Is DSP room correction worth it with a high end analog system?


This question was inspired by a YouTube from “2021 Capital Audio Fest: Jefferson Room”. Even though a lowly MP4, this is the best I have ever heard a drum solo!

The speakers are the Arion Apollo system. I question going through an ADA conversion coming from my quite high end analog front end with a tube preamp. The Apollo system uses a, said to be the best of its kind, Trinnov ST2 processor.

Certainly room correction seems very useful but is it worth going through a digital conversion?

mglik

Everyone knows the more complicated the circuit the better it measures. The more manipulated the signal the better it measures. And the one sure way to make analog measure better is to digitize it.

So by all means if you want to measure stuff then digitize the crap out of it, stand back, and gaze with all your measurebat- er friends at the glorious beauty of your, whatever you call it. Applaud yourselves at turning music into something only an audiophile could love.

😁😊😊😊

I think that for that reason i am no more an "audiophile"...

I realized that very few people understand what i speak about...

I am a very bad communicator...

And each one of us are different for sure....

All at different post along the road, and the road has not the same distance for each of us anyway...

 

 

 

i would think yes, room dependent of course, and there are also other ways to skin the cat, like judicious placement of speakers and treatments

that said, i would think sometimes some rooms have really tough bass modes that really benefit from altering the audio signal to effectively ameliorate

Who said anything about measuring except you MC?

Tired tired tired.

The answer is that DSP complements treatment, not replaces it, irregardless of system quality.

The system the OP is referring to was an all analog tube based system except for the digital crossovers. It was comprised of all REF Audio Research tube electronics, analog only front end and Apollo 12 active speakers. All crossover filters were digital. The processor we use has room correction capability which we used. The room correction (RC) should be called "signal correction for room compensation" or something similar. I have no doubt that part of what impressed the OP was due to the use of RC. The processor has powerful bass management tools. The rest of what impressed the OP was likely the very articulate and dynamic nature of the system. Our speakers are designed to work with DSP.

 

For some people signal processing seems to be an evil proposition. Maybe it is but from the first step of recording sound to playback through speakers there are dozens if not hundreds of processes that take place. Many analog and now many digital. I doubt anyone can say with complete certainty which form preserves music waveforms most accurately across the board. BTW, I listen to about 80% vinyl LPs.

 

"digitize the crap out of it" What does that mean? Once digital it's digital. There's no crap added, not by us anyway. 

 

Not all DSP is equal. Learn about and listen to high quality DSP controlled systems before you pass judgement. RC is just a subcategory of DSP.