On 1538264764, buzz said..|
Unfortunately, this will rob the audiophile of some historic choices. The drill has been to search for the "ultimate" amplifier, "ultimate" speaker, and "ultimate" speaker wire. It's a lot less fun if there is only one search. In reality, since the audiophile's room is what it is, a little DSP work inside the amplified speaker box could be helpful. (but probably not as helpful as some acoustic treatment) Unfortunately, DSP does not seem as "pure" as the ultimate amplifier.

A nasty practical detail is that a good speaker designer and a good amplifier designer are usually not the same person or company.

As I said, I think you overly denigrate passive crossovers.

We did a system for a client.

When we broke it in, we set it up in a tiny test room, about 15 ft x 20 ft. We played the system -- three JBL Everest mains, Six JBL 18" subs, and the six surrounds, with the level up over 100 dB. I've played instruments and have been doing music things for decades, and that system sounded REAL.

It also sounded REAL in its theater environment, 60 feet from front to back, about 40 ft wide and 20ish feet high, also over 100 dB.

Might I say that those speakers have two input terminals, a plus and a minus? They don't AT ALL match "Personally, I wouldn't see that as a bad thing because passive crossovers are not great for fidelity."

buzz would be quick to point out -- and correct -- that the Mark Levinson amps and the rest of the JBL system might have something to do with the overall high quality, but that could not overcome passive crossovers if they were not great for fidelity