[chesebert]

Quote:

Originally Posted by freeflier /img/forum/go_quote.gif Are you just going to keep twisting my words untill you confuse the issue to the point where the whole discussion is so incoherant you can claim some kind of victory? Of course it's a DSP. I never said it wasn't. I was dismissing simple free DSP technology. It's like claiming that software you get supplied with your camera is just as good as the software in a dedicated Photoshop package just because they are both Software. What kind of nonsense are you going to hit me with next? How do you know what the Tact does? Have you read the white paper? Have you ever heard one? Who are you trying to kid. Get off your lazy ass.

I keep coming back here just to see how mad you get. Its semi entertaining. Nevertheless its not so wrong for one to defend his own purchase, but to go to such a length to defend a company and its product is unusual. TACT should really compensate you for being a loyal customer. If you are happy with your TACT, who am I to say otherwise.

 

[ooheadsoo]

I do have the option to implement software convolving at any point in time. In fact, I am currently using it. I also have a fair amount of fiberglass in my room. My acoustics situation is still terrible. I haven't heard tact processing, but I'm sure it's good. IMO, the real potential isn't in digital xover technology (which you can also implement in software with a pc, without buying a tact pre/pro, but you probably know that) but in mechanically damping a room's reflections. Diffusion can also help, if retaining a more natural reverberant field is desired. I know NHT has done some great stuff with their super steep digital xovers in their xd system, but humans can only take so much spl, and out of band distortion only has to be lowered so much before they are inaudible at usable spls. It's great for small systems like the xd, but if you have the space for a larger system, it's fine, as well. Some speaker designers have recently compared their xover work to their own tact implementation. The result is that it's a pretty dead even heat. Some of them now offer the option of purchasing their speakers sans xover so you can use it with your own tact processor, but by all accounts, the real world results are really close. almost too close to call. In the end, mechanically treating the room is still usually acoustically desirable, which was all I tried to point out, many posts ago.

 

[freeflier]

Quote:

Originally Posted by chesebert /img/forum/go_quote.gif I keep coming back here just to see how mad you get. Its semi entertaining. Nevertheless its not so wrong for one to defend his own purchase, but to go to such a length to defend a company and its product is unusual. TACT should really compensate you for being a loyal customer. If you are happy with your TACT, who am I to say otherwise.

Actually,
I have no loyalty to Tact whatsoever. It is the technology that I'm advocating. They just happen to be the company I'm familiar with and one which is pushing the envelope. Like I said, digital music sucks and I'm all for milking any benefits one can from the possibilities that have opened up. There are definitely a few others are getting there. Meridian and NHT are exploring the potential and I find it quite telling that a $4000 dollar NHT system is sitting next to the $45,000 Wilson Maxx in Stereophiles class A speaker lists. Thiel, B&W and all the rest need to wake up or they are going to get left behind.

More importanly I despise people who defend what they own as "the best" just because they own it and are afraid to admit they made a mistake. If you knew me you'd know that I'm now married to my possesions and don't get my self image from them. If something is SH!T I'm the first to admit it (and dump it).

 

[freeflier]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ooheadsoo /img/forum/go_quote.gif I do have the option to implement software convolving at any point in time. In fact, I am currently using it. I also have a fair amount of fiberglass in my room. My acoustics situation is still terrible. I haven't heard tact processing, but I'm sure it's good. IMO, the real potential isn't in digital xover technology (which you can also implement in software with a pc, without buying a tact pre/pro, but you probably know that) but in mechanically damping a room's reflections. Diffusion can also help, if retaining a more natural reverberant field is desired. I know NHT has done some great stuff with their super steep digital xovers in their xd system, but humans can only take so much spl, and out of band distortion only has to be lowered so much before they are inaudible at usable spls. It's great for small systems like the xd, but if you have the space for a larger system, it's fine, as well. Some speaker designers have recently compared their xover work to their own tact implementation. The result is that it's a pretty dead even heat. Some of them now offer the option of purchasing their speakers sans xover so you can use it with your own tact processor, but by all accounts, the real world results are really close. almost too close to call. In the end, mechanically treating the room is still usually acoustically desirable, which was all I tried to point out, many posts ago.

I don't think there is any processor that can deal with reflections (as it relates to reverb). I don't believe it's even possible in theory. This is definitely where you need absorbtion panels. As for crossover technology, the potential is not in the ability to generate any slope desired (thought it's one). The real advantage is in the potential to decouple the drivers and place them where they can work best in the room and then cross/time align etc afterwards. That means you build the crossover to match the environment and your needs, not try and match your environment to a speaker that is compromised the moment it is designed. Basicly woofers don't work very well where tweeters work well and vise versa. That's why there are so many speaker solutions out there and they are ALL essentially just huge compromises of one type or another. This is something that took me quite a while to wrap my mind around. People kept jabbering about it , but untill I actually took a close look at what they were talking about I didn't get it. There are so many aspects to what a conventional speaker can and can't do. As a result the industry tends to focus only on aspects that can be addressed with conventional technology and just ingores everything else ie boundry related time smearing of bass frequencies.

 

[ooheadsoo]

That is a good point, but localization is an issue. In essence, you can only apply that technique to low frequencies, otherwise, you will be able to tell that there is a spatial discontinuity, despite all the alignment in the world. This is clearly one viable solution, but when the frequencies become low and hard to localize, your options open up. Can you really cross to corner subs at 250hz? Maybe, but I'm not sure it is necessarily ideal, either.

 

[freeflier]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ooheadsoo /img/forum/go_quote.gif That is a good point, but localization is an issue. In essence, you can only apply that technique to low frequencies, otherwise, you will be able to tell that there is a spatial discontinuity, despite all the alignment in the world. This is clearly one viable solution, but when the frequencies become low and hard to localize, your options open up. Can you really cross to corner subs at 250hz? Maybe, but I'm not sure it is necessarily ideal, either.

EXACTLY. Actually, the way current advocates of this describe it, you are not dealing with subs but rather, the woofer that would normally be in a conventional driver. They advocate the use of a high quality, fast and efficient woofer that covers from whatever up to about 400hz in the corners. The one based on Tact designs uses the Scanspeak driver and is can be ordered custom built from this one man outfit for $2000. The mid/high satelites are placed optimally well away from the boundried to minimize early reflections. The other benefit is that one is forced to implement true bi or tri amping. Something that has always been desirable.

 

[freeflier]

Actually, for my money a perfect world = an active digital crossover that utilizes all the benefits of time and amplitude correction coupled with high quality active corner loaded woofers and and active satelites. (preferably built by a marriage between a great amplifier maker with great speaker builder ie Thiel with Krell or Bryston , Sonus Faber with YBA etc etc)
This will never happen. Paradigms AWESOME Active 40s were a flop and discontinued. (they are still desperately sought after by those in the know). I had a pair ($1000 used) and for the origonal $2000 retail they were mind bogglingly good. My $7000 Thiel 2.4/ Bryston 4bsst combination beat them out by only the smallest of margins. Unfortuneatley I'm very very picky.

 

[freeflier]

Wait a sec. I just thought of something. If you REALLY want to get as close to the recording as possible, with as little fuss and money as possible....
[size=medium][size=xx-large]HEADPHONES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!![/size][/size]

 

[music_man]

when i "explained" line conditioners to people that asked of me to do so, i stated facts. in regard to their aproach of functionality. when i went on and on about toroids i stated opinions. however, i never argued or picked a fight with anyone.

freflier, your (perceived) insight into the tact systems abilities is opinion not fact. this falls more into the category of speaker a is better than speaker b when both speakers are within $100 of each other. opinions. subjective.

if you were to state how the tact physically works at doing what it tries to achieve you would be stating facts. assuming you presented us with correct information. constantly blowing it's horn as being superior technology is an opinion. this is when someone usually chimes in with "do you work for the company you are prasing so highly". at the point where it has gone far beyond a consumer relating their pleasurable experience with a product. opinions are fine. 90% of what you find on audio boards is subjective, opinions. on the other hand getting into bitching matches is rather juvenile imho.

i am still surprised you are talking about hall effects and such, yet dismiss yamaha so quickly. yamaha invented all that. todays yamaha receivers are for a much different purpose than the tact but a whole lot more "neato" if you ask me. that is really all the tact is about, being "neato". it is attempting to create something that does not exist. ie, take a crummy sounding room and make it sound good without actually physically changing anything in the room. that is a fact. that is what the tact does. is it a robot that walks around placing tube traps where it thinks a room needs them? no.

as to the nht being next to the wilsons. the wilsons are doing what they do mechanically. hence the price tag. why not put bose on the 'a' list then? yes, bose sounds pretty rotten to seasoned ears. it is based on virtual acoustics(aka digital signal processing). it just so happens that bose' implementation didn't hit the mark for most of us. it is all based on similar technology. bose actually started by trying to implement mechanical means of doing this. now they are onto dsp solutions. i will tell you how to make bose sound quite impressive.

hook them up to a yamaha 9.1 receiver! freeflier, you did make the argument of not buying expensive speakers anymore since dsp can make any speakers sound like any other speakers. any room sound like any other room. etc. did you not? bose is not to my liking and neither is anything that attempts to make "virtual compensations". to me it represents a matter of purity. all this electronic wizardry will make for a compelling effect. effect. i like to hear what is present solely in the physical sense. different ways of reaching the same point to a great extent. neither is wrong per se. i am not one to to force opinions on others though. nor is it polite for anyone else to do so.

an ipod fooled some of the most devout audiophiles into thinking it was a high end source. bob carver made a $500 amp sound just like a mcintosh.
a ferrari kit car can look,sound and perform just as it's genuine counterpart.

the fact is that all of these examples are not for purists. i never understood why some people always find it compelling to convert other folks to their beliefs. i understand peoples "reasoning" for this. i do not understand why anyone would act on those feelings. personally, i have always found this type of behavior rather distasteful.

it seems some of us can no longer see the forest through the trees. getting so caught up in the reproduction of music. rather than the music itself. loosing sight of our true pursuit.

everyone, go listen to some music and calm down. please.

music_man

 

[music_man]

i just realised that my above post will probably only serve to further the arguing.

freeflier, we agree on many things. just not the tact. it is not a big deal to me that i don't care for one. why then is it such a big deal to you that i have one?

i do agree on the idea of top notch active speakers. i am a huge fan of sat/woofer systems. i did not say "sub"woofer. most people that love the rel do not even know it measures as a woofer rather than a subwoofer.

i love my watt/puppys. i think they could be bettered tremendously with a built in yba amp! yba does not use toroids in their flagship amps. hurray!

i am not a big fan of active crossovers. however i have heard some i did not find offensive. we seem to agree analog remains the most "musical" option to date. i am not a fan of current dsp solutions. why is it so important to you that i am?

better digital by processing it further? make budweiser better by pouring water in it? not my bag. if it is yours, great. you are 100% entitled to your opinion on that matter. i won't try to change your opinion. i wish you would stop attempting to change mine. i heard your point. i have made my own decision not to implement dsp in my personal audio playback systems.

i have stated why i have come to that conclusion. based on my own opinions.
i seem to feel i am entitled to my own decision in this matter and should not be subject to being berated for my choice.

can we talk about speakers in this thread again, or start another thread about something else already? this is getting old.....and nasty.

music_man

 

[ooheadsoo]

looking foward to your opinion of the s-9 whenever you get the chance.

 

[freeflier]

edit

 

[freeflier]

Quote:

Originally Posted by music_man /img/forum/go_quote.gif if you were to state how the tact physically works at doing what it tries to achieve you would be stating facts. music_man

You are the one who made a blanket statement dismissing digitial processing out of hand without backing up your objection with any real fact other than contrived analogies about purism, watered down beer, cheap imitations etc etc. The only remotely technical objection you brought up attempted to deride the technology with a derogatory remark about "chopping" frequencies which is both inaccurate and misleading. I could care less if you use or like the stuff or not. Your comments about purism and cheating are indirect insults so put up or shut up.
Where exactly is the distortion introduced in the DSP processing chain?

BTW,
Try actually reading some of the posts before you criticize. I describe the basic process (a while back), I comment numerous times on both the limitations and possibilities and give specific expamples in various posts, I made it clear that Tact doesn't mean sh!t to me other than they are the only ones pushing the envelope (that I know of), and the back and forth with Cheeseburt has been tongue in cheek. Maybe my comments have been a little "general" but that's a hell of lot more than you've done in terms of concrete FACTS.

 

[music_man]

dsp and mechanical room correction are both vehicles that arrive at roughly the same destination. which ever any one person prefers is up to them.

people have their personal reasons for everything they do. that is what makes us individuals.

in this case one is not vastly technically superior over the other. which is why those amongst us whom are educated on the subject are arguing in the first place.

if it was mark levinson vs. aiwa(in respect to sound not price) this thread would have been two posts long. or one hundred. never can tell

i am apologizing for any seemingly non factual remarks i have made herein.
i extend to you a truce in this matter.

music_man

 

[ooheadsoo]

The TAS review for the s-9 is out. It's an interesting one. Since it's not available for free, I guess I'll post about the nitpicks. The reviewer has 2 nitpicks, one of which ends up being only half a nitpick:

1) because of the waveguide, he feels that the treble drops off a lot, and perhaps too much, depending on personal taste, when moving off axis. In truth, more of the treble drops off at the same rate, since the waveguide creates limited constant directivity. What he means is that in a conventional speaker without a waveguide, the 2-10 or so khz range remains high, even very far off axis, while the top octave or so drops likes a rock, whereas with the waveguide, the entire range of the tweeter falls off more evenly. He implies that this affects off axis listening - what he more or less literally says is that unless you are in the sweet spot - which he implies is small - you'll never hear what the speaker is truly capable of. However, in an article on his personal website, he states this: "True stereo for off*axis listeners is impossible: An approximate version of the correct sonic picture is all that can be provided." In my experience, the off axis response is certainly no worse than other conventional speakers. It isn't as good as the sweet spot, and it's obvious since the sweet spot is so sweet, but that isn't to say that the rest of the room doesn't sound like music. In fact, because of the limited high frequency being dispersed into the room off axis, the reviewer claims that this more closely emulates live music, where there is considerably less top end in the reverberant field.

2) He mentions that there is a small peak at 2khz and has shown this via measurements (not posted in the review.) This is odd because I don't recall seeing that peak in the anechoic plots that were provided for the speaker at the showing I attended, and I'm not sure I heard it. The reviewer used a relatively long gate. If the measurements he took are supposed to be valid from 700hz up. I'll take his word for it, he's a math professor at UCLA and I bet he heard them a heck of a lot longer than I did.

I'll save the big praise portions of the review for those actually interested in the speaker/review. Well, here's one comment, "I had an almost immediate memory of the real sound of a string orchestra. Few speakers fail to be humiliated by such a recent memory of reality. The S9s were really convincing in this nearly direct comparison with live music. And with their unstrained dynamic behavior, they were convincing on large scale music like full orchestra, as well. [Referring to listening to the s-9 during the time that he was also preparing the St. Matthew's Chamber Orchestra for a concert.]"

And closing comments, "To me the S9s embody so many effective and unusual ideas that they unquestionably need to be heard and thought about. One might hope for a bit smoother mid/upper-mid/lower treble. But that aside, will the controlled radiation pattern and the associated approach to overall room sound seem as wonderfully natural to you as it did to me? Listen for yourself, and be sure that you listen positioned correctly. Then think about what live music really sounds like. I think you will come away as impressed as I did."

He posted some further remarks and measurements on his webpage: http://regonaudio.com/NuForce%20S9%2...upplement.html
Above 200hz, the THD barely peeks over 0.3% a couple times. Not too bad. He also claims (less clearly in the review than on his personal page) that the 2khz peak is basically easily fixed with eq.