@simonmoon wrote:
I’ve heard several systems with the mini DSP, and have been unimpressed.
I’ve also heard several very high end DSP systems, including the Kyron. And that system kills! Even Mr. analog, Michael Fremer loves it.
But my overall evaluation is, that it takes a very special DSP speaker system to best the best passive system.
It’s not as much the DSP unit as it is the implementation. My IIR-based DSP unit cost me just over just $1,000, and it’s an excellent piece of equipment for what it’s supposed to (make me) do, and one that also holds up perfectly well to Lake units (costing much more). That’s for nothing however if you don’t know how to turn those settings into proper, audible effect, of which there are different routes for that to be accomplished. I still prefer setting DSP-values manually by ear with the aid of measurements (and input from friends), and while a painstaking and lengthy process the results can be, and actually are extremely good.
Of a range of passively configured speaker setups I’ve heard that were converted to outboard active configuration - that is, bypassing their build-in passive crossover completely and replacing them with line-level DSP’s/electronic XO’s and more amps - each and every one of them eventually saw a substantial upgrade in sound quality over their passive iteration (and that was obvious fairly early on), to everyone listener involved. That’s all I need to know and a testament to the potential of active configuration, not least from the important basis of comparing the same speakers with different filter configurations.
Many are, on principle, against DSP due to speculated, negative effects of A/D-D/A conversion steps with analogue inputs only, but with no experience to really speak of that would actually single out this particular aspect as the detrimental factor. Why even make any assumptions as to what may or may not, technically, be the reasons for a speculated deficit?
One of the best setups I’ve heard, an outboard active one at, comprises the exact same DSP unit I’m using. For anybody wanting to tell me it’s an IIR-based filter and not a FIR ditto, while implying perhaps it’s the lesser solution, I can only stress the importance of seeing the forest for the trees in actually listening to a properly implemented active setup and let your ears decide. Should the FIR-filter hold the upper hand sonically, which theoretically it does not least in being able to generate linear phase response, that’s only an added bonus that will potentially distance active from passive even further.
