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TacT, Lyngdorf, Audyssey Pre/Pro, PARC?

I would greatly appreciate thoughts on these various RCS systems. Kal Rubinson has done a great job reviewing several of them. On the basis of his reviews and some research, I know the following:

- the PARC is an analog equalizer, effective but paired down compared to the others. But if you have a dedicated analog source (turntable, SACD) it is the only option without going A-D-A.

- Lyngdorf broke away from TacT. How are these two systems different? Better, worse? There is some concern that DACs in the TacT units are not wonderful, so better to use an external DAC?

- Audyssey. Used to be for Pros. Now it is available in Pre/Pros and receivers. But some very good ones. How does it compare in sound quality and capabilities to the TaCT system?

How does one differentiate among, and decide on which unit to get. The TacT units seem to be most recommended by Audiophiles, and yet there is the concern about the DACs.

The pre/pros certainly offer a lot more for the same price. How does their sound quality compare?

Sorry for the ramble. Your thoughts -- as always -- most appreciated.
whynot
kr4's avatar
kr4
3,677 posts
 
1. Yes.
2. Yup. The Oppo 980H (cheap but competent), the Pioneer DV-58 (better, sturdier), the Sony XA5400ES (CD/SACD only) and the upcoming universals from Denon and Oppo. Mebbe more.
3. Depends. If you want a pure correction, the built-in Audyssey MultEQ XT or ARC is entirely adequate. If you want some control over the response curve (as well as good readouts of the measurements/corrections and some better corrections), there's the AudysseyPro software. Also, I am firm believer in multi-point measurements.

Kal
unsound
7,329 posts
 
The newer DAC in the Tact is purported to be much improved over the earlier version.
dgaylin
255 posts
 
Okay this is enormously helfupl. Kal and all, thanks for all your time.

--dan
kr4's avatar
kr4
3,677 posts
 
BTW, I have not heard the Denon prepro but, on paper, it also fills the bill.

Kal
martykl
3,578 posts
 
Just one more observation:

The Velo SMS has an auto-correct option as well as the ability to output the "in-room" response (below 200hz) to a video monitor for manual adjustment.

In my room, I first:

Viewed respose on the monitor without any correction. It was pretty awful, as might be expected.

I then used auto-correct and viewed those results. They were much better, but hardly great.

I then corrected manually. In 15 minutes, I had vastly superior results with my Ohm 100s and Velo subs. Similar improvement was possible with Maggies and subs, but it took almost 2 hours. In every case I tried, manual tweaking made a huge -and hugely audible- improvement over auto--correction.

This may be peculiar to Velodyne's auto correct system. I'm sure that part of the explanation is due to the particular concern of room correcting for sub/mains versus mains alone. In the former case, you must first get it right through the crossover region (not easy), then get it right overall. For a "subwooferless" system, priorities differ.

Moral of my story:

Buy a system which allows you to view results an tweak manually, particularly if you'll be using subs.

Marty
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