Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems 568 and dsp6000 vs. 568 and analogue speakers?

Hi Dave,

yes, it's really a pain to come to conclusive impressions on the various processors out there. But I see that you are deep into this matter, as you understand the importance of "correct comparisons".

Now, dipole, bipole or omnipole speakers are really a matter of taste. Honestly speaking my hearing demands have increased to an extent that I would never buy a single passive regular speaker anymore, not a dipole, bipole or omnipole (maybe a Geithain ME100, maybe...).

To give you some idea of what I mean I will try to give you some further details. It all comes down to understanding the basics. Once you have listened to a pair of well setup matched studio monitors you know what I mean.

When you talk to high end enthusiasts they describe sound, as some fellows in here do, with words like sparkle, liquidity, easiness or dry and punchy bass. They differentiate speakers more by their reproduction of voices in terms of "colors" and "smoothness".

When you talk to expert or professional listeners, those having advanced to an own room with accoustical treatment e.g., you realize that other terms are being used, like this speaker is more "transparent", doesn't "color" ("color" also here, but with a different meaning), has a more stable phantom image capability, will go louder without signs of distortion, etc.

These people have understood that in order to hear what is one the CD you need sophisticated approaches rather than marketing and good test results.

Comming back to the speakers and phantom image capability, I have so far not heard any passive speaker that can best a good fully active reference studio monitor.
I talk about the ability to fully separate voices in the 3D audio hemisphere, making it possible to instantly "not" only understand that this or that song is made up of 3 voices, but that also the one voice is on the left, the second is close to him and the 3 is almost to the right with a band in between made up of......, etc.

Now, how often have you heard "good music", but you also had to concentrate for locating the performers ? This is happening so, so, so often. The sound is great, awesome bass, nice treble, but absolutely no imaging, just "good sounding smear".

In order to reproduce an incomming signal correctly and in order to image as precise as possible certain aspect in a speaker are necessary, looks most often suffer in good speakers.

That correct speaker should have a linear frequency responce (like a straight line = no colorations), should have a nice impulse and phase responce, should have a defined "radiation pattern" (very important for non treated rooms, best for good focus and less "reflection-colorations") and should have stringent selected drivers to each other (for further optimized phantom image ability). Of course there are more aspects.

Since many people favor looks over room treatment and don't understand active analogue or digital active monitors and their benefits, I wonder where they get their big differences between processors from anyway. Honestly, I tend to believe that it is more an adjustment and a believe thing than pure hearable quality differences or sientific research.

A friend and I tried once to do a correct A/B test between my old 861 (20Bit version) and a TAG AVR32 on studio monitors. There were differences, but to what extent......

Giving you honest advice would be to suggest to you to sell off your current speakers (and to some others in here too) and get better active or digital active solutions. Do some or alot room treatment and you would have in total such a dramatic improvement no processor swap can ever bring you. Especially omnipoles or bipoles will polute the room with reflectios and produce unprecise focus.

Unfortunately, I can only give you this advice on speakers, the advice on processors I leave to people with untreated rooms and passive English made speakers (just kidding).

Have fun.

Andreas

[This message has been edited by Andreas (edited 11-24-2001).]