From the scarcity of examples I assume discontinued? If so the price should be dropping even more, a boon to either multi-channel setups or active crossover implementations like yours.
Yes. A few years ago I assume. But honestly, given the mass of the thing and the build quality, as well as the low noise, I can't see anyone ever asking less than $500 for one in good condition. Paying more on the used market for something with higher gain, much higher noise levels, and no electrical safety certification from an OSHA-approved NRTL, such as an Emotiva, strikes me as foolish.
It's interesting that someone so esoteric as to have Tannoy 12 DMT II drivers mounted in a custom low diffraction cabinet (I'm jealously admiring here) is in the objective camp on amp sound.
Once one has the speakers sorted, then one realizes what little difference the trifles really make.
But they're speakers anyone with an empirical bent will love. They're designed thoroughly along the accuracy model, between their reasonably well-controlled midrange directivity and on-axis smoothness of response. And diffraction is something that has been demonstrated as clearly audible, so minimizing it is a very "objective" thing to do.
They're also very efficient, so they have serious dynamic jump-factor as well as amazing micro-dynamic shading. Also, in practice in a domestic living room thermal compression will never be an issue But what IS an issue is that they never really "sound loud." That is to say, you don't get the distortion that tells you to turn it down. Often, the only way to tell how loudly they're actually playing is to try to speak aloud, or clap your hands. People used to 7" 2-ways are always stunned by that factor of actual high-fidelity loudspeakers.
Is this a new project or finishing the old one?
A little of both. I had
Nathan Funk make the cabinets for me while in 2006 or 2007. (There's a picture of one of them, sans driver, in that link.) Here's a bad shot of the front three in my old condo:
But going active is new. In fact, the box I'm going to use (miniDSP 8x8 in-a-box) isn't even available in that form. (The raw board is currently available, but I don't enjoy DIY electronics assembly.)
I'm really only going active it because I want to soffit-mount them, and the crossovers are HEAVY. They're all air-core inductors and poly caps. One of the inductors, for instance, is almost 4" in diameter and maybe an inch tall! (It's also remotely located from the main PCB, presumably because it would break the PCB.) So replacing the xover board with a 4-pole Speakon jack will save a fair bit of mass. The cabinets were already designed to be very light for their size and stiffness, through curved walls, CLD panels, and such.)
Also, the multisubs are new. In that picture, the main sub was a closed box with an Exodus Audio Maelstrom-X. The other subs (multisub array calibrated per Geddes) are not shown. The five subs in my current reference system all use Aurasound underhung neo-radial-motor woofers (18", 15", 2x12", 10") Not exactly, alas, "cheap and cheerful" stuff.
Yet I have a cheap Pioneer receiver with a chip amp (touted by the Dr. Geddes you referenced) that sounds gorgeously transparent and sweet.
For the record, Dr. Geddes'
only claim about that AVR is only that its chip-amp has very low zero-crossing distortion. He's since replaced it with another model, and has written that "IMO, a good class AB amp is inaudible ***"
The main reason I didn't seriously pursue an AVR with 6.1 or 7.1 channel analog inputs and chipamps, like your Pioneer, is aesthetic, not sonic. (Though since I already have it, I would've used my Panny XR55 if it had a 7.1 rather than 5.1 analog input)
For people who want to go active at the lowest possible cost, though, something like a used Pioneer 912 (the "Geddes receiver") downstream of a miniDSP is probably the optimal sonics-per-dollar solution. While they don't typically have 12V trigger turn-ons, one could program a Harmony remote to turn on both one's preamp (or main AVR) and the "amp" AVR at the same time. But IMO a preamp (or AVR) feeding a second AVR looks strange. So I did not choose that route.
Other than the noise level, do you notice any differences with this amp? Perhaps something resultant from the lower noise floor or maybe more dynamics, a difference in frequency response, etc.? Thanks in advance for any insights.
Funny thing is, when I first hooked it up in my system*, my brain did in fact tell me there were differences. I thought I heard slightly snappier and crisper treble reproduction on a few tracks, and slightly image better definition at the edges of the soundstage, compared to the internal amps in my Anthem MRX 300 receiver. It was head-scratching enough to make me want to explore further.
Turns out it was all in my head, as these "differences" generally are.
With voltage matched (multimeter on the output terminals), it sounds
exactly the same as the internal amps of my Anthem MRX 300 receiver, which I'm currently using as a pre-pro and surround amp. Which, in turn, in two-channel mode with ARC and Dolby Volume disengaged sounded
exactly like the Denon AVR-4308ci/A it replaced. (The Denon's digital audio board died, knocking out Audyssey MultEQ/DynamicEQ and only allowing connection of 2-channel analog sources.) While the Anthem just has bog standard Chinese commodity class A/B discrete amps, they are competently implemented, though at that power level I'd prefer a chipamp ("power op-amp') solution over discrete amps because chipamps have theoretically lower zero-crossing distortion and theoretically better thermal tracking. If I played the system full-throttle for a while, I would expect the Anthem to lose some power because it has much less heat-sinking area, whereas I suspect the A-965 could be run wide-open for weeks on end with no material measurable differences before and after. Even on speakers that are much trickier to drive than mine. It's a beast.
*All music comes over HDMI, from either an Oppo BDP-83 or an AppleTV2 fed Apple Lossless files from a remote Mac.
HDMI wires are the one that came with the Oppo player, one that came with my fiancee's Sony blu-ray player (not in use), and Monoprice.
DSD->LPCM conversion for multichannel SACD playback is handled by the BPD-83.
An Anthem MRX-300 AVR does source switching, surround processing (I almost always listen to music encoded as 2-channel over Dolby PL2-Music, mostly because I vastly prefer the richness and palpability of soundstage a 3-channel front set can give, compared to a 2-channel front stage), room correction, D/A conversion, and surround side channel amplification (5.multisubs system).
A miniDSP 2x4 in-a-box provides EQ for the multisub system.
Interconnects, for those who think they have "sound," are Audioquest bulk mini-coax with tinned (allegedly silver, but who cares) solid 24AWG center pin, cut to length, terminated with Audioquest's neat ITC-24 tool-less, solder less RCA plugs. (No more expensive than quality-but-not-boutique ends like Canare or Neutrik, but quicker to install.)
Speaker wires, depending on length of the run, are 16AWG twisted-pair mil-spec silver-plated copper in Teflon, two runs of same, terminated in those compression spades from Home Depot that run $5/2pk, or 95-cent nickel-plated bananas from PE. (I like those speaker wires, not because they "sound" any different from anything else, but because the Teflon insulation is both very durable - i.e. cat claw proof - and very thin. So they're thinner than most 16AWG wires.)
