Originally posted by 7_V
What appeals is that horns are so revealing that they can tell us all sorts of things about the stuff that drives them.
My curiosity is about the sound quality of the multi-driver, digital approach.
What signature does the digital circuitry itself place on the sound?
What are the sonic pros and cons?
How does the sound compare to the sound of a single driver horn with no electronics, active or passive?
I suppose I'm interested in what sacrifices we should make to the god of flat frequency response or are none needed?
What do you think?
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
Odds on you will unbalance the system and have to make a load of other changes to compensate!
