Hi Erik,
Just to be clear "wider isn’t worth the extra floor space" in my context is "with (our Apollos and) DSP/Room correction wider isn’t worth the extra floor space".
If you are building a line array without digital room correction (or passive) and have a decent size room I would encourage you to try a wide baffle. Flat baffles are by far the easiest to build.
To the OP: Like the all-inclusive active systems, our system has digital inputs as well. We sometimes use our transport or server directly in. Not having a DAC and preamp between the digital source and processor sounds a little different, both good just different. In our system the quality of the digital source becomes more apparent when connected directly. My preamp is tube based, BTW. My experience is that the quality of the components and a correct interface make a much bigger difference and is more important than worrying about another conversion.
wolf_garcia I appreciate your sentiment. I hear that concern from time to time from people interested in our speakers. I agree with the concern. Fixed systems, whether digital active or passive are tonally "tuned" by the speaker designer. The better automatic DSP/Room correction systems deal mostly with addressing room issues. They don't alter tonality unless manual adjustments are done. It is easy to negatively affect the SQ with excessive manual adjustments. I encourage people to try different settings so they learn. It's easy to go back to the default so no harm done.
Mike
