Horn incredible system turned to fully digital...

Steve,

A little closer to home, you should also try to hear Merlins system. He also uses a Teac/Tact based system (without the horns though). It is remarkable what the system achieves in a pretty impossible room.

Merlin does not run with a flat frequency response, IIRC I think he tips it upwards towards the frequecy extremes.

Cheers, Robbo

 

I am planning to make that trip. Looking forward to it.

 

Steve,

Looking at Jean Yves' system one can only imagine the dynamic range. The TacT room correction system will rob your setup of room energy, particularly the huge power multiplication that results from standing waves. This, much like an anechoic chamber, results in a loss of percieved level and dynamic range. It's not really a failing, it is simply making your system sound as it should, without room gain.

Now using high efficiency horns seems sensible in a large room. JY is a concert goer, so is seeking authentic dynamics. Without room gain, that requires either a lot of power, and/or high efficiency speakers. With TacT amps, you can have both The S2150 is 150wpc, but importantly, the s/n ratio is <105db A weighted. That means you can use a lot of watts with horns and still have a virtually non existant noise floor (not possible with tubes).

So I guess with 750wpc on tap, and speakers with 100dbw+ efficiency and comparable power handling, you can get close to real authenic dynamics. Just hypothesising you understand

As for the digital circuitry's pro's and cons, well as you often mention, traditional crossovers are a pain, your single driver solution is a great alternative, as of course are full range panels. Generally the best crossover is no crossover at all, if by crossover we mean a few components on a board

The DSP generated crossovers are very interesting, I currently use a 100hz, 10th order crossover between sub and sats Yeah you read that right 10th order. I have just received some custom crossovers for the new JBL setup. These have 2086 points and 100 orders . Now when you use such sophisticated crossovers, and any residual response errors are corrected by the RCS, I suspect that you end up with as close to no crossover as possible, certainly if you want frequency extension from 20hz to 20khz with max spl in excess of 120db

Put another way, I have no problem integrating subs

I don't get any downsides, but hifi is a very personal subject. If you view hifi as the quest for perfect reproduction of the recorded media, then I have yet to hear it's equal. If you are looking for a music maker, some will find that certain combinations appeal to them and their prejudices more. But given enough time, I believe you can tune the Tact to pretty much all tastes (but this is not the work of an evening )

Robbo is right, I don't use a perfectly flat curve, although I do have it as one of the 9 presets. I have two favourites, one with a gentle slope down from 30hz to 15khz, the other with a 2db dip in the presence area. So not perfectly flat (truth and beauty ) But I can say it's a lot flatter than any other system out there without processing

 

So where did you say you were again?

 

Hiya Merlin

Not to detract from what you say about the silence of digital amplification, Im sure thats true...but..

The last time I heard horns was at GT Audio (if youre near heathrow worth a trip). He has horns set up with single ended valve amps, single ended phono stage and a turntable..

Should have been a recipe for noise, but such was the quality all you got between tracks was absolutely nothing.

Havent been able to get the same level of blackness with my own getup, that'll take £££££ Im sure.

Chris

 

Hi Chris,

As I understand it, one of the reasons for using low powered SET's with horns is that, with their low gain, the relatively high noise floor does not become intrusive.

High powered valve amps, with higher gains, will have a more noticeable noise floor, meaning that the low power/high efficiency route is preferred as it keeps background noise to an acceptable level.

With a digital amp, with it's superior s/n ratio, it does seem to be possible to have your cake and eat it. Many horn afficionados in the States are switching from SET's to Class T amps with superb results. So I guess if you want high power, high gain, max dynamics, the digital powered horn route is worth exploring

 

Sorry Robbo, didn't see that.

The decision was taken to build the JBL bass units a while ago, as currently I feel that stereo subs are the way to go.

Sadly given the dimensions, it will be very difficult to use the Merlins, I really need something I can mount on top of the subs, hence the interest in horns and standmounts.

At least the changes needed to compensate can be done on a qwerty keyboard