cliveb;621629 Wrote: > I'm not usually this blunt, but someone has to say it - this is a CRAZY > idea. People like Phil have been gently and politely trying to point > out the futility of this scheme for a while, but it seems not to have > got through. > > Crossovers that operate from a full range stereo signal are well > understood (regardless of whether they operate in the analogue or > digital domain) and need not cost a lot of money. The cost of the > crossover in an active system (which requires one power amp per drive > unit) is not that significant. > > Contemplating doing all this as some sort of SBS plugin and hoping to > use multiple sync'd Squeezeboxes to deliver the split signals is > frankly bonkers. I will freely accept that the idea I was suggesting may not be practical given the existing architecture, but I can't see any sense in which it is bonkers. Anyway none of this was tied particularly to a particular implementation- it was based upon an idea of what would in principle be the best way of doing things. The train of thought I was on was about the way that we are still tied to using boxes to do stuff that can be done server side. IT offends my sense of elegance to be using 2 separate overlapping systems (Room EQ and electronic crossover) where one would do. It also strikes me that apart from the theoretical inelegance of this solution, there is an unnecessary connection involved and the possibility that the 2 systems may interact unhelpfully. Hmmm the Tact idea sounds increasingly attractive.
As I imagine it the room eq working on 4 channel would optimise the 4 putputs (or 6 for 3 way) in one go taking into account driver and room characteristics. Whilst it may be cheap to buy a Linn's active crossovers for its own speakers, I dare say the speakers are not cheap. The imaginary solution I am suggesting does not require you to buy into a particular dac or amp or speaker. It is also a serious point that by and large active speakers are relatively rare in the domestic market and many people would not wish to be tied to the existing choice available. Now if it doesn't work then yah boo sucks to me: but I really do think that the point is worth making that the power of a server based system to solve hitherto fiddly audio problems is not yet being tapped properly. Perhaps it never will be because basically not enough people care to make it worthwhile developing- but as regards cost effective audiphilia -wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if someone could buy just a double squeezebox [maybe a double dac (equivalent of MF M1 or an rDAC); maybe not] 2 cheapish power amps and 2 crossover less speaker boxes [no idea but maybe 1500-2000 the lot]. You would probably get better results than 99% of audiophiles currently get with systems costing 10k plus. How is any of this bonkers on a forum where people spend ages agonising about whether they should be using asynch usb from a touch (NB a hack for which it was not designed) rather than s/PDIF? Or changing the PSU for a linear one costing more than the Squeezebox?or taking the screen of their machine, or discussing the relative merits of different capacitors? or putting rocks on things? The interesting point for thoughtful observers of the audiophile species is that people happily try to bodge what they have at enormous expense rather than rethinking from scratch Believe me- I know that that the x-over can be done downstream but only at some expense of flexibility and/or potential signal degradation. This is obne of the reasons why traditional 2 channel audiophiles have been suspicious of active systems. The idea that this could be done costlessly on the host server seems worth mentioning. Now you can laugh but one of the reasons i started thinking about this was by noticing that inguz contains an ambisonic UHJ decoder, apparently free and gratis. Ambisonics is a cautionary tale since it seems to have been a conceptually elegant solution to the problem of recording and delivering surround sound; but a commercial failure [Apologies phil; as I am sure you know all this] As far as i can tell no one has impugned either the maths or the results in the real world. Be that as it may, it is striking that what previously required a separate and probably expensive ambisonic box [6000 plus from meridian maybe less elsewhere] can now be obtained for nothing. Equally as soon as one starts thinking about room eq it becomes obvious that there is no hard and fast dividing line between room eq and speaker eq. Anyway that is enough of a ramble. The bottom line is that if the platform will not support it then it can't be done: but it occurs to me that if logitech ever make a multichannel squeezebox it might just work. Back to bonkers mansions for a cup of tea. -- adamdea ------------------------------------------------------------------------ adamdea's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=37603 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=86650 _______________________________________________ audiophiles mailing list audiophiles@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/mailman/listinfo/audiophiles
