Bobolaclune
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Wonderful....enjoy Mike. So glad they're everything you hoped for. And a nice match with the NuVista to boot. Awesome
Samtastic!
- Thread starter jaxwired
- Start date
For the money, they are superb and so musically satisfying.
mep
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Shodhan - another Danish speaker that is no slouch:
DALI EPICON 8 | New High-End Reference Loudspeaker
I've had mine for the better part of 6 weeks now and I'm really loving them. They have vocals to die for (probably the best I've heard in my family room). Top end is airy and sweet and has this "ease" to it. Bass is defined and proportionate. They produce a HUGE soundstage. Setup took me only a few minutes (playing them straight on as they are designed to do - really helps). They look gorgeous. They are the quintessential plug-n-play speaker.
I would characterize their sound as slightly warm, full-bodied, smooth and very musical.
In the background on the wall, you see all types of posters from Dynaudio proclaiming everything they are knowledgeable about. They need a new poster that says they are learning Chinese.
Myles B. Astor
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FlexibleAudio
Member
Back in the Dark Ages, audio equipment use to have things called "tone controls", but these were found to be tools of the devil and cast out. Because we know every audiophile has perfect speaker/room interface, output impedance and recordings.
Much better to lift those cables for any hint of brightness and for misbehaving bass, turn what was once a "family"/"living" room into something resembling an iso-ward at an asylum.
Ok, I'm done now.
So let me get this straight, today instead of a single, eloquent, mechanism to effect what is ultimately nothing more and nothing less than this evil thing you call tone control, we now use one or more of the following:
1) Speaker specific amplifier programs
2) Room DSP
3) Speakers with internal tone adjustments
4) Cables
5) Room treatments
6) Selectable EQ curves on phono stages
7) The speakers themselves
8) Lots of other stuff I forgot
That might imply gear makers are actually trying to make this complicated to get more profit or something.....hmmmmmm. Tell me it ain't true.
As far as what Sam is all about, to me dialing in a speaker with a tonal preference in isolation of the room, be it a perfectly flat adjustment to the speakers natural tonal color or otherwise, is completely putting the cart ahead of the horse.
As soon as you take the speaker with its new tonal adjustments into the real world you need to start over. Why not just do it once to your taste when the system is complete. I think of the room and the speakers as one in the same.
IMO amp adjustments used to neutralize a speaker designer's original intent (or failure) vis-a-vis coloration don't address the issue.
So let me get this straight, today instead of a single, eloquent, mechanism to effect what is ultimately nothing more and nothing less than this evil thing you call tone control, we now use one or more of the following:
1) Speaker specific amplifier programs
2) Room DSP
3) Speakers with internal tone adjustments
4) Cables
5) Room treatments
6) Selectable EQ curves on phono stages
7) The speakers themselves
8) Lots of other stuff I forgot
That might imply gear makers are actually trying to make this complicated to get more profit or something.....hmmmmmm. Tell me it ain't true.
As far as what Sam is all about, to me dialing in a speaker with a tonal preference in isolation of the room, be it a perfectly flat adjustment to the speakers natural tonal color or otherwise, is completely putting the cart ahead of the horse.
As soon as you take the speaker with its new tonal adjustments into the real world you need to start over. Why not just do it once to your taste when the system is complete. I think of the room and the speakers as one in the same.
IMO amp adjustments used to neutralize a speaker designer's original intent (or failure) vis-a-vis coloration don't address the issue.[/QUOTE
No speaker company in the world can put forth a design that reproduces perfectly level frequency response throughout its entire range. SAM is attempting to equalize the speakers for any deficiencies they have using their brand of electronics. Of course, the room will still contribute its voice to the equation. The SAM technology tries to cure one part of the problem that it has control over......its amp voicing in combination with a particular speaker. They naturally do not have any idea how a customer's room will contribute to the overall sound. But I give them cudos for their attempt to get some part of the synergy under control. But ultimately, the consumers will decide if their thoughts on voicing are going in the right direction.
But SAM will not fix a horrible room. So SAM is not a cure-all.
- Thread Author
- #47
Well said. The fact is that even among audiophiles, the number of people that implement room correction is tiny. SAM may not be perfect, but it's better than nothing which is how most audiophiles run.
FlexibleAudio
Member
Of course they don't run flat response curves but my first point is that this may be due to a speakers failure but is very often intentionally designed into the speaker. This is partly why many hate the sound of Magicos. Alon probably does the flat curve thing better than anyone. Many buy a speaker (knowingly or not) due to its unique character. As I understand it Neil at Avalon not only tailors his curves, he does it differently for each speaker depending what his vision for the sound of that particular unit. Lots of designers do this to differentiate their product. It sells. I just seems to me Sam will neuter the speakers of the designers intent (at least in as far as listening to them in an anechoic chamber goes).
My second point is that none of it matters until you take into account the whole interactive system. When I sail, I never bother to trim my sails while I am at the dock....it accomplishes little. You need to get out into the prevailing winds to figure that out.
But like you said the market will decide.
M
mauidan
Guest
From Devialet's SAM Whitepaper( https://en.devialet.com/assets/Systems/Devialet-White-Paper-EN.pdf):
"SAM keeps all the qualities and the own character of the sound of the loudspeaker, yet reveals the loudspeaker’s full potential, extracting the very bestperformance ever heard from a given model."
"Devialet engineers have developed a characterization protocol including electrical, mechanical (laser interferometry) and acoustical laboratory measurements to be able to model the exact behaviour of any loudspeaker. They have industrialized the process to be able to develop SAM processing for any speaker, from initial measurements to final robustness testing. It all happens at Devialet headquarters in downtown Paris."
I used DRC for many years, IMO, the key to getting good results from DRC is taking good measurements. The average audiophile does not have the skill or equipment to take good measurements.
mep
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That's a great way to build consistency of sound into your products. Having heard Avalon speakers at a show, I'm convinced there is some jigger-pookey going on with the crossover and I mentioned this before in another thread. The soundstage started 3 zip codes north of the speakers. Obviously some people like that effect, but it's an effect that quickly wore on me because it's not natural.
Man, it pains me to say this, but I think Paul is right and I agree with him. If SAM could "fix" every high-end speaker, don't you think all high-end speaker designers would incorporate it into their speaker system? You have to sell your soul to the digital devil to use SAM and audiophiles whose main sources are analog first and digital second (if at all) are not going to sell their analog souls for the promise of digital heaven.
I also know that Dan is correct when he says:
However, you don't see too many analog audiophiles using DRC/DSP-it's against our religion.
FlexibleAudio
Member
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mep
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Bobolaclune
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How different in terms of effectiveness is SAM to CH Precision use of adjustable local and global feedback to form a more perfect union with any given speakers? In combo with their continually auto adjustable bias setting, does this present a package that is more effective than SAM?