My Harman (JBL M2) Trip

jtwrace · « **Reply #500 on:** 6 Sep 2021, 03:43 pm »

Quote from: studley on 3 Sep 2021, 12:32 pm

I’d be interested to hear your plans. After reading Mitch’s articles about AudioLense I’ve become convinced that it is something I’ve got to try. I’ve also read that someone has used the full AudioLense functionality on the M2s to great effect.

That's what I'm in the process of doing. 8 channels of fun.

studley · « **Reply #501 on:** 6 Sep 2021, 04:04 pm »

Great minds

. I recall now that I’ve seen you post on the AL forum. I’ve just bought an RME UFX to do my AL measurements and to ultimately be my multi channel DAC.

DallasJustice is someone who is using AL on his M2s - he’s posted on ASR about it.

jtwrace · « **Reply #502 on:** 6 Sep 2021, 04:47 pm »

Quote from: studley on 6 Sep 2021, 04:04 pm

Great minds . I recall now that I’ve seen you post on the AL forum. I’ve just bought an RME UFX to do my AL measurements and to ultimately be my multi channel DAC.

DallasJustice is someone who is using AL on his M2s - he’s posted on ASR about it.

Cool. I'm going another direction for dac...Motu will work well. Building a NUCi7 as we speak.

JDUBS · « **Reply #503 on:** 7 Sep 2021, 07:21 pm »

jtwrace, how are you going to be doing the 8 channels of amplification while not using the "cracked" (lol) settings that have been posted?

-Jim

jtwrace · « **Reply #504 on:** 7 Sep 2021, 07:28 pm »

Quote from: JDUBS on 7 Sep 2021, 07:21 pm

jtwrace, how are you going to be doing the 8 channels of amplification while not using the "cracked" (lol) settings that have been posted?

-Jim

Yeah, screw that! I looked and read and nope, not for me. I usually know how that ends.

I built a NUCi7 last night running W10 / RoonServer (Core) which will go direct via USB to the 8 channel dac. Done.

jtwrace · « **Reply #505 on:** 28 Sep 2021, 01:02 am »

JBL M2 system officially using Audiolense XO with 4 subs.

studley · « **Reply #506 on:** 28 Sep 2021, 08:20 am »

@JW. Will be interested to hear how you think the AL set up compares to your previous one. Please do feedback to us

jtwrace · « **Reply #507 on:** 28 Sep 2021, 11:46 am »

Quote from: studley on 28 Sep 2021, 08:20 am

@JW. Will be interested to hear how you think the AL set up compares to your previous one. Please do feedback to us

There's not much to say...it's great!

studley · « **Reply #508 on:** 28 Sep 2021, 12:20 pm »

Did you set up AL on your own or did you engage Mitch to advise?

jtwrace · « **Reply #509 on:** 28 Sep 2021, 12:29 pm »

Quote from: studley on 28 Sep 2021, 12:20 pm

Did you set up AL on your own or did you engage Mitch to advise?

Yes, I used Mitch's services of creating the filter after I setup and took all the measurements.

studley · « **Reply #510 on:** 28 Sep 2021, 12:33 pm »

Yup that’s what I will do too, with the emphasis on teaching me how to use it .

jtwrace · « **Reply #511 on:** 28 Sep 2021, 12:48 pm »

Quote from: studley on 28 Sep 2021, 12:33 pm

Yup that’s what I will do too, with the emphasis on teaching me how to use it .

He's very good at that! These types of things can be extremely frustrating if you just dive in and run into issues (which I did) so it's helpful to have a pair of eyes looking at what you will likely not see.

poseidonsvoice · « **Reply #512 on:** 29 Sep 2021, 11:31 am »

Congrats! You’ve eliminated all needless A/D and D/A conversions plus more! Should sound spellbinding!!

Best,
Anand.

studley · « **Reply #513 on:** 29 Sep 2021, 11:50 am »

Do you have an analog source JT? If so I’d be interested to hear if you notice any deterioration in SQ as a consequence of digitising the signal path. Mitch has said that the sound of his TT was unaffected . . .

jtwrace · « **Reply #514 on:** 29 Sep 2021, 12:17 pm »

Quote from: studley on 29 Sep 2021, 11:50 am

Do you have an analog source JT? If so I’d be interested to hear if you notice any deterioration in SQ as a consequence of digitising the signal path. Mitch has said that the sound of his TT was unaffected . . .

No analog and I don't see how the path of analog could be worse by this. People need to get away from the preconceived notion that "digital" means that it will sound like, uh, digital or robot like. It sounds pure and "perfect" which is what we all should strive for. However, this does give you the ability to tailor the sound if you want to stray from the Harman curve. If more audiophiles would learn to calibrate their ears to what is actually correct, nobody would go back to a distortion fest.

I can't put enough emphasis on what time alignment of all the drivers (8 in my case) and teh excess phase correction does. I've never heard anything like this. Ever.

For those that say time alignment and phase isn't audible, they've never heard Audiolense corrected them.

Then on top of it, no capacitors, resistors, coils and all the junk that makes a passive crossover. The path is truly pristine. This is the future!

Letitroll98 · « **Reply #515 on:** 29 Sep 2021, 12:25 pm »

Pat McGinty at the old Meadowlark Audio agrees with you completely. He's said that the only reason he got back into speakers was the ability to now control these parameters in the digital domain. His model is somewhat different than Harmon building cost no object custom systems, but the idea is the same. Both of these approaches are very expensive, any forecasts on trickle down to lesser products?

studley · « **Reply #516 on:** 29 Sep 2021, 12:35 pm »

You are speaking to the converted with me JT, hence my firm intention to deploy AL once my system is ready to receive it. My views on DSP were coloured by my experiences with MiniDSP products, but Mitch’s articles persuaded me that AL is in another league and that I should put aside my prejudices. It’s therefore great to hear you being just as enthusiastic as he is about what AL can do.

jtwrace · « **Reply #517 on:** 29 Sep 2021, 12:51 pm »

Quote from: Letitroll98 on 29 Sep 2021, 12:25 pm

Pat McGinty at the old Meadowlark Audio agrees with you completely. He's said that the only reason he got back into speakers was the ability to now control these parameters in the digital domain. His model is somewhat different than Harmon building cost no object custom systems, but the idea is the same. Both of these approaches are very expensive, any forecasts on trickle down to lesser products?

I'm not certain exactly what you're asking. Audiolense can be used on any driver that you can split from the xover and run the drivers direct to an amp. Does that help?

jtwrace · « **Reply #518 on:** 29 Sep 2021, 12:52 pm »

Quote from: studley on 29 Sep 2021, 12:35 pm

You are speaking to the converted with me JT, hence my firm intention to deploy AL once my system is ready to receive it. My views on DSP were coloured by my experiences with MiniDSP products, but Mitch’s articles persuaded me that AL is in another league and that I should put aside my prejudices. It’s therefore great to hear you being just as enthusiastic as he is about what AL can do.

Yes, miniDSP and Audiolense is totally different. Sadly, people group certain things together while not fully understanding how something works. Waveguides was one of them probably 10 years ago. Now, everyone claims to have a waveguide.

jtwrace · « **Reply #519 on:** 5 Oct 2021, 02:29 am »

In 2019, I purchased Audiolense XO to try. Long story short, I couldn't get it to work due to an odd error I kept getting. Fast forward to 7 months ago when I interviewed Mitch on my podcast here. The more we talked, the more I wanted to try Audiolense. After the podcast Mitch asked me if I was going to try it and I explained my previous issue. He mentioned to me that anomaly was just solved a month prior.

For the next few months I had to decide on how I wanted to handle the MCH DAC and Roon Core setup. I built a W10 NUCi7 connected directly to a Motu UltraLite Mk5.

Mitch charges a modest $500 for the filter creation and also helping you along the way with what issue(s) might come along. For most of us, time is of the essence and a positive result is critical so I thought it would be worth paying the money to have someone hold my hand through the process and hopefully not ruin anything either thus making the $500 minimal.

Mitch might be the most patient man I've ever dealt with on so many levels. He taught me how to count to 8, using 0-7 for routing (you might be surprised how much of a mind f*** this is) among a timing issue during measurement I had. My point is simple, if you're already to this point, just pay the money and make your life a bit easier and know that you have a highly experienced user creating filters for you. The cherry on top is at the end he sends you the file to create your own along with the directions to do so.

If you've made it this far you're asking how does it sound, right? Well, look at the measurements! Translation - Amazing! After about 6 filters I settled on one that I preferred. I can't say enough about Mitch and Bernt of what they have accomplished.

This is not your typical Digital Room Correction (DRC) where phase and timing is NOT corrected. This is SOTA digital crossovers, frequency correction and true time domain correction which now make up my stereo 4 way digital XO system.

https://juicehifi.com/

https://accuratesound.ca/

www.roomeqwizard.com

Audiolense

Then I was able to confirm with REW

W10 i7 NUC > Roon (Audiolense Filter) > Motu UlatraLite mk5 > (2) Hypex NCore NC502MP > JBL M2 Master Reference +4 subs