Several years ago my uncle was messing around with a multi channel DSP, a stack of hafler amps and some linkwitz (I think) speaker designs made from pcv tubes.. His systems are still the best sound I've ever heard. Sound stage that spans way beyond the walls of the room. But it was an undertaking. He spent a lot of time with his calibrated mic and his software, doing sweeps and making micro adjustments.

Not really related to this specific topic, but best advice ever, direct from Paul, for a budding audiophile: "have fun with it"

For me, active is best all the way! And it does not have to be miniDSP, it can be a different digital crossover - or even an analog active crossover. I am using 5 ways, and having separate amps for each way, with no passive electronice between amp and driver, makes the sound so much more dynamic and effortless.

@hazembata

8 ай бұрын

Hi. How did you set it up? Not much guidance for designing speakers to be used with DSP. Thanks.

I purchased a kit with drivers and crossover. I built the cabinets and 20 years later still sounds good,

FYI dayton produces a great project amp with the dsp built in! Just about any raw driver you can buy from a reputable outlet online will normally include the recommended x-over point in the specs. The ebay & alibaba stuff, not so much.

PAUL, GREAT ADVICE ,FOR A VERY TALENTED INDIVIDUAL AND I HOPE HE FOLLOWS THROUGH…SO WE CAN SEE IT 🤗😍😍😍

DSP is used in many pro sound setups, like large concert venues such as Wolftrap here in VA or almost every live music venue in Nashville especially down in Honky Tonk, aka Broadway down by the river.

Paul, when you hook up the mini DSP for bass management into your system as you mention in your video, where do you actually do that? After the digital source as a digital out - into the DSP - into the DAC? TX for your advise!

Hello Paul I have a question about DSP and DAC I bought an amplifier built in DSP technology and I have external DAC can I use both?

Hi Paul I have a old Yamaha 305 SW subwoofer should I change it for a new modern DSP one thanks

I bi amped my IRS IIIa's and left the passives in place. Best of both worlds.

J River for active xover + multichannel DAC? Behringer DCX and DEQ combo are a powerful combo.

I would recommend a test setup, which you can use in every situation. Fast demontage/fast montage

Hey Paul. I am in the process of using a DSP for a multi speaker setup. That being said, when I find the frequencies, rolloff rates, and type of filter in the electronics that gives me what I want, can I then build a passive crossover to the same specs and get near identical results? Would it be 99% true?

@PSA78

2 жыл бұрын

Yes, for the purpose of drivers respons and cabinet, but you might still need to add for instance circuit to make the crossover work with the impedance etc. And you would really have to work with the DSP as if it was a passive crossover, you can't for instance add BSC so it affects woofers if you're building something like a 3-way. So it's a way to maybe cut some costs on building the passive crossover, but there's still work (including measurements of drivers) to do. :)

@hazembata

8 ай бұрын

Hi. How did you set it up? Not much guidance for designing speakers to be used with DSP. Thanks.

As much as I hate to admit it, this is actually the correct advice.

I’m interested in the story behind the M&K S-1C speakers on the floor.

I am also thinking about going with the MiniDSP SHD or the SHD Studio, but that one is all Digital. I really want to give DiracLive a shot.

@sudd3660

2 жыл бұрын

i did got shd studio, and i gave dirac a shot, and it did not work at all for me. the minidsp is all you need and no mic required unless you want to make a 300hz crossover or higher.

@JC-lk3oy

2 жыл бұрын

@@sudd3660 how did you give dirac a shot without a calibrated mic? I had to make several measurements to get dirac to work with my MiniDSP SHD. To the OP, Dirac is great for low frequencies. I had to boost my bass a bit as dirac took more out than I wanted but that's why custom curves exist. I definitely wouldn't recommend any room correction for mids or highs though. The subwoofer Integration was super simple with my MiniDSP SHD.

@sudd3660

2 жыл бұрын

@@JC-lk3oy dirac requires a calibrated microphone and a adjustable stand, as wells as following the instructions and tweaking the results afterwards.

@JC-lk3oy

2 жыл бұрын

@@sudd3660 ok, it sounded like you were saying no mic was needed with the miniDSP at all. I see what you were saying now. You meant just for the crossover, I got you. Did you try moving the dirac curtain down to only be used for 200hz and below? I found room correction much higher than that sucks life out of the music.

@sudd3660

2 жыл бұрын

@@JC-lk3oy minidsp dont require mic, only dirac does. dirac had bad effects for me in bass and high frequencies, compared to my own eq i did by ear. and rom correction if you do it by ear can be done at any frequency, and it should done that way. lets say you have a loud tweeter peak(5khz), reduce that spot so that its sound even with the rest. that is how it works right. especially if dsp is done before the dac conversion, in the digital domain.

Active crossovers are superior to passive in every way. It cost more because you need multiple amps.

@PSA78

2 жыл бұрын

Not necessarily, there's a lot of cheap but excellent amplifiers today and passive components are not cheap and it can require a lot of them before it's all done. :)

@analogkid4557

2 жыл бұрын

@@PSA78 Trust me, I agree. I went the active crossover way and have Parasound amps. Sounds amazing.

@PSA78

2 жыл бұрын

@@analogkid4557 There's a lot of great DIY amplifiers today as well, it doesn't have to cost much at all to rival some the really high-end stuff from not that long ago. :)

@j-rod6420

18 күн бұрын

​@analogkid4557 I own a Parasound a21 and I am thinking about going active with my magnepans.What crossover are you using?

@analogkid4557

9 күн бұрын

@@j-rod6420 I am using a Dayton 8 channel DSP at the moment. I was using a DBX analog unit before. Both sound great.

Between DSP and passive crossovers there are also active analogue systems.

@sudd3660

2 жыл бұрын

do you mean a dsp added after the dac? for a analog input powered speaker for example.

@JerryRutten

2 жыл бұрын

No, he probably means ASP: analog signal processing, those are active and at line level.

miniDSP is alright and the latest miniDSP Flex is awesome, but it would be even better if they could handle DSD or up to some UHD PCM, perhaps 32 bits 384kHz or similar (incl. DSD-64 optimized DXD) and eliminate any argument of loss of resolution. I can stream 192kHz 24 bits lossless from Amazon but my miniDSP box ends up doing sample rate down-conversion to 96kHz do any filtering. Paul, why don't you make a product superior to miniDSP Flex that can do the above? We need it and I'm sure it will be a blast as your competitors are too stupid to do it!

@ahmadathari3503

2 жыл бұрын

Sorry, but no one can play dsd on active setup, dsp's work on pcm not dsd, dsd is for audiophiles, audiophiles use pasive crosover😄😄😄😄

that is what i did and recommend for diy. no way i can build a passive crossover. i went with a plate amp from hypex for the main speakers crossover and use the minidsp shd studio for room correction and subwoofer crossover, a dac and a poweramp and i get a diy powered subwoofer with more features than any prebuild store bought ones.

Active crossover are not super audiophile? You may want to check Linn products someday.

I have built my 3 way open baffle speakers in tri-amp active crossover setup. I feel active crossover is a way to go but there's lot more complexity to that and not just "to use 3 amps". I have to figure out to manage the volume at multiple stages of my audio chain. Volume in Windows (my media player/station), DAC, Pre-Amp, Active Crossover (it has volume gain per channel) then the Power Amp (for bass) and Integrated Tube amps with volume knob (for mid and tweeter). Although I'm hearing no distortion but so many places with volume control gives me irritation.

i fucking love you paul

Hey Paul Hopefully you can help me and get the best out of my system. I have a Mac mini and I'm plugging it through HDMI to my Anthem AVR MRX 720. It has a DAC built in would I still get Hi-Res?

Use some crossover software after you dsp and figure out what is what and build a passive to match what the dsp says

The problem with doing an active crossover is that then you have to also buy multiple amps for each driver or driver pair, (woofer, tweeter, mid, etc.), and therefore your total cost to build the whole speaker system goes up generally, when compared to just using a regular passive crossover and one amp to power the whole speaker. The flexibility in crossover frequencies and "tweakability" of the sound with an active crossover IS cool, but the extra cost involved in building a speaker in that manner, (using an active crossover), and having to buy all that extra gear, has always been cost prohibitive for me, unfortunately... I would actually love to have at least a test/design/build setup like that, with active crossovers, in order to get everything "dialed in" and adjusted to the best sound first, but then to be able to build a passive crossover around those specs, (i.e. whatever settings on the active crossover sound/work best), that would be ideal, imo... but... MONEY! (or a lack thereof) is not allowing me to ever do that realistically. (I don't make enough at work to have any "extra" money to play with like that! :( )

@sudd3660

2 жыл бұрын

you could just use a 3 way plate amp, two for stereo to be exact. hypex fusionamps for example, dps, dac amplification all built in.

i recently set up a miniDSP for my subs and the results are amazing!! the Dirac Live correction is next level. I have no idea what im doing or hearing "by ear", but when I can see the data across 9 or 15 locations around the listening area, i can figure out whats up. These DSPs run at ~400MHz and correct for level, time, and totally control the energy in the room. I tried the full range correction and it collapsed my soundstage , but i have BW 803s which are quite dialed in already and I have them far enough into the room where there are minimal boundary effects at the listening position--which of course sacrifices the bass performance.. why did i ever get into this?!?!

What stands do you have for those ELAC Debut 2.0 B6.2s?

I have a slightly different opinion about this whole active/mini DSP x-over thing. What Paul said that these DSPs are not really audiophile products is something I would agree with, they are not enhancing your dynamics and if it is not a super-duper high-end DSP then they are boiling the quality of your turntable down to CD quality. OK that's the con side, but the pro side is that you can very easily listen to your speaker drivers (more or less) separately and figure out where the nasty areas are and where it is playing nicely. Remember the speakers that sounded nicely but measured awful like the famous Spendor BC1 or similar. With a DSP you can build such a speaker fairly quickly without a whole bag of capacitors and coils. You can easily adjust one driver "out of the way" by raising or lowering the x-cover frequency by 2kHz and listen if the distortion goes away or stays and this way you easily find out what driver causes what problem. 2nd advantage is that you don't need to worry about drivers efficiency. You want to combine a 110db horn tweeter with a 90db mid-woofer and it is no problem. And last thing is even if you don't want your final x-over to be active it saves you so much development time and x-over parts coz if you have found your ideal x-over with your DSP you only need to "translate" it to passive. If you don't use 48db filters it should not be a huge problem.

How can you say that DSP is not audiophile?.... Passive crossovers do not take account for the environment they are in unlike a DSP, you can adjust the crossover, timing, and tune to it's environment ie the room they will be in and no one's rooms are identical

i agree i wouldnt invest in a random crossover use diy calculator at least however more time/$. I dont know about the reliability of the dsp stuff. I hated when amps were ruined by dsp chips being hard to replace and more expensive than the working amp. I dont trust that some chip can seperarte hf an lf on one single pos/neg non bi amp speaker.

@johncribbs8382

6 ай бұрын

how does that relate to the internal x overs in the speaker?

@johncribbs8382

6 ай бұрын

oh ok i get it they talk to each other. the chip measures the ranges of the speaker........Based on all the settings all being matched and the correct cables. kind of a nightmare imo. i was using 2ch set bw 802 speakers/ p2 amp and an aging advanced av controller( DV2). I had better results just using an nad c 370 and nad cd player. I mean the digital one sounded great and lower distortion however it was just a pita.i was more worried about if if set it up wrong than actually enjoying the sound. I need a balanced cd player or transport to test the 2ch mode correctly.

Dsp is the future, rather go there now than later. Tweeters can sound better with a simlpe cross over togheter with dsp.

The whole passage, audio aspect is so limiting is such a shame as an audiophile you don’t try to achieve the best sound no matter what means necessary it’s only certain aspects such as wires the gear you connect to the speaker in general that most people but dsp no I believe is the true future for audio improvement

DSP is the enemy of good sound

Active crossovers do not need to be digital. So the question is active or passive. Not dsp or passive.

Hey Paul I know this is one off but I have a sony-333 recover and the sound has gone south but I want get it recapped or what ever it needs but the beer drinking repair guy around here think it not worth it to recap and won't take time to look so Im asking who if any company's you know can do this.its my first recover so it means alot so it's a sony-str-333 from 1979 it just seem age is not on its side but every things works so I think thirs hope yet for it it's clean but used never used speakers where the ohm's under 8ohm's so I looked in it with cover off it's looks dang gum good in there but I'm not a tech so with that sed I can't repair it.in put please thanks Mr 333. .

some good passive crossovers are adjustable to their bandpass filters.....buy those. or a DAC-DSP in one receiver. separation will make DSP re-encoding the analog signal thus degradate the sound quality by 10x

Paul's a smart guy. Even with his many years of experience, including at Genesis, he realized he needed an expert to design his FR30 speakers, hence he hired Chris, and it still took them years to get it right. If a chippy thinks he can do it himself it should be a bit of fun but don't expect them to sound good unless Chris has some spare time and you invite him over.

@TheDanEdwards

2 жыл бұрын

Many hobbyists have made speakers. There are a great many books and even magazines dedicated to making speakers. I do not doubt that some hobbyist speakers sound really really good.

Dsd can not pass thru active processors, an audiophile use dsd😏

DSP 's are NOT easy to use ! You really do have to know just what you're doing with them ... stick to a well proven kit if I were you 😃

@sudd3660

2 жыл бұрын

what is hard about dsp? to lower a frequency range set the decibel and q value, to set a crossover set the number you want. at least the software is easy. do you mean the hardware setup? i recommend something like the minidsp shd studio so that all dsp is done in the digital domain before dac's.

@janinapalmer8368

2 жыл бұрын

@@sudd3660 the problems lie in matching driver phase/amplitude responses .. you're right in saying you just dial in a frequency and let it go 😃..! I wish it was that simple. If you've ever had experience of designing and testing speaker system crossovers you'll no doubt know what I'm on about . You CANNOT "dial" a crossover frequency until you know what the response curves of EACH individual driver looks like without any crossover ... When you get to see each response curve then ( using considerable experience in knowing what to look for ) you can suggest a suitable XO frequency that'll be suitable ... Remember this .. at the end of the day the response must be optimally flat and exhibit minimal phase shift with minimal group delay ...