Speaker suggestions for large room

Hear Here said:
Chops and Octopus

Whilst I certainly agree many of your points, I believe that a carefully set up and DSP-tuned full-range pair of speakers is both more cost-effective and less aesthetically jarring than smaller speakers plus a couple of subs.



"Audiophiles would prefer a speaker that doesn't need subs for sublime sound".


Not wanting to promote Avantgarde speakers, but they do offer ample bass from twin 12" drivers per side and include a DSP that allow you to flatten out the peaks and nulls (up to about 150Hz) to suit your room's acoustic difficulties without separate subs. Third party DSP's are designed to do much the same, though my own experience with the 4 systems I've tried at home is not convincing. Yes they flatten out these peaks and nulls, but they also tend to take away a little of the music's lifelike sound and reduce its excitement factor. I've not yet spent time with AG’s DSP because I don't have measuring equipment, but I will when I'm totally happy with their placement. Meanwhile I usually switch off Dirac Live for the reasons given despite the much flatter bass response.

I’m not trying to be confrontational but just to suggest there’s more than one way to skin a cat (sorry Chops) and in this day and age - perhaps a more sophisticated and less costly way than adding more speaker boxes to your listening room. Peter

PS Although we are slightly off-topic, I suspect the OP may be interested in this discussion as it could influence his speaker choice.
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Again, it does not matter what the loudspeaker is or its capabilities, and DSP simply can not rectify nulls in a room.

I'm going to drop the whole loudspeaker part of this post because I've already covered that to great detail.

However, DSP is not the answer either. It can not and will not solve physical issues with the room. The only thing DSP can do is correct for peaks in the room, that's it. No matter how much DSP, EQ, amplifier power you throw at it, these things will NOT solve the issues of nulls in a room. The only things that can be done to solve nulls is loudspeaker placement, subwoofer placement, and listening position. Not much else is going to solve null issues for you, no matter how much tech you throw at it.
 
I’m an old school purist. No DSP for me.

Speakers appropriate for size of the room, some acoustic panels to tame early reflections from walls, floor and ceiling if appropriate and I’m good to go. If bass needs augmenting, a quality sub or better yet a pair will be added. It has worked well for me in the past. I’ve tried DSP once and have not found the result satisfying. Granted I have not played with much DSP in my systems but so far have never had the need to. I’ve played a lot with DSP in headphones to always turn it off in the end. If it works for you, great.
 
TheOctopus said:
I’m an old school purist. No DSP for me.

Speakers appropriate for size of the room, some acoustic panels to tame early reflections from walls, floor and ceiling if appropriate and I’m good to go. If bass needs augmenting, a quality sub or better yet a pair will be added. It has worked well for me in the past. I’ve tried DSP once and have not found the result satisfying. Granted I have not played with much DSP in my systems but so far have never had the need to. I’ve played a lot with DSP in headphones to always turn it off in the end. If it works for you, great.
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Likewise here. DSP is great for home theater where you're dealing with timing, phase, etc, etc with a bunch of speakers scattered all over the room. But for 2-ch audio, nope.

Treating room acoustics by physical means is the only way to go. You keep dynamics, impact, detail, energy, delicacy, overall musicality of your system intact when dealing with room acoustics by physical means. When you start to mess around with DSP, you can easily and quickly take things too far and make the sound worse. And when spending hours and days and weeks messing around with DSP, in the end, you end up taking the life and breathe of the sound out of the system. Like the system is being held back.
 
IMO, subs are not so much about the bass in reproduced music. They are about reproducing the recorded space in the music.

Said another way - It's not about the bass, it's about the space - at least 90% of the time.

When set up correctly, of course. :rolleyes:
 
chops said:
Likewise here. DSP is great for home theater where you're dealing with timing, phase, etc, etc with a bunch of speakers scattered all over the room. But for 2-ch audio, nope.

Treating room acoustics by physical means is the only way to go. You keep dynamics, impact, detail, energy, delicacy, overall musicality of your system intact when dealing with room acoustics by physical means. When you start to mess around with DSP, you can easily and quickly take things too far and make the sound worse. And when spending hours and days and weeks messing around with DSP, in the end, you end up taking the life and breathe of the sound out of the system. Like the system is being held back.
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I use DSP on 2-channel. The capabilities of today's DSP are quite a lot better than what was possible just a few years ago. If done correctly, DSP can do wonders to the sound without wasting money on gadgets and gizmos. Heck, even todays most advanced concert halls use DSP!
 
nicoff said:
I use DSP on 2-channel. The capabilities of today's DSP are quite a lot better than what was possible just a few years ago. If done correctly, DSP can do wonders to the sound without wasting money on gadgets and gizmos. Heck, even todays most advanced concert halls use DSP!
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I'm well aware of the capabilities of todays DSP units. I have an extremely capable and flexible dbx DriveRack Venu 360 that I used for a while, mainly for when I completely bypassed the passive crossovers in my SL3's. Used for crossover, gain, phase, time alignment and just a touch of EQ (for the drivers, not the room), it was great. Start getting into room correction and that's where it goes down hill.

Yes, concert halls use DSP, not for correcting peaks and nulls as they have little issue with room modes considering the enormity of the space involved in such a venue. They mainly use DSP for the unity of multiple loudspeakers in multiple locations and doing minor EQ most likely for a few small peaks here and there, mainly peaks of the loudspeakers used, not caused by the venue.

Again, there's no possible way for DSP to resolve issues of acoustic nulls in a traditional residential room. Short of actually changing the size of the room, moving loudspeakers, subwoofers and listening position, the only other option you have is treating the room acoustically with absorbers, traps, diffusers, etc, etc. Even then, those do not do a whole lot for nulls, but help.
 
chops said:
I'm well aware of the capabilities of todays DSP units. I have an extremely capable and flexible dbx DriveRack Venu 360 that I used for a while, mainly for when I completely bypassed the passive crossovers in my SL3's. Used for crossover, gain, phase, time alignment and just a touch of EQ (for the drivers, not the room), it was great. Start getting into room correction and that's where it goes down hill.

Yes, concert halls use DSP, not for correcting peaks and nulls as they have little issue with room modes considering the enormity of the space involved in such a venue. They mainly use DSP for the unity of multiple loudspeakers in multiple locations and doing minor EQ most likely for a few small peaks here and there, mainly peaks of the loudspeakers used, not caused by the venue.

Again, there's no possible way for DSP to resolve issues of acoustic nulls in a traditional residential room. Short of actually changing the size of the room, moving loudspeakers, subwoofers and listening position, the only other option you have is treating the room acoustically with absorbers, traps, diffusers, etc, etc. Even then, those do not do a whole lot for nulls, but help.
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Whenever I have encountered DSP on RoomPlay voicing sessions, it had always been used as a band-aid.

When the need for that band-aid was dispensed with, I am not aware of ANY clients who ever used it again. None, not ever.
 
Jim Smith said:
IMO, subs are not so much about the bass in reproduced music. They are about reproducing the recorded space in the music.

Said another way - It's not about the bass, it's about the space - at least 90% of the time.

When set up correctly, of course. :rolleyes:
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Absolutely. Recreating Space is about pressurizing your acoustic space the way the bass instruments did when the music was captured by the microphone in the acoustic space where the recording took place.

To my ears the well setup subs flesh out performers and anchor instruments properly to the ground in the soundstage, such that the whole instrument appears more holographic and three dimensional.
 
Jim Smith said:
Whenever I have encountered DSP on RoomPlay voicing sessions, it had always been used as a band-aid.

When the need for that band-aid was dispensed with, I am not aware of ANY clients who ever used it again. None, not ever.
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Jim - I'm planning on using Dirac DSP graphical results solely to prompt changes in Avantgarde's XD software settings. I don't know whether you still encounter the newer AGs, but I'd be interested in your opinion of this XD software. As far as I can tell, it's benign to the sound quality (unlike Anthem, RoomPerfect, Dirac Live, etc) and just allows accurate tuning of the highly tuneable AG speakers without causing the dulling of music that other systems suffer from. Thanks. Peter
 
Hear Here said:
Jim - I'm planning on using Dirac DSP graphical results solely to prompt changes in Avantgarde's XD software settings. I don't know whether you still encounter the newer AGs, but I'd be interested in your opinion of this XD software. As far as I can tell, it's benign to the sound quality (unlike Anthem, RoomPerfect, Dirac Live, etc) and just allows accurate tuning of the highly tuneable AG speakers without causing the dulling of music that other systems suffer from. Thanks. Peter
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On a couple of installations where the best set-up couldn't work because of the lifestyle in that room, I thought it did help. My comment was vs. the best set-up, not one that is compromised and cannot be addressed properly. I referred to those applications as band-aids.

As I probably say too much, there's two kinds of Harmony: Musical & Domestic. If the Domestic is not addressed, the Musical is often compromised in a serious manner. IMO...
 
OP, Dynaudio has been discounting the C60 for over a year now, if you can find a pair the dual 9'' woofers should play nicely in that space.
 
Jim Smith said:
Whenever I have encountered DSP on RoomPlay voicing sessions, it had always been used as a band-aid.

When the need for that band-aid was dispensed with, I am not aware of ANY clients who ever used it again. None, not ever.
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Room correction is useful in HT, especially in a room that is imperfect.

I'd never use it for 2 channel. Speaker placement just takes time, research, patience.. and more time. Eventually it'll come together


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
chops said:
Not that any of us expect a reply since you only posted twice on the same day a month ago, but...

Encore - Tekton Design | Improve your hearing

They're on sale right now for $7k shipped to your door.

dscf2908-2_orig.jpg
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the Tekton seem to offer big bang for the buck - I like the look as well.
 
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