Srajan probably just delivered the most concise explanation of the advantages of properly executed dipole/open baffle design I’ve seen in over 60yrs in this hobby. That said, they quite simply won’t work in some domestic situations. I’ve owned two different “full range” ESL panels - Quad ESL57 (hence the air quotes on full range), Acoustat II - as well as one of the smaller Magnaplanars, and was never able to get them to deliver all their magic in my constrained living spaces.

@sevysingh472

7 ай бұрын

I found the smaller Magnaplanars worked really well in my old square room, 16ft x 16ft with 11ft ceiling height, but the Acoustat boomed and needed a room of 30ft x 20ft with 11ft ceiling. Similarly my old Quads worked well in the larger room but were more like oversized headphones in the square room and did have that magic.

Srajan has impressed me yet again, the two of you work well together, thanks for the presentation JD and keep bringing Srajan back to this.

Very informative video! Looking forward to seeing more of you and Srajan talking.

Love these podcasts / discussions, as always. Love John's comment about stereos for other rooms. I went to Capital Audio Fest earlier this month - my first hifi show - and this was one of the more salient takeaways: a lot of these systems are for rooms, not only that I personally don't own, but that I don't strive to own. Like, I don't want to spend time in that kind of (uber luxury) room (nor do I frankly want to have a job that would support the owning of such a room). But I was really grateful for the experience of being at that show and having this revealed to me. Helps me focus on what I do value, and really made the rooms I did dig stand out.

Audiophile all my life and would never have considered active speakers, until I experienced the Dali Rubicon 6C active floorstanders. A joyous system to use with their Soundhub which accepts inputs from anything. The sound quality is incredible and the system itself seamless.

Super integrated amps are excellent and I won't even look at one without HDMI, but some of them, like this new Rotel, ,are simply too physically big. The main dimension that's a problem is not width or height, it's depth. I'd rather have a product that was a little wider and not as deep. That would make it so much easier to fit in or on cabinets etc.

Woud always choose fully Active (Analog or DSP Controlled) but def. not this Master & Slave Concepts. And choose brands with a long history in Active Speaker Building (mostly Studio Monitors) - youve simply way more freedom to get control over everything because you buy a working package where Engineers develope over many years. Passive makes only sense for me when you pay 10-15k upwards for a pair of speakers (like Amphion Two 18 + Flexbase25 or Strauss SE-MF-4). The best Speakers (with Room Acoustic Concepts) i heard are ALL actives in every price range so, no need for me to go the passive way. But at the end, order it, test it out and you see what you get

Dear John 😂. I am a fellow inhabitant of Berlin. I’ve always watched your videos. Love everything about them except for your music taste! 😊. I’ve developed a love (L) / hate (H) relationship. Squeezebox (L), Allo DAC / Pi 4B (L), ROON (L), WiiM Pro (L), Eversolo (L), KEF LS50 Meta (H, H, H). Sounded awful with existing amps up to 60 WPC. Couldn’t do room correction. Cut a long story short, I discovered your 2 year old video on Powernode 2021 (L, L, L). Not your words, but definitely “Night & Day”. Not sure whether to keep it or return it to Amazon and buy a more ‘convenient’ amp. Thanks, John Darko 😊🥳🤗

John, you're doing a good job with these podcasts and in particular I enjoy listening to Srajan.

I really love my very old Philips MFB speakers. They sound amazing for old seventies speakers.

Thank you. I enjoy this format.

Loudspeakers Genelec greatly underestimated, all trends of modern high-end Already implemented in Genelec. And if you need an accurate and neutral sound about which so often say manufacturers high-end then you will find all this in Genelec . And don't forget about room correction (GLM) . Just add a high-quality digital source to the speakers.

I'm looking forward to your review/comparison of Rotel RAS-5000 vs Cambridge EVO 150 vs NAIM UNITY ATOM !!!!!

I bought my son a pair of Hogtalere powered bluetooth speakers from Morel. I am, therefore, an awesome parent. Only issue is if you connect them for true wireless stereo, a nice lady shouts LEFT SPEAKER !! at maximum and ear bleeding volume, so I have rigged them up with wires to avoid scaring the shit out of the neighbours. They actually sound rather good.

We were prepared to drive to Clayton's Spatial property in Utah to audition and purchase his products. He said on the phone he had no inventory and all futures were sold out. So we drove to southern California and heard Yamaha NS-5000 speakers. My wife was at the desk with her credit card out. Seamless delivery to southern Nevada. There are brilliant regional speaker builders around the world but they are not all created equal in global distribution. Relationships with component suppliers is an art. There is time and money involved in vetting local affiliates. Plenty of speakers are like wines in a magazine. You'll never see them.

Interesting conversation. The guest is very impressive.

I can’t wait for your take on LRS. I have a hard time with LRS placement. Seems like the speaker has an extremely small sweet spot. I have to sit in my chair like a statue😂

I've got what people would call an audiophile set up in my lounge, love to sit and listen, very nice experience. I also have a home studio with a mixer, laptop, turntables, decks, and active speakers, I have most fun in there mixing and recording music. Active speakers are very configurable too, the amount of settings on mine is impressive.

Well, I am obviously a BAD parent since I gave my sons hi-fi SEPERATES when they turned 18, LOL

The effect, audible or otherwise, of any ground differential noise will depend a lot on what kind circuit it applies to, its design and purpose e.g. analog or digital, a MC Phono stage, preamplifier, power amplifier, digital streamer etc. and as your MBL engineer points out the noise spectrum in question. All of this makes it impossible to make a general comment about an external grounding 'repair' device's potential audible effect or indeed to find precise subjective words to describe it in audiophile speak. My general engineering comment would be that equipment exhibiting high ground plane/chassis to electrical AC supply earth potential is poorly designed. Rather than an external electrical band aid, the money might be better spent on well designed audio gear that has been tested and certified for electrical safety standards and also objectively measured and critically listened to for its audio quality - all imho. Aside from all that I really enjoy the format of you two discussing audio news - thank you!

John, on the subject of better sounding soundbar replacements. You review a lot of bookshelf/ stand mount speakers. I think many of these would make great TV speakers. I would like you to (add to your) review how they sound placed on their side. Many companies say they sound the same in either orientation. The advantage is not having anything on the floor. 2 or 3 can fit on a wide "table " in front of the TV. This essentially takes up no space in the room. They generally need to be on their side to fit under a large TV. This works especially well if the speakers are powered. Additionally having the ability to designate the middle one to be a center or the company making a center with the same drivers is perfect. I believe this can make for a great TV and music speaker with the ease and space used of soundbar. We need to do something before $600 take over !

Hello I bought the Rotel RC-1572 MKII preamplifier. I agree with John I like the Dac, phono stage and headphone output are better than you might think. I’m selling the other stuff I had.

I did read the manual of RAS-5000 because I wanted to check if I can turn off the display, volume and power button light. This is because I don’t want any additional screen distraction when I watch TV. You can dim the display (who knows if this is enough to get it out of the way). For the power button and volume control lights, I’ve not seen anything in manual that would indicate these can be switched off/dimmed. Big respect to Hegel in regards to this aspect of the design. You can completely switch off display and no disco leds in front of it.

Another great podcast John and Srajan. I really liked the segment about speakers vs soundbars for sound stage as I have used a few sound bars but still prefer a good set of properly spaced and toed speakers 10 out of 10 times.

It is good to see you rocking the uber popular Sony MDR-7506, John. As an open space worker, open backs are a total no no for me. And the Sony are a favorite of mine. A deep dive on close backs could make for an interesting video. Stay healthy. Cheers.

I did think that the advantages of active speakers would be seen by all audiophiles and be in the range of all speaker manufacturers back in the late 70s. There are many more now but thousands more have remained with passive speakers even with high end (£30k-100k) models. One big advantage is not having to match the electronics to the drives of the speaker. An engineer in acoustic controlled environment has already made the best match for their target price point. In a messed up family room without treatment and removing all the things inside it I am not going to get close in matching separates for performance and cost. Some of that applies to powered speakers. Possibly less clutter unless you hang all the cables from the back of the primary speaker and so saving on the number of boxes needed to be housed. Actives are not usually tied between them so no placement constraints. The number of interesting and excellent DSP speakers with built in internet radio and steaming services sometimes come with an issue when using TV and film as the source. Poor latency. If they have HDMI eARC there is a good change they will work perfectly. Most streaming DSP active speakers will not allow you to upscale to 6 channels. Fibre optics, digital coaxial and analogue inputs get filtered through DSP and have a noticeable lip synch delay. If considering surround sound you either get a complete system stated to work (AV Receiver and 6 or 8 channel passive speakers or analogue active speakers) or WiSA or something like it designed to do that with active speakers. I purchased a hi-fi system for my home in 1978. I got the audiophile bug and kept thinking if I just change this I can make the system better. Luckily for me a hi-fi dealer asked me to bring my equipment along and listen to some systems they liked at different price points. I had made a very good choice for turntable, amplifier and speakers but a terrible choice matching them. Swapping out components and it was soon clear what could be achieved. But I had only heard a selection. So for a number of week-ends I went in to the hi-fi shops listening to my music and being allowed to re-connect higher end systems. In December 1980 I placed my order including active speakers at a cost of about 5 months gross salary. Whilst I did feel one particular expensive pre & power amplifiers with passive speakers were the best on some classical music across all the music type I also listened to the active speakers were more controlled. I have lived with these Meridian M1 speakers for 43 years and only now looking at a replacement because they no longer behave as they did and balance across six channels is now an issue. Repairs have been an issue since 2010 but seem now to be stable since re-capping and extensive TLC. With stereo sources including television I can not fault them, nor can I find better. Even speakers costing upwards of £20k are different but I have no idea with my hearing now if they are clearly any better.

I like a completely neutral tone - the best speakers I ever heard were PMC IB1s (which were mid feild studio monitors but with a wood finish.) But studio monitors don't have much of a soundstage especially front to back depth. Give me studio monitor neutrality with hi-fi speaker soundstage depth, width and holographing imaging and I'm sold.

I've just bought a pair of Yamaha HS eights so it would be nice to get your opinion on those I assume it's the same only larger.

Recommendations for an active pair to put on my 6’ wide desk? Needs to have sub out. In the $1000 or less range would be great.

@markos675

7 ай бұрын

focal shape 50 are killer no sub out though

Hi darko, one question, do you recommend toroidal over smps? For multichannel amplifier for home theater

I just looked for potentially purchasing a Telos. It doesn’t appear easy to purchase if you live in North America. Could not find a link or a retailer that would ship here. All the Taiwan sites are not in English either. I will keep looking…

That opening piano makes me want to listen to Iron Butterfly.

Can give me the title of that dude movie? Please, can’t find it. 🙏 Found it: “Die Verurteilten” in German

As far as ground noise being removed I would guess the effect would be a blacker background with micro-details emerging that weren't heard before. It would be subtle and be noticeable more on certain recordings.

Interesting video. I run DSP / crossover and multi amped speakers (digital active). I will buy Acourate at some time, but until then i will use Dephonica crossover, but it's limited to 8-channels, but really compentent.

Pitt & Giblin from Tasmania Australia are doing some beautiful high end active speakers! If anyone is in the market.

Struggling with the telos product, kind of not enough information for me. If i messured voltage between earth and neutral on an ac power supply i'd fail it with a neutral fault. A break in the the neutral cable somewhere. That network switch will be powered by dc, using a power brick. So it looks looks like the device is connecting gnd and hence the casing? directly to either earth or neutral? I think the voltage will act like a filter at whatever frequency it is I dont think it will make any noticeable (that we can hear) difference if the frequency of that votage is above 20khz or below 20hz as it will outside of what we can hear. Whatever i does do could potentially be done by connecting a cable to that screw and earth.? Or thats where i start to blow things up 😂😂

Bit of confusion between gnd and earth...please do not ever remove your safety earth pin from your mains plugs to resolve a hum issue... ever!..a better solution is to remove the shielding termination from one end of your audio signal cable

Hi Darko, is there a European counterpart for something like Emotiva power amplifiers? Same price/quality (or better)?

About the last subject, about grounding. I guess the sound will be ultimately clean, reassuring a kind of 'blackness' and rest in the sound picture.

Thanks for this - interesting stuff! My question about powered/active speakers is this: the cabinet with the electronics in it is, by definition, smaller interior volume. So, how is the *different* acoustics of the two speaker cabinets dealt with? On the ground noise reducer - can this be done in the audio system? Or is it for the network streamer?

@jimfarrell4635

7 ай бұрын

That's a great question. I have no idea but perhaps they blank off a similar volume on the slave speaker to volume match the pair.

For the Telos product, I'd guess if it's a highly resolving properly setup system, they would make a huge and surprising difference. For everyday systems, not so much.

i started my audiophile journey when i bought my first studio monitors for hifi use (adam t5v) sold those bought some mission speakers with an amp , then i went to the elac drb62 with an denon poa 2000 amp and cambridge audio cxn v2 and after 5 years i returned to studio monitors through the focal shape 50 and i can say without a doubt its the best set of speakers ive heard under 3000$ for the whole system , ive heard the elac navis with the cxn v2 and they are not even close , if you are after sound qualty my advise is stick with studio monitors like hifi you can find your speaker, adam's does not sound like focal's, genlec either and you can pair studio monitors with ''hifi'' dac's to find the sound you like , for a while iv been floating around 2000-3000$ for my hifi system and i have never been happier with a set of speakers. i was afraid they might be dry but they are not , only thing missing is the punch in the low end wich could be easily fixed with a sub

I wonder if it streams KZread music. If it does, I would pick this over the hifi rose rs520

Just been over to the speaker website for Clayton's Caladarn speaker. 1st impressions are that they sound rather excellent. Ron from NRD really has put in spirited support for these in his video post. Interesting. Ron speaks of serious illness for Clayton and that he is back. Orders are now full and next orders are slated for next March.

So I assume that you're saying the same thing about the HS8. They're absolutely supposed to be voiced in that way because they're essentially production speakers they're supposed to be flat and give an accurate representation of what's going into them that's the idea.

I dont think its particularly unusual for speaker designers to build a brand then flip it, start over. Joachim Gerhard (founder Audio Physic) did that when he got ill. And there are plenty of people out there in the product design game who simply see selling up as a natural way/stepping stone to greater things. If you have talent, you're smart enough to only sell the business - not the intellectual property.

please! - review neumann studio headphone ndh 30

hope KEF does an active version of the R3

Why is your Patreaon not linked in the description?

@DarkoAudio

7 ай бұрын

It is NOW. ;)

@MascotR

7 ай бұрын

@@DarkoAudio subscribed! 🤘🏽

you gotta show us what you’re talking about guys🤷🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️ pleeez🙏🏼

@DarkoAudio

7 ай бұрын

We do! But we can only work with what we have -- and Clayton Shaw hasn't yet had photos done of his new speaker, which is a bit frustrating. In future, we won't be covering items where no (or few) photos exist because as you point out, it creates frustration for the viewer.

@goodforwatch

7 ай бұрын

@@DarkoAudio that's so surprising, one that a manufacturer announced a product without any pictures, and two that you could tell without me including the timestamp, that i was referring to your first story🤔 very spooky😂 not that I'm complaining😁 I'm so glad you're doing this on YT👍🏼 it's like directors commentary for your website especially useful for us 30 something kids, who don't read you know😂 thank you!

Thanks for a very informative video. I love my Rotel preamp and amp. A great combination of quality sound and price equaling value for consumers.

Not to be a noob, but at the moment, I can't think of too many respectable companies that make a point of omitting or refusing to disclose the information on the integral parts of their machinery... outside of China, maybe... Loud & Proud or just be satisfied being a Tier 2 or Tier 3 company... As a side note... MQA will go the way of Quadrophonics in the '70's - which I bought into heavily with a Pioneer QX747 and four big honkin' Pioneer 3-ways ... The technology was/is top-notch...!!! Problem - they didn't put out enough dedicated Quad LPs to make it worth your while... MQA...? Yippeeee....!!! Problem - there seems to be fewer and fewer providers, so...? It's not worth the hassle or lack of options...

The HS series of monitors share visual cues with the NS10. That is all. If you sit / work with NS10 of any variety you will quickly realize they are totally different from HSanything...

I’m just curious John, what is your favorite film? Or at least something that first comes to mind that you rate highly? BTW, Lynn Olson is also a speaker and electronics designer, who published articles in Positive-Feedback.. I wish them success with Spatial Audio..

@iikatinggangsengii2471

7 ай бұрын

i rarely watch movies but guess romeo juliet pretty good, devil wears prada also used to watch kdramas often then changed to variety and shows

@iikatinggangsengii2471

7 ай бұрын

ah ocean series, prison breaks too

Why are 3 way monitors are sooooo expensive compared to 2 ways?

Has anyone attempted an International order with Clayton Shaw? Annoying that they won't take care of the delivery themselves and you are directed to a third party which is a complete rigmarole! A real shame, I guess their US orders are keeping them going !

LS60 would be much more practical being little wider and less deep. I am not a big fan of this block, protruding so deeply into my living space.

GOATED that dad moment when you tried to explain the difference between Apple Music and Apple Podcasts

So, tell me great gurus of sound.......are the Yamaha NS-6490's as horrible as certain reviewers have made them out to be, or are they capable of sounding as good as they did when they were all I had to listen to on my system. I mean, when I presented the sound of my new ELAC B5.2's to the wife, she looked at me and made a face like "that sounds TERRIBLE!" Well, unfortunately, I was struggling to not agree with her despite the fact that these new wonder weapons for the price were supposed to introduce us to "audiophile" quality sound. They have been sounding better to the ears as I break them in, or maybe my brain is just getting used to them, but still......why did the supposedly mediocre 2 year old Yamahas sound so much better to us despite having to deal with the super tweeters being offset on the same side of BOTH speakers (a really stupid design flaw it seems they refuse to deal with to this very day.....I mean, why make 2 different front plates for a supposedly STEREO speaker when you can stamp them out cheaper from ONE die instead of TWO, right? So, any thoughts on the matter?

@iikatinggangsengii2471

7 ай бұрын

lol do they, theyre great even 599 sounds good

Watching the tail end of this one wherein John describes the difference between passive/active and powered speakers, it’s hard to imagine that any regular viewers wouldn’t already have a reasonable grasp on that, but then again it could be a fool’s errand to bet against the technical acumen of the “terminally online”. Also it should be noted that active can also be achieved using unbuffered crossovers using only small value and very low cost passive line level filters; but they require consideration of the input impedance of amplifiers used, are best suited to very low order slope functions, and generally have no flexibility of adjustment other than whatever attenuation might be in those amplifiers. Yes, affordable DSP has considerably changed the landscape for both commercial manufacturers and the DIY community.

Loudest eye lids on KZread.

The Rotel RAS-5000 display as pictured suggests that finally there exists a Spotify Lossless streaming service...please tell me this isn't just me wishfull thinking 🤪

@DarkoAudio

7 ай бұрын

How does the screen suggest Spotify Lossless? It's a common misconception to think "16bit/44.1khz" = lossless. Even lossy streams will show 16bits of depth and 44,100 samples per second. So yeah, wishful thinking. 😉

@Wuppie62

7 ай бұрын

@@DarkoAudio Thanks for clearing this up. :) I wondered for a moment, because the 16bit/44kHz numbers resemble the usual cd quality spec, while a Spotify file is at best 320kb/s mp3. The Spotify Premium app only differentiates the sound quality as 'Very High', 'High', 'Normal' or 'Low', hence my question..

Have you done a video on power conditioners?

Hi John. I really like your content. Its high quality reviews, good looking and informative. I have one big problem though ... the Amazon spam. I know that you get some money from us buying through your link, and I am totally cool with that. But I don't subscribe to your channel to watch those "good offer" posts, I do it for the reviews and the Hifi news to some extent. I don't know if most of the audience is from the US, but it adds to it that the offers always are American, when living in Europe. I am close to unsubscribing which is annoying cause I do really like your content.

@DarkoAudio

7 ай бұрын

Well, think of it like this: that special offer 'spam' (as you call it) is one way I can keep this content free of charge for you and everyone else to watch. Otherwise, this podcast would be Patreon only. You already recognise the quality of what we do here so why not simply ignore the community page posts and keep scrolling? But, hey, if you must unsubscribe, then you must. 🙏🏻

@DanielJLMadsen

7 ай бұрын

@@DarkoAudio Then I must.

Powered speakers are inherently flawed because they can't be tonally matched as well as passive or active speakers. Using wireless passive is also flawed. The only exception is a powered speaker system that uses a dedicated cable connection not a speaker cable.

This is probably the poorest content you post. I find the format very dry and the presentation more so. The channel is good but I don’t think this format of episode works on KZread. It’s boring.

@Simplyveej

7 ай бұрын

I like it. Very informative.

@kaneserver

7 ай бұрын

It's a podcast , it says so clearly on the tin. Its not meant to be cinematic like the regular KZread content. The benefit of it being put on here is you get to see what they are talking but that doesn't change the fact it's a podcast. Darko clearly states the other audio only outlets where you can find the pod. I suggest you use one of them instead of of making yourself look stupid trying to be a smartarse

@dhansak79

7 ай бұрын

It’s still very boring. Sorry. It’s not about the lack of video production. It’s super nerdy I guess.

@JordanWegwerth

7 ай бұрын

Couldn’t disagree more. I look forward to these podcasts every week-especially the episodes with Srajan.

@pvl256

7 ай бұрын

Disagree