Time to move to Separates

M

mjcmt

Audioholic
This would benefit me because my Dynaudio speakers, even in a 2.0 system, are power hungry so I need a pre/pro and power amp to get some real 'umph' behind them. At present I can't even think of getting beyond a 2.0 system w/ my speakers of choice.
 
j_garcia

j_garcia

Audioholic Jedi
You can always start with an AVR + Amp then upgrade to pre/pro down the road, if power is the main concern. That's what I did.
 
Pogre

Pogre

Audioholic Slumlord
You can always start with an AVR + Amp then upgrade to pre/pro down the road, if power is the main concern. That's what I did.
Yup. I did the same. Still using my avr in fact. I'll probably run the wheels off of it then maybe look a dedicated prepro when it's time to replace. Definitely a viable path to get to separates.
 
D

Danzilla31

Audioholic Spartan
That's how I started too got a Denon X4500 then bought a used emotiva amp then built my way up from there
 
K

Kleinst

Senior Audioholic
I also use AVRs and an amp via preouts. I have yet to have someone articulate the WOW moment they had going from AVR to Pre Pro and until then, I'm not sure it makes sense.

Pogre, I'm with you, I get exited about thinking of replacing speakers and AMPS but for some reason for I never really obsess over replacing AVR. Not sure why I see that one as more of a commodity.
(I admit AMPs are too I'm sure)
 
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M

mjcmt

Audioholic
My current avr does not have pre-outs so either buy an expensive avr w/ them or go separates. Either way I'm not ready for that kind of expenditure plus add Dynaudio center and surrounds too. I'll casually see what shows up preowned.
 
F

fmw

Audioholic Ninja
This would benefit me because my Dynaudio speakers, even in a 2.0 system, are power hungry so I need a pre/pro and power amp to get some real 'umph' behind them. At present I can't even think of getting beyond a 2.0 system w/ my speakers of choice.
Most of the oomph in an audio system is delivered by a subwoofer. Not only do subwoofers add oomph and strong bass reproduction but they also free up the other amps from most of what they have to do. They only need a handful of watts to handle mid and high frequencies. You are using a subwoofer aren't you?
 
TLS Guy

TLS Guy

Seriously, I have no life.
Most of the oomph in an audio system is delivered by a subwoofer. Not only do subwoofers add oomph and strong bass reproduction but they also free up the other amps from most of what they have to do. They only need a handful of watts to handle mid and high frequencies. You are using a subwoofer aren't you?
Again you have promulgated a common misconception. There is actually little acoustic power in the last two octave below 80 Hz. It just seems that way because so many subs are terminally inefficient. The bulk of the acoustic power is from 80 Hz to 2.5 KHz and there is still quite a lot of power out to 5K.

The major power band is from 80 Hz to 1000 Hz or so. That is why for a powerful system, bookshelf speakers are a bad bet. If you have an efficient bass system like I do, you find that the below 80 Hz range takes actually very little power. You can see why on the power band requirements of instrument and bass fundamental frequencies and harmonics. We have displayed them often.

What a sub does do, is limit cone excursion of smaller drivers. This does reduce doppler distortion and other distortions. It does very little to off load the receiver.

One of the huge limitations of accurate reproduction is severe limitation of the power band room response between 80 and 1.5 KHZ, and especially 80 to 800 Hz.
This is where you need to devote resources.

Next subs do not create slam, there is no slam at those frequencies. What creates slam is accurate transient response of the whole wave form. That requires accurate time/phase response across the whole audible spectrum and uniform FR on and off axis, to create an accurate uniform in room power response.
This also requires cutting retained energy in the mechanical parts of the speaker system to the minimum

Unfortunately analog crossovers significantly disturb the time/phase response, but to varying degrees, depending on the overall design.

This is where active speakers, with DSP time alignment offer the prospect of much improved results.

Lastly there is now increasing evidence that Ted Jordan was right, that separating a fundamental from it harmonics in time is a bad thing. I have always believed that as Ted was one of my mentors. So placing subs away from mains, is a bad idea. That is why I designed and built highly integrated front speakers.

As you really work on this and minimize the the above aberrations, the improvement becomes truly astonishing.

A lot of the the current practice of the last 20 years has been 180 degrees wrong!
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
The major power band is from 80 Hz to 1000 Hz or so.
I was thinking about 40Hz to 500Hz. :D

There is another thread where we were debating about which frequencies produced the most ENERGY/FORCE and would require the most AMP POWER.

A lot of people seem to think that most the power requirement is below 20Hz because this is where the most ENERGY/FORCE is being produced.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
...separating a fundamental from it harmonics in time is a bad thing. So placing subs away from mains, is a bad idea. That is why I designed and built highly integrated front speakers...
You will get a lot of disagreement from people, but not from me. :D

SO MANY people, including some mods here, have advocated that it's BAD to have the subs in the same location as the mains. They advocate that the Subs should be in a different location than the mains and hence the Sub-Crawl test. :D

Here is one example of people saying “Subwoofers should be separated from the mains and be at different locations”:


However, I've been using Single Towers for years and have gotten awesome sound quality. So I agree with you here.

But just saying if you were to post a separate thread on this topic, you will get a lot of disagreement. :D
 
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Pogre

Pogre

Audioholic Slumlord
I was thinking about 40Hz to 500Hz. :D

There is another thread where we were debating about which frequencies produced the most ENERGY/FORCE and would require the most AMP POWER.

A lot of people seem to think that most the power requirement is below 20Hz because this is where the most ENERGY/FORCE is being produced.
I always thought it took more amp power for bass frequencies, but I'm not a guru. As far as what's more influential then for sure thats in the range you guys are talking about. We're definitely most sensitive to those frequencies. Are you also saying it takes more power to produce them?
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
I always thought it took more amp power for bass frequencies, but I'm not a guru. As far as what's more influential then for sure thats in the range you guys are talking about. We're definitely most sensitive to those frequencies. Are you also saying it takes more power to produce them?
I believe @TLS Guy is saying that it takes more power to produce the frequencies from 80Hz-1000Hz, not from the LOW BASS frequencies.

I agree with @TLS Guy on this because it seems the frequencies above 40Hz produce more ENERGY/FORCE (thus require more power) than frequencies below 20Hz.

I'm still waiting for somebody to give us that physics formula on this Energy/Force/Power vs Frequencies x Loudness. Hopefully it is as simple as F=ma. :D
 
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AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
But why do you think powered subwoofers came with powerful amps?;)
I think it's for same reasons they make 1,000-Watts+ amps for speakers. Overkill. Make more money. Keeping up with the Jones. The loudness game. The numbers game.

But I think if the sub is trying to produce 10Hz at 100dB, it could be very inefficient doing that. Thus, it could require more power. If the sub were outputting above 25Hz, it would probably be more efficient and require less power.
 
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Verdinut

Verdinut

Audioholic Spartan
I think it's for same reasons they make 1,000-Watts+ amps for speakers. Overkill. Make more money. Keeping up with the Jones. The loudness game. The numbers game.

But I think if the sub is trying to produce 10Hz at 100dB, it could be very inefficient doing that. Thus, it could require more power. If the sub were outputting above 25Hz, it would probably be more efficient and require less power.
Sealed subs require a lot more power than ported ones to reproduce infrasonic frequencies, so they require powerful amps to boost their LF inefficiency. They also distort more than the properly designed ported driver.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
Again you have promulgated a common misconception. There is actually little acoustic power in the last two octave below 80 Hz. It just seems that way because so many subs are terminally inefficient. The bulk of the acoustic power is from 80 Hz to 2.5 KHz and there is still quite a lot of power out to 5K.

The major power band is from 80 Hz to 1000 Hz or so. That is why for a powerful system, bookshelf speakers are a bad bet. If you have an efficient bass system like I do, you find that the below 80 Hz range takes actually very little power. You can see why on the power band requirements of instrument and bass fundamental frequencies and harmonics. We have displayed them often.

What a sub does do, is limit cone excursion of smaller drivers. This does reduce doppler distortion and other distortions. It does very little to off load the receiver.

One of the huge limitations of accurate reproduction is severe limitation of the power band room response between 80 and 1.5 KHZ, and especially 80 to 800 Hz.
This is where you need to devote resources.

Next subs do not create slam, there is no slam at those frequencies. What creates slam is accurate transient response of the whole wave form. That requires accurate time/phase response across the whole audible spectrum and uniform FR on and off axis, to create an accurate uniform in room power response.
This also requires cutting retained energy in the mechanical parts of the speaker system to the minimum

Unfortunately analog crossovers significantly disturb the time/phase response, but to varying degrees, depending on the overall design.

This is where active speakers, with DSP time alignment offer the prospect of much improved results.

Lastly there is now increasing evidence that Ted Jordan was right, that separating a fundamental from it harmonics in time is a bad thing. I have always believed that as Ted was one of my mentors. So placing subs away from mains, is a bad idea. That is why I designed and built highly integrated front speakers.

As you really work on this and minimize the the above aberrations, the improvement becomes truly astonishing.

A lot of the the current practice of the last 20 years has been 180 degrees wrong!
I would really like people to stop believing that a subwoofer can be placed anywhere "because low frequencies are omnidirectional. I would especially like for so-called 'professionals' to stop this because I see it as a huge disservice to the clients who hired them. I was called to install a TV/AppleTV/Sonos Playbar at a house which is now owned by the brother in law of another client and the previous owners left all of the AV equipment, aside from the TV I'll be mounting in the Den. The Sun Room has an LED TV, Yamaha AVR, AppleTV, Airport Express (which will be leaving ASAP) and Morel LCR/Sub and some kind of in-ceiling speakers at the rear of the vaulted ceiling. The sub is in the back left corner and when I started making the changes to the speaker/audio setup, its power cord was inside of the front cabinet. The speaker distances were set to the maximum (between 65-85 feet) and the sub was set to 1 foot. Geek Squad had done something- I only saw one of the invoices and another local company had also been there although I don't know which area they were working in. There's another full system in the basement and I haven't done more than glance at it- not sure how far they want to go because they really don't watch much TV (two little kids) but they have AppleTV at each TV location. The place was wired for speakers/VC in the Kitchen and Dining Room and if the cables in the Sun Room cabinet are any indication, they were never used.

I'll be making notes for what was done, how and how wrong- this town has some real turds WRT installation.

The LR speakers surprised me- they're round balls on a rubber ring that prevents the small metal stands moving- I'll get the model numbers when I go back but they basically sound like garbage. They're close to 7' from the floor and are in a large cabinet- not sure if they'll be interested in having me place them at ear level but I doubt it. Not impressed, but I haven't re-run YPAO or tried using the parametric EQ to see what can be helped.

I would have placed the sub inside of the cabinet and made sure the sound only cones out of the face- putting the sub at the back never sounds good in a live room like this one- lots of glass and V-grooved wood on the ceiling. I'll try to angle the LR speakers downward.
 
AcuDefTechGuy

AcuDefTechGuy

Audioholic Jedi
Sealed subs require a lot more power than ported ones to reproduce infrasonic frequencies, so they require powerful amps to boost their LF inefficiency. They also distort more than the properly designed ported driver.
So even if it were true that frequencies below 20Hz produce less ENERGY/FORCE (still waiting for that physics formula :D), they could still require more power due to the inefficiency.
 
highfigh

highfigh

Seriously, I have no life.
Sealed subs require a lot more power than ported ones to reproduce infrasonic frequencies, so they require powerful amps to boost their LF inefficiency. They also distort more than the properly designed ported driver.
Not trying to be pedantic, but.....

Infrasonic isn't something most speakers can do- some barely hit the second octave above our low frequency hearing threshold. However, used properly, sealed woofers do sound very good- as with other types of enclosures, the design needs to be correct. Trying to use power to make a sub do what it can't is like the saying about teaching a pig to sing- it sounds bad and it annoys the pig.
 

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