[Florian]

I have had the Tact RCS 2.0AA and did get some good outcome with the RM30. Unfortunalty it broke 3 weeks after i got it, and took longer than that to fix it. I spend the money on room treatments for the RM30. My Apogee Scintilla's dont need correction and i talked to various tact users and it seems that it cant measure a Scintilla correctly. The RM30's benefitet more from the room treatments than from the Tact, in my room. I did hear a great Tact system in Stuttgart tough with a Dali SW5 and liked it quite a lot. Ofcourse there is room correction from Accuphase too  

[zybar]

I have had the Tact RCS 2.0AA and did get some good outcome with the RM30. Unfortunalty it broke 3 weeks after i got it, and took longer than that to fix it. I spend the money on room treatments for the RM30. My Apogee Scintilla's dont need correction and i talked to various tact users and it seems that it cant measure a Scintilla correctly. The RM30's benefitet more from the room treatments than from the Tact, in my room. I did hear a great Tact system in Stuttgart tough with a Dali SW5 and liked it quite a lot. Ofcourse there is room correction from Accuphase too  

Florian,

Based on your comments here and on the TacT forums, would you agree that you really never got all you could out of the TacT?

While acoustic room treatments are a very important part of the equation, I wanted to put a little context around your post so that it didn't possibly mislead somebody.

George

[Florian]

Well given, that it only lastet 3 weeks i am sure that i did not get 100% out of it. But i am very quick in understanding and properbly got 90% of it, and found it quite good. But i think that if you setup your system right and have a good room that the tact is a tool for fine tuning. It cant fix large errors. If you have a 8db dip you cant fix it, since the correction would rise that part by 8db which will cause the drivers to overload.

-Flo

PS: Its a great tool, but ya cant fix a bad system. But you can improve a good one.

[mcgsxr]

1 - I find ekov to be a fun guy, with an interesting take on how to make himself happier, with his system - he has shared some ideas with me via PM, and if he was a $$ driven SOB as a few have attempted to portray, I doubt he would have answered my PM... since my system value is well under $3K...!  

2 - more to the present point of this thread - I have not used any active room treatment/EQ/whatever else these toys are capable of - one question - with respect to the 8db dip, and boosting up that much overloading the driver, could you not bring down the rest of the bandwidth some, and drive that section up some, to come closer to flat?

I am interested longer term, in where these devices go, but at present, am not in the hunt for one.

I would like to hear some VMPS speakers, but am unaware of any in the greater Toronto area - anyone?

Be well,

[zybar]

1 - I find ekov to be a fun guy, with an interesting take on how to make himself happier, with his system - he has shared some ideas with me via PM, and if he was a $$ driven SOB as a few have attempted to portray, I doubt he would have answered my PM... since my system value is well under $3K...!  

2 - more to the present point of this thread - I have not used any active room treatment/EQ/whatever else these toys are capable of - one question - with respect to the 8db dip, and boosting up that much over ...

The way to approach the 8db dip is two fold:

First, try to reposition the speakers and/or listener to try and eliminate or at least lessen the dip.

If the dip stills exists or setup can't be changed, you can attack things in a few different ways:

1.  You could lower the overall correction curve to the lowest point and adjust accordingly.

2.  You could lower the correction curve a little bit and boost the dip a little bit.

3.  You could leave the correction curve where it is and just boost the dip a little bit.

All of these choices will also be influenced by where the dip is as well as how wide it is.  Dips lower in the frequency range that are wide usually mean going with option 1 or 2 vs. 3.

The nice feature with the TacT is the ability to store 10 correction curves at once.  This way you could program all the different options and with a click on the remote flip through them in real time to decide which you like best.

George

[zybar]

BTW, the goal isn't to have a flat response.

The goal is to create a curve that is musically pleasing to the listener.

George

[Florian]

Well if i lower the entire curve i loose the max volume, since i am limited to a max level of 99. If the best frequency respsonse makes me sacrifice stage, depth etc.. then that is a tradeoff i am not willing to make. I think the Tact is great to correct small problems, but its not for everyone. You need to be somewhat skilled with a computer and understand how they work.

-Flo

[zybar]

Well if i lower the entire curve i loose the max volume, since i am limited to a max level of 99. If the best frequency respsonse makes me sacrifice stage, depth etc.. then that is a tradeoff i am not willing to make. I think the Tact is great to correct small problems, but its not for everyone. You need to be somewhat skilled with a computer and understand how they work.

-Flo

Florian,

This is what I meant earlier about you not fully understanding the TacT.  

In my system (with 86db sensitive speakers) I can be in the mid to upper 90's spl wise at 12-14 feet from the speaker with the TacT volume set to 80.  In TacT terms this means I am attenuating the signal by 13 db's.  

At 99 on the volume control you are adding 6 db's of gain to your system.  I can't even dream of any properly setup system/correction curve needing to be at that volume.

It all comes down to proper component matching PLUS the ability to draw correction curves that make sense and achieve the proper results.

With the amps you own, you don't have to sacrifice anything to make the correction curves work unless you have some really, really bad dips.

If the dips are that bad, you need to address them with placement and room treatments as well as using a product such as the TacT.

Like you said earlier...it isn't magic.

George

[ekovalsky]

Well if i lower the entire curve i loose the max volume, since i am limited to a max level of 99. If the best frequency respsonse makes me sacrifice stage, depth etc.. then that is a tradeoff i am not willing to make. I think the Tact is great to correct small problems, but its not for everyone. You need to be somewhat skilled with a computer and understand how they work.

-Flo

Flo, you struck on another point here.  Reasonably high sensitivity is in some ways a prerequisite of performing correction optimally.   It gives you the SPL headroom to lower the correction curve without losing your dynamics.

Unfortunately one of the few limitations of the classic Apogees is their very low sensitivity.  I know your Scintillas have upgraded ribbons but I still bet you are well below 90dB/2.83v.  Per 1w, you are probably in the high 70 or low 80 range since those speakers are 1-2 ohm!

I'm sure that is why Graz's new ribbon systems are so expensive.  I cannot imagine a "super Apogee" with 100dB/2.83v sensitivity and a resistive 4 ohm impedance  

With the TacT it is geerally okay to give a 2-3dB bost to a narrow (high Q) band -- no more than that.  But a lot of newer recordings are compressed, and this still can result in clipping.  Therefore, it is best to set the target so that the correction filters are at or below 0dB at all levels, which can be confirmed in the dual domain screen.

[Florian]

Well my Apogee is a amp killer in everyway. My Scintilla's are 72db sensitivity 0.6-1ohm across the range. But i never bought the Tact for the scintilla.

I am trying room correction again, but not with Tact. I am waiting for the Lyngdorf Audio CD-Pre  

I know the boss of Lyngdorf and the boss of Dali/Lyngdorg germany personally. We are meeting again tomorrow and going for some beers in munich...heheh

-Flo

PS: The Ampzilla 2000 monos go into overheating protection after 25 minutes on the Scintilla's. But they run the RM30's damn good.

[ekovalsky]

Moving the speakers usually can get rid of, or at least minimize, the dips.  This will minimize the amount of attenuation the target curve will needed.

In my room there were two problematic dips at 45-55hz and 110-130hz.  The 110-120hz dip was easy to solve -- some rotation (toe in) and a bit of lateral translation (L-R) reduced it to the point of no significance.  The other dip was more stubborn but became a non-issue because that is where I decided to cross the mains to the subs.  By choosing a DSP crossover that followed the dip I put it to work for me

Flo, with the Scintillas the key placement issue will be distance from the front wall.  Since these are dipole bass systems, at any given distance from the wall there will be cancellation at some particular frequency because of the interaction of the front wave with the reflected back wave.  If you can find the spot where the cancellation happens to correspond with a room node you've accomplished decent room correction without any extra device !

A nice thing about dipole bass is that there is no significant interaction from the side walls, so essentially all the room issues to be dealt with are front-back reflections.  Ceiling-floor interactions are usually not a big problem in most rooms.

[Florian]

Well i already finished setting up everything. I am done
I measured the Scintilla down to 22Hz before roll-off and the music proves this. I am now into the range of taste. Thats why i changed the krell front-end to sphinx. I found the right placment for the RM30's too, but it took a while longer.

-Flo

PS: I think that the Tact can be beneficial to some systems, but not to all. I kinda grew sick of always chasing percentages, right now i am listening to a crappy Madonna recording on some cheap PS speakers and like it too. Waiting for monday, since all my stuff arives on monday.

[ekovalsky]

Well i already finished setting up everything. I am done
I measured the Scintilla down to 22Hz before roll-off and the music proves this.

That's not surprising.  Those huge bass panels with wide baffles go LOW.  Enjoy your system!  Given the requisite amplification and a decent source, there are very few current production loudspeaker systems that can do what the Scintilla can.  Pretty amazing since it is a 20+ year old design  

[Florian]

Well i already finished setting up everything. I am done
I measured the Scintilla down to 22Hz before roll-off and the music proves this.

That's not surprising.  Those huge bass panels with wide baffles go LOW.  Enjoy your system!  Given the requisite amplification and a decent source, there are very few current production loudspeaker systems that can do what the Scintilla can.  Pretty amazing since it is a 20+ year old design  

Yup And the new Graz ribbons are soo nice.

Are you guys ok with it if i post some closeups of the Scintilla here?
It not being VMPS and all.
..
-Flo

[ekovalsky]

Yup And the new Graz ribbons are soo nice.

Are you guys ok with it if i post some closeups of the Scintilla here?
It not being VMPS and all.
..
-Flo

I'd certainly love to see them.  While it sure isn't a competing product with VMPS (as Apogee has been defunct for at least five years) it may rub some sensitive or insecure folks here the wrong way, maybe post them in a gallery or host them on your website ?

[Florian]

Well the images are hosted on my site, but linking it is like posting it so here it goes. Besides this is a commuity and there is no harm in sharing information.

[James Romeyn]

My room has 12dB bumps at 30Hz & 80Hz.  If the music comprises notes near these frequencies, unequalized bass is absolutely amusical & not audiophile.  

Conversely, the Sunfire digital equalized sub provides virtually perfectly flat, musical, audiophile bass with about as good impact as I've heard (familiar with properly setup, $65k, circa '88, Infinity IRS III, accelerometer-equipped with delayed overdamped quality but incredible dynamics, slam & presence, 6x 12" per side).  

In all but the best rooms with flat bass response, IMO there is no such thing as high quality unequalized bass.  I am a true believer.  If I was personally in the business of manufacturing unequalized subs, I'd quit immediately.  Only my 2c.  YMMV.

[John Casler]

 Regarding measurements. Brian has stated and I've come to realize that he's right: Measurements can be worse than helpful and that our ears don't hear like a microphone. After having the Rm 40's for only a few months I've spent considerable time working with the acoustics and speaker/listener positions. My room is dedicated and well treated and I can do whatever I want in there. The sound is presently to the point where I don't think there could be much improvement left to be made. I did have to change ... ...

 I have a dedicated room with lots of room treatment and the TacT makes a tremendous impact. It is anything but subtle. But you wouldn't know that since you haven't heard the TacT - have you?

Have you heard the TacT properly setup? If not, how about stop posting about how you can't believe it can't get better. Why not talk about things you have experienced first hand instead of making uneducated guesses and spouting them like fact!

EVERY person who has come over and taken the time to hear the TacT vs. non-TacT versions of my system (with the VMPS or the Salk Sound speakers in place) has thought the TacT produced a more musical and complete presentation.
...

I was re-reading this thread and was surprised that I missed this exchange.

First, I don't think that Zybar meant to sound so centric/aggressive.

Secondly, I felt it important to add perspectives to the content and suppositions posted.

In audio where preferences and different systems can provide dramatically different results, you will find infinite "opinions" about what sounds "best", most real, most acurate, or whatever, based on those personal experiences.

There is little doubt that the current crop of DSP units have "an effect" on the sound in the peoples systems in which they are used.

However, their use, "does not" preclude acheiving satisfying preferential sonics in a room without them.

So in essense, while using these, one person might find that the change is to his preference, it does not automatically then mean that another person can't acheive equally satisfactory preference fullfilment without the device.

I should also point out that neither party has heard each others system, and "cannot" comment with any authority on what positive or negative differences may exist.  So to "centrically" suppose that your system, speakers, software, or whatever "IS" definitive of "ALL" systems is rather restrictive.

And I think it is a bit bold to suggest that one should not make comments, since neither party has heard the others system.

And in reveiwing the comments, I don't see anything that says in absolute terms that DSP would not make improvement.  It seems that there is a simple statement of satisfaction with the current sound and wondering "if" or "how" any additional improvement can be made.

I wish we could all be so satisfied.  

 I would argue that people like Eric, Jose, and myself have heard more of what the VMPS speakers are really capable of than 95% of the VMPS owners out there BECAUSE of the TacT, not inspite of it. ..

This statement too needs to be commented on.

While the DSP systems certainly might be enjoyable and valuable, they are "NOT" what the speaker system was originally designed for.  So to say that implementing them gives one a higher percentage result, doesn't make sense.

While VMPS has an option to make the current speakers more DSP friendly, (DIRECT DRIVE), they still are not "designed" specifically for any of these units, nor are the DSP components designed for VMPS speakers.

So for the intended design of the speakers, it would be unlikely, that using the DSP tool would yeild a higher percentage result than the orignal designers work.

At some point in the future Brian may produce an OEM module for the line and "then" we will be closer.

One could "argue" that because these system use "measurments" that they, are certainly more accurate.  This could be true, "if" one can be sure that the measurement and then the algorythmic correction is better than the perceptions of the actual "hearing instrument" of the human ear, if they are in conflict.

While it is not true of all users, I have seen that many manipulate the actual response after taking the measuments anyway.  Plus, it hasn't been demonstrated that the programs do maximize the speakers, yet.

A good example of this is the stated Bass difficulties some have had.  DSP seems to have some of its "best" results in the BASS frequencies, yet some have had trouble producing good bass much below 35Hz.

This would seem to demonstrate that we are only in the early stages of this "DSP movement" and that the best is yet to come.

The point of this response is not to contest the value of the various DSP products, since I have pushed Brian to at least begin offering a DSP "friendly" product to those who wish to make the leap.

The point is, to suggest that VMPS owners can enjoy "both/either" implementations within their prospective environments and preferences.

This is not a "my dog's better than your dog" scenario.  

I expect that sharing experiences, whether analog or digital, can be valuable to all on this Circle, and would prefer that none of us who haven't heard "each and every system, make "absolute" statements.

(of course Big B is excluded )

I don't think any of us find some of the displays of centricity or negative emotion valuable, so why not move forward with helpful suggestions instead.  This is a "hobby" a pursuit to enjoy, not pound your chest about.

The TacT isn't in every system for a variety of reasons (such as cost, marketing, ease of use, etc...). Just because everybody doesn't use it, doesn't mean it is an excellent addition to a system.
  ...

I agree, that DSP has a great future, and find the exchange I just commented on, "interesting", since Warner is a dealer for a DSP unit (R-DES) for Bass Equalization, and endorses it.

So the take home message (I hope) is that there is more than one way to "skin a cat", and diplomacy can be a far more effective tool than negative emotion and ego.

[ctviggen]

While I think the TACT is most likely a great system, it also costs $5,400.  That's a ton for me (and I'm a patent attorney!).  Also, I personally would rather treat my room, as I feel that the room is going to have to be treated anyway.  The  TACT is in my future, it's just years down the road.

And why is it that certain people who used to have VMPS speakers now denigrate them?  I personally don't understand the animosity on these forums, and I don't think I'm going to be here much longer because of it. I plan on posting some results of room treatment and messing around with the PR and pots, then I don't think I'm coming here anymore.

[ctviggen]

Another thing I don't understand is why so many people here seem to be experts on things they most likely really don't know anything about.  For instance, who here can write down the equation for a 10th order FIR filter?  A first order analog filter?  What are the benefits and detriments of each?  How does the TACT really (and I mean REALLY) work?  As a patent attorney, I've reached the conclusion that the vast majority of stuff is way more complex than what you (or I) believe it is.  Yet, every time I come to this forum, there are people espousing their own viewpoints, which I find many times are grounded with a true lack of knowledge.  And most times the people who know the least are the most adamant.