[tmd]

You can also add others like longevity, power consumption, reliability, upgradability and so on. I have to say that there in audio these parameters aren't easy bedfellows. I don't know if any piece of equipment I have ever seen or heard scores high on more than a few of these.
Some are definately mutually exclusive and others less so. One of the things that irk me about this obsession is that there is no middle ground. You are either into it completely or you end up unhappy. If I want to have the sound I am after, I will need to have a suitable room or treat it. I also won't have a system that is inconspicuous. There are many things I also can't do like run 50 meter interconnects or speaker cables without compromising my system or stuff the speakers into a corner on a shelf where they are less obtrusive. Everything has to be just so or it isn't worth it. If I want anything close to 'the' sound, attention must be paid to every area of the system. Placement, power, interconnects, isolation, damping etc.
Will anyone come up with solutions to combat some of these 'limitations' of audio systems?
One thing that occured to me is a modular system where perhaps each speaker has its amp built in but also a dac. The speaker would then take digital information either over fiber or radio and act as any speaker, left, right, center, rear etc depending on what you decide. Then, the only considerations would be placement and power. It could go anywhere in the house and you could have as many as you want. They could also be different sizes and shapes for different areas inside and outside the house. With decent power filtering, the power wouldn't need to be as critical either. This does away with interconnects and speaker cables but also with flexibility although, conceivably, many options for amps and speakers could be available at time of purchase and configured to suit.
The source would have a straight digital out from whatever component so conversion would only be done at the speaker.
This arrangement still wouldn't score highly on all parameters but might score high overall.
Any comments?
Neil.

[MaxCast]

A very unobtrusive set up would be a nice CDP and a nice pair of cans.

[nathanm]

All very good ideas, but I think you're talking to the wrong crowd!  Most of us like the fact that the equipment is "obtrusive" and requires all sorts of fiddly bits like cables and isolation thingamajigs and everything else.  Your idea would win big for the wives and girlfriends of audiophiles I'm sure (gross generalization)!  It's a matter of where you stand on the issue; do you want the means to the end to be invisible or visible? Should we have soffit-mounted speakers that are visually camoflaged into the wall or do we like big towers and racks that dominate the room?  My guess is that the readers of AC are in the latter camp!

I was reading into Genelec monitors yesterday and they make such a speaker with a built-in power amp as well as a DAC.  Personally I think self-powered speakers are a pretty good idea, I am not sure about the DAC though.  Anyway, when I read about all the adjustments you can make with these things to get ruler-flat response I wonder why we are not all using such things.  Feature-wise these monitors blow anything in the hifi genre out of the water.  Even the top-of-the-line model with dual 18" woofers, huge sculpted mid\tweeter panel weighing in at 400lbs. each costs around $18,000. (-3db at 19Hz! Yeeowza!)  (I am not sure if this is a pair or each though)  But even so, that seems like a bargain compared to what they're charging for the super high end unamplified boxes with passive crossovers on the other end of the spectrum.  Sure, they are not as pretty as home speakers, but geez they certainly offer lots of tweakability. (actually I find that waveguide thingy quite Giger-esque )

[tmd]

Nathan,
I agree that most of the audience here is into the cables and gadgets scene. That is one reason for bringing it up here though. Getting viewpoints from guys who know how to get great sound for a relatively small amount of money as opposed to guys who go out and spend $30k on a B & O system that is very unobtrusive but will always sound like a thousand bucks even if it looks expensive.
I think there must be a way of acheiving a middle ground skewed more towards good sound but that will look good also and have a higher WAF. Personally I would love to see more people into audiophile sound. Call it high fidelity for the masses.
If the equipment were to be less obtrusive and not B & O prices, perhaps more people would invest in good sounding gear.
Neil.

[JohnR]

Interesting thread... Bose and B&O certainly capitalize on the WAF issue I think. Well, although I think it's unfair to point at the wives, lots of blokes actually do want equipment that doesn't get in the way. Personally I don't like to have speakers 5 feet out into the room either, there's just never space for it.

Jordan has a design that's designed to be mounted against the wall. It "projects a cylindrical wavefront" or something like that. Catch is you're not supposed to have anything on the wall.

Corner horns are a type of design that have almost died, but seem like they would be easy to place, if you have two corners that is. They aren't small but would be out of the way at least. You see a lot of speakers almost get put into the corner anyway, might as well use one designed for it!

I don't think the electronics part would be very difficult. I'm not sure that wireless is needed, a single wire from the DAC to each speaker would be OK. In fact, you could make it really really thin, invent some ludicrous Japanesey mumbo-jumbo about smaller is better, plaster a few references to sexual (in)adequacy in your marketing literature, and charge ten times the price for it. Now everybody will *have* to buy your wire....

OK, that was a bit of a sidetrack...

Active speakers just haven't ever taken off. Now that reasonable amplification is getting so cheap (power op-amps, class D coming soon..) the barrier is getting lower. They seem to be on a comeback in studio monitors, I've seen others than the one nathanm mentions before (good find btw!) although I suspect those are still all too tweaky for what tmd's after.

JohnR

[JoshK]

... invent some ludicrous Japanesey mumbo-jumbo about smaller is better, plaster a few references to sexual (in)adequacy in your marketing literature, and charge ten times the price for it. ...
JohnR

John I think you should go into marketing!

[tmd]

I like the look of Scott Nixons gear. One of his DAC's and some of his amps inside a two way speaker with active crossover might be very cool. The elimination of a passive crossover, speaker cables & connectors, interconnects and more connectors along with the ability to match the components perfectly might just allow something like this to shine.
The freedom you would have by being able to just run a cable to each speaker anywhere in the house and decide what the speaker does electronically would make it so cool.

[JohnR]

Cool idea! What drivers do you think would work well for such a project?

[tmd]

John,
This is one of the reasons I posted this here. Although I love to sling solder and build gear, I really don't have much of a clue when it comes to speaker design or audio design in general. I would probably go for an existing speaker and add a 'box' to the bottom of the speaker to house the electronics.
What about the 1801's from Ellis Audio? I don't know much about them except that they are spoken highly of. I really want to explore ideas in this thread more than anything. I will try to build this one of these days but it will be a while away.
Neil.

[JohnR]

Aha

I'm not sure that attempting to duplicate the 1801 crossover actively would be the best choice. An active version wouldn't be that complicated but I think you'd need measurement gear to make sure you got the woofer peak notched correctly.

I've been thinking about drivers for this idea. My thought was to look at using a full-range driver, and actively cross to a decent woofer somewhere in the 300-600 (say) range. Then you would have a more even power distribution between the two amps. Fostex FX120 and say a Peerless 850490 (I think -- I do hate the Peerless numbering system it's so easy to get wrong) look like they might work in that kind of application. There would be plenty of overlap between the driver responses so a simple first order crossover would be fine. The Peerless will roll off at 75 in a sealed box, but if it's going to be "too close" to room boundaries this might not be a bad thing

JohnR