fish media posts, and if they are the photobucket site graphs, they are of such low resolution that I could not determine what was being presented.

So, you are stating that the THD of the AVI systems are the same as passive speakers of a reasonable design, but the AVI speakers use of active crossovers provide an 8th order filter, which reduces the speaker time domain specific distortions significantly more than a passive filter. Are we to assume that the passive filter is 4th order?

Thanks and regards,

Shadders.

What I thought I said clearly was that THD measurements of speakers don't tell you anything useful because the drivers all have similar amounts of harmonic distortion to one and other and this will dominate the measurement.

What I don't understand is if everyone who's heard or owns them says they're incredibly good including Sinar Baja who also says that they sound like the best headphones and not like any other speaker, even they've heard, you don't just go and listen a pair for yourself.

Once you know they're as described you can ask me why they are so different. Otherwise it sounds as though you're looking for the magic bullet that proves everything so many people have been saying for ten years is wrong. It's not going to happen.

The distortion plots were large and clear and of active and passive versions.

Hi Ashley,

Ok, Thanks. So, you are indicating that the THD distortion will be similar for both AVI and passive speakers. This then infers that the extra control the AVI amplifiers have (300x), from recollection, reduces those distortion aspects which are significantly less than THD measurements (else AVI THD will be smaller).

What specifically are those distortion mechanisms which are so low as to when they are reduced (300x ???), that the THD is not affected?

Thanks and regards,

Shadders.

 

[Ashley James]

Hi,

Does anyone have the technical measurement data of the AVI DM10 which includes those figures as per Hifi News, who provide THD at 100Hz, 1kHz, and 10kHz?.

Do the DM10's have a class A/B amplifier or a class D amplifier?

Thanks and regards,

Shadders.

I did post them on Pink Fish some years ago. They were for an earlier model, but they do show a typical THD for speakers (they don't vary much) and also that it is lower than in passivespassives, particularly so around the crossover. Search and you'll find it.

TBH it's a meaningless measurement because speakers don't vary much in THD and the dominant harmonically related stuff is higher than and masks nasties. you have to add an awful lot of harmonic distortion to a signal before you hear it.

The stuff that makes drivers sound different is in the Time Domain. Typically resonances in structure, or in air gaps and of course cone break up. This time related stuff isn't as loud as harmonic distortion, but it is a lot more obtrusive, which is why had a special driver designed.

Ours sounds much cleaner because cone distortions and bucklings are postponed to an octave above the crossover point and so anything that is suspect is 48dB down.

Hi Ashley,

I searched for the pink fish media posts, and if they are the photobucket site graphs, they are of such low resolution that I could not determine what was being presented.

So, you are stating that the THD of the AVI systems are the same as passive speakers of a reasonable design, but the AVI speakers use of active crossovers provide an 8th order filter, which reduces the speaker time domain specific distortions significantly more than a passive filter. Are we to assume that the passive filter is 4th order?

Thanks and regards,

Shadders.

What I thought I said clearly was that THD measurements of speakers don't tell you anything useful because the drivers all have similar amounts of harmonic distortion to one and other and this will dominate the measurement.

What I don't understand is if everyone who's heard or owns them says they're incredibly good including Sinar Baja who also says that they sound like the best headphones and not like any other speaker, even they've heard, you don't just go and listen a pair for yourself.

Once you know they're as described you can ask me why they are so different. Otherwise it sounds as though you're looking for the magic bullet that proves everything so many people have been saying for ten years is wrong. It's not going to happen.

The distortion plots were large and clear and of active and passive versions.

Hi Ashley,

Ok, Thanks. So, you are indicating that the THD distortion will be similar for both AVI and passive speakers. This then infers that the extra control the AVI amplifiers have (300x), from recollection, reduces those distortion aspects which are significantly less than THD measurements (else AVI THD will be smaller).

What specifically are those distortion mechanisms which are so low as to when they are reduced (300x ???), that the THD is not affected?

Thanks and regards,

Shadders.

1. Any competent active speaker will be more clear and better overall than passive speakers generally.

2. THD in our active electronics is overall 0.002%, which is dictated by the output devices in the power Amps.

3. Passive crossovers introduce very large amounts of distortion, all unpleasant. A good description is that they boom and Tizz. Good actives don't, so are much nicer to live with.

4. If you were to measure typical speaker drive units for THD, they'd all be about the same and not hugely better than 1%. Harmonic distortion, as the name implies is harmonically related to the fundamental tone. If the test tone is 1kHz then a driver will also produce up to 1% (just hypothesising) at 2kHz and less still at 3kHz. If you listen to the driver you'll struggle to hear it because it is 'in tune' with the fundamental.

However if you measure our DM10's Total noise and Harmonic distortion and it's 0.1% rising at lower frequencies, that doesn't tell you that all the electronics, crossover included are very low at 0.002%.

When we measured THD of ADM9s years ago, they were 10-15dB better than passives, but that's not enough of the story. It's much more complicated.

There's a big difference so far better to go and hear it than assume you can tell from one of an awful lot of tests and measurements we had to do to produce DM10s

I do hope this is clear now.

Ash

PS. Doctor CS posted an analysis of a passive crossover on our forum in the Reference Section. It showed that because a passive crossover was disconnecting the driver from the amp, damping could be as low as 1. Martin calculated the damping factor of our amps connected to a DM10 driver at 300. You can hear that.

 

[lindsayt]

can you tell what's source you're going to bring please?

to all participants: did you choose your 2 tracks?

edited...

A Denon C630 CD player (bought for £15 2nd hand). I don't mind if anyone else's source is plugged into my components and vice versa.

Would you or andrewjvt like to pick a track or 2 from the Steve Earle or Steve Winwood CD's I mentioned in this thread yesterday?

Preferably something up-tempo that can withstand repeated listening. And something that features vocals, bass guitar, full drumkit, guitars.