Solving the "complex music problem"?

@joshua43214

The critical bandwidth in a 2 way speaker almost always contains the crossover point.

Complex music can benefit from active speakers by:

1) Placing the crossover right before the amp giving the amp more control. In complex music with high level dynamics lack of control can smear the music:

In a passive crossover all that speaker wire is a choke point, do you think they get the best speaker wire or the cheapest for a crossover?

Many active speakers (including my own) are biamped or triamped with each amp chosen by the speaker designer for that particular driver. This makes the presentation exceptionally clear and articulate. You know how much clean articulate amps cost right? This is a budget friendly strategy to get a clear and articulate signal for the cost of that amp/speaker system:

What @kota1 said ✅️

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@wolf_garcia ..”Wanna hear the result of "room acoustics?" Go listen to a live symphony. A good system in any reasonable room (with a good recording) can easily reproduce either a solo instrument OR a symphony brilliantly, they’ve been able to do that for decades.”

+1. Very important .

I have been attending a live symphony for ten years religiously. It changed the direction of my audio system upgrades completely.

I have spend time simply listening to the ambiance… the reflections from walls and ceiling. Also, individual instruments, then as they are used en mass… purposefully to create a wall of undifferentiatable sound. Sometimes starting on the stage right with the basses, violas and cellos and migrating to stage left causing a cascading wave of sound roaring across the auditorium. This sounds like a tube of a crashing wave.

Among the many reasons great classical composers remain popular is the skill they exhibit at all levels of using an orchestra to create incredible sonic experiences. Also, allowing conductors to mold the pieces into different experiences.

One of the most fundamental tools is the individual instrument versus the massed undifferentiated sound wave… the character of this sound wave they control in the amount of bass, midrange, treble and location. Symphonic orchestras are among the most amazing and complex creation of man.

I like air or vacuum capacitors, electrostatic speakers, air bearings in 3D, and Koetsu’s. None of these are cheap, and some are DIY only. But each makes its contribution, as does the room.

Digital literally gives me pain. YMMV

@ahuvia

Looking only at the speaker, what you are describing is intermodulation distortion. It’s intermodulation distortion in components too, but unless you have poor or poorly set up vinyl (or listening to inner groove songs) , or highly distorting tube gear the rest of your component aren’t contributing much to this (always rare exceptions).

The rest of the issue and probably dominant is your speakers and room as a system. Too strong of first reflections off walls, floor and ceiling, too much back wall reflection energy, front was reinforcement and suckout, and reverberation in general. *Add in that all these reflections in combination with the speaker dispersion can have vastly different effect depending on frequency. That’s why some component changes can appear to help the problem by changing tonal balance but at that point you are painting the pig.*

What can you do?

• Get your speakers away from walls if you can
• Toe the speakers more in towards the listening position
• Treat the first reflections points and front and back walls
• Fix bass nodes issues
• Use advanced room correction
• Use speakers with better (and consistent) directivity control. Speakers with waveguides, well designed horns, etc. Floor to ceiling line sources can be good too but can introduce new problems if you don’t implement properly.

Multichannel has advantages as the direct sound will be louder in the intended direction towards your ears, but you still need to address the room. It is not a magic bullet.