2. digital
  3. 1234012469

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
unsound
7,318 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
3,663 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
kr4's avatar
kr4
3,663 posts
 
The real reason that the auto-correction with the SMS-1 is inferior to the manual correction has very little to do with your analysis, although the choice of crossover does complicate the issue and the Velodyne has some limitations in that regard.

The biggest reason is that, with auto-mode, the SMS-1 will not vary frequency or Q of the 8 filters it has. Thus, in automode, the SMS-1 is little more than a bass-band graphic EQ.

See: http://www.stereophile.com/musicintheround/1105mitr/index.html

OTOH, the bass only Anti-Mode 8033 does a dandy auto EQ without any display or tweaking.

Kal
More to discover