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Do active speakers interest you? Also, let's talk directivity

Hey all. Don't think I've ever made a thread here. This is a super interesting community for me. I'm an audio professional, a mastering engineer and music educator. I'm someone who differs from much of the pro community, in that I don't see a difference between "pro" systems and "high-end" systems. 

There is one way they often differ, and that is in terms of directivity. Home systems are more frequently omni, while and studio or live sound requires directivity.

This was definitely the case in the 70s, back when audiophiles still had parties :D 

It's very hard to set up a directional system to fill a large room evenly unless you use a line array.

But let's be honest. Aren't we mostly sitting and listening, and hoping for a good image? We aren't expecting every spot in a big room to sound exactly the same for every guest. Personally, my social life is 95% virtual now and I am generally listening in my mastering room. I have a high end system in every room in my house, but my wife uses the living room system more than me (and she has better taste in music, so it's nice to learn about some new artists when she decides to put something on from he collection).

Anyway, I'm designing an active system. Though the cabinet is not large, with a combination of Hoge's principles and active electronics, we will achieve accurate response through to 20hz.

The reason to choose an active crossover is very obvious. Sending power directly to each driver allows us to use a very low sensitivity woofer, which thus plays much deeper than expected. We are using a ported woofer and a sealed midrange/hi cabinet, which are not sold separately. An interesting feature is the the very low-crossed ribbon tweeter carrying all of the high midrange and treble

It's an 1800w system, aimed at both the professional and home market. I'm curious, does this sound interesting to anyone? We are intending to have a prototype ready by 2022, so it is a ways off.

Part of the directivity concept is also dealing with room issues. Cancelling the rear energy of the woofers can help. I am inspired by Bruno and Merjin (whatever  his name :P). a big part of our concept has to do with advanced acoustic materials, which I don't want to discuss too much, as I don't think anyone else has thought of it or connected with that maker, yet

Curious to hear people's thoughts!
128x128mehtayoungs
bosssound's avatar
bosssound
120 posts
 
Your approach has my attention.

Here is an audiophile who finds fewer components of interest.

Since each component requires connectors and a power cord, and they are important, to my ears, a small number of component means you can invest more in each piece and in all important room treatment. A system that sounds attractive is power supply -> streamer/dac-> active speakers.  Active Speakers might have their own power supply separate from streamer/dac since the power needs of the speakers will be very different from source.
Like your hesitation about implementing DSP for speakers given current SOTA or lack thereof.
Peace.
mijostyn's avatar
mijostyn
8,570 posts
 
bosssound, there is a lot more complexity inside the speaker you can get rid of, the crossover. With my system there is no additional complexity at at. All the heavy lifting is done by the preamp which is connected to amps and speakers as usual. There are no additional components and better yet there is no streaming. The drop outs you get streaming are intolerable. I only use it for back ground music not serious listening on my Sonos network. 
 
If you have a great system that images correctly you can go accurate with Hi Res digital or you can go romantic with vinyl. They both sound great.
steve59's avatar
Ag insider logo xs@2x
steve59
1,760 posts
 
The market for actives are non audiophiles and disgruntled audiophiles. With stereo less of a hobby and HT the market now what will sell is what will integrate with the tv room and be invisible with a remote to turn the voices up!
kingharold
304 posts
 
Active speakers can be a real delight for DIY speaker builders.  A good DSP like the DEQX unit I use with my fully horn loaded triamplified DIY speakers allows not only speaker correction, room correction, time and phase correction, etc. but also endless possibilities of crossover points and slopes and equalization.  My DSP was reprogrammed more times than I can remember over a period of eleven years before I arrived at the quite accurate and pleasing configuration I currently use.  Add to this the advantages of connecting amps directly to drivers and it is a sure winner.
mehtayoungs's avatar
mehtayoungs OP
15 posts
 
Very pleased to see so many great suggestions & personal experiences. I had never spent all that time much time on the forum here, as from my browsing, it seemed about 50/50 in terms of knowledgeable people vs less-than-humble people.

I can't respond to everyone necessarily, and I may not remember all the usernames. Feel free to send me a message or ask me to phone you, one fellow did that and we had a good chat.

The DSP vs Analog crossover is the big, big question. It's starting to seem like room correction is going to be essential for future users. I have never use DSP correction, just soft density & accurate systems. Some sort of correction in the low frequencies is necessary, of course. I'm very lucky to just have a small null at 50hz. This null improves the sound of much modern electronic music significantly to my ears, and eases my reluctance to match 50hz in my own masters, if that makes sense.

Joachim Kriesler is known for M.E. Geithain studio monitors of Germany. I am more personally familiar with his older designs <1990. He's brilliant, and his 901-K does not emit rear energy. K stands for "Kardioid" in this case. He isn't the only one doing this sort of design, he's just doing a really spectacular job of it, and is a bit more famous than most people doing this sort of passive acoustic resistance.
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