Ardent Speaker Camp

[Hdale85]

Yeah I agree, I'd love to see build thread for Beau's speakers and crossover network and such

[sdl2112]

Just to expand on the distortion of Ciare MT320 a little. Once it didn't work well in the waveguide I didn't pursue but I think the distortion could be improved further. Again below is the MT320 along the Jantzen WG



Damping "pillow" in place



pillow removed.



The distortion with the "pillow" in place,



pillow removed.



I think the 2nd order would be smoothed/reduced if a proper felt pad was constructed that did not touch the dome and provide good ventilation like the Scan tweeter pads...another time :W

[Beau]

Yea my 14mnth old daughter keeps taking the bass trap away and saying "mine daddy"
Kids these days...

[JonP]

Interesting!

From the Northern CA DIY, a certain assembled on the spot with clamps two way with DCX2496 for crossover sounded remarkably good (a tip of the hat and nod to JonP for the most innovative transport and assembly process I've seen for speakers in a small vehicle!), and remarkably free of all the sonic idiosyncrasies I usually associate by reference with past systems I've heard with the DCX, leading me to wonder if some of the problems with those systems weren't self inflicted in other areas, such as system design, source components, etc. Source signal was my Mac Mini music server and Metric Halo LIO-8 multi-channel DAC, then converted by the DCX A/D. Was boogie worthy on SACD ripped Elton John ( A well known Gun) and Jacque Loussier Play Bach (a live cut). BTW, JonP's two way towers just sounded very nice and fun.

But that leads me to conclude that evaluating the Raal's in a simple two way with electronic crossover prototyping should be quite feasible, especially with the surplus of amplification I have lying around. Have to give that some thought....

Heh... I'm Famous!! :W

You would catch me on vacation... 11 days in NJ/NYC. Wedding of stepson, then nearly a week of running around the Big Apple. (my first time) :T

Yep, just an unadorned DCX, no improvements, no better opamps, or other mods folks have done... (though I'm thinking about it) or even using the digital input it has, for one less conversion step. (maybe the lack of the sometimes problematic SPDIF input is why it sounded better?) Jon's excellent source gear helped, I'm sure...

I wish I had had more time to tweak crossovers before the event... believe it's sounding much better now. (BTW, drivers were either 27TDFC or RS28 with RS225S's)

Usually when I do something at the last minute, it's pretty much a disaster, but whipping this together went surprisingly well:

And I expected to have my back seats down to fit things, but 8 long pieces ended up perfectly braced with the 6 short top/bottom and 2 volume adjust/brace pieces in the back of the admittedly large VW Jetta trunk, while 2 nicely located hooks allowed a couple of the, uh, box integrity straps, to work as tiedowns. This all appealed to my perverse side, carrying in a stack of boards, screws and straps, putting them together on the DIY floor with a Makita screwdriver... :rofl:

So, lessons learned... a somewhat basic setup can sound pretty good. And, a DCX with 60wpc amp can sound pretty transparent.

Steps not to take: Particle board - check, Thin baffles - check, Long panels with no bracing - check, Front and back baffles only attached with straps -check! :W The BUB's (Big Ugly Boxes) rock!!! How'd they sound? Pretty good, if I dare say so meself...

Now, I'm not picking on you Jon, or any of the other fabulously, um, detailed, builders on here, and do believe that the effort is worth it for solid, well designed cabs. But you should be able to get a pretty good performance idea from pretty basic stuff, as well...

Anyway, really enjoying the waveguide developments... very interesting with the SS Be results. I'm wondering if the felt damped wedge shaped ring cavity (if I'm imagining that right) created between the waveguide and tweeter faceplate, just happen to damp that peak/drop often seen in the top octave, and is something to pursue?

Perhaps something like it could be intentionally done with other drivers for better results? I'm wondering how could we model the resonant frequency of such a cavity, with DIY friendly software not costing 4-5 figures?

[JonMarsh]

Your speculation regarding the edge damping from the felt might just be right on the money. So far, I haven't seen any other hard dome WG test work out this well.

Me, I didn't get back from Detroit until late Saturday night- was tied up until well into Friday evening, so Sunday was more or less spent stumbling around looking for a hot latte and trying to wake up after the cumulative fatigue from the last two months getting that six hour seminar together! However, it seems to have started producing even more results than expected, based on what's in my email inbox this morning at work.

That's good.

The "downside" is that it looks like I'll have more East Coast activities coming up this month and next, seems I'm back to being a national guy while still having the western region (anything west of the Mississippi) to myself. Sigh... a victim of my own success.

Still, I'm planning on making the weekends off limits for work from now on (let's see how well that goes!). I think I need to order another pair of Be tweeters and get ready to do some waveguide milling in the near future! Got my Shark V7 update for the CAD work, so there's no excuses anymore...

And as nice as JonP's setup sounded, I'm wondering if what I really need is the DSP license for my LIO-8, so I can do more things with crossover setup and experimentation. I bet that would work really nicely with a new Mac Mini with a Flash drive and hard drive...

(BTW, I'm becoming a real convert to high end flash memory since getting my MBA last December; also got a new Kingston 64GB memory stick with 100 MB read/70MB/sec write speeds on USB 3 or 2, and it's the cat's meow, to say the least, for portable storage- for large file transfers it's between 100:1 and 1000:1 faster than a conventional flash stick. Even if I don't upgrade my MacPro at Xmas, I'll get a new SSD to setup as the boot drive. Could do a processor board upgrade through OWC, but I think that will have less perceived impact on most things.

[Generic George]

Beau, I'm still quite interested in learning more about your speakers.

He seemed to imply they were an existing design, but I've never seen one quite like that. Though there's some obvious similarities to sdl2112's wg stuff. Can anyone else point me in the direction of what ever they are?

And as nice as JonP's setup sounded, I'm wondering if what I really need is the DSP license for my LIO-8, so I can do more things with crossover setup and experimentation. I bet that would work really nicely with a new Mac Mini with a Flash drive and hard drive...

I would be interested in hearing more about this since I've been contemplating picking up a mac mini for my av system.

Er, scratch that. A $4k LIO-8, is rather more than I'd be looking to spend on something like that.

I don't upgrade my MacPro at Xmas, I'll get a new SSD to setup as the boot drive. Could do a processor board upgrade through OWC, but I think that will have less perceived impact on most things.

Are you familiar with the Hackintosh scene? If you're talking about spending MacPro money ($4k+), you're probably better off with a mac pro (especially if you can write it off as a business expense), but if you are after the expandability of a mac pro and don't necessarily need things like the dual processors. You can build a hackintosh with more performance than an iMac and much better expandability than a Mac Pro for substantially less money than either.

In particular the greater number of sata ports on most PC motherboards and the large number of drive bays in some PC cases permit some massive HD storage capacity for media servers.

It is not for the faint of heart, but it also isn't that difficult to do any more, especially if you pick your hardware carefully. You do still need to be careful with significant point upgrades (10.7.x), but the typical weekly patches/upgrades aren't really an issue.

The biggest issue for you is likely to be that it is more time consuming to build/maintain one.

[Beau]

Hi George,

Sorry I havent replied, been busy with a few other projects.
For a summary of my project check out the Modula Extreme thread here on htguide.
My speakers are basically tge same with custom cabs and different woofers.
Ill pm you with more details when I get a chance, may be a day or two.

Beau.

[Generic George]

Hi George,

Sorry I havent replied, been busy with a few other projects.
For a summary of my project check out the Modula Extreme thread here on htguide.
My speakers are basically tge same with custom cabs and different woofers.
Ill pm you with more details when I get a chance, may be a day or two.

Beau.

Oh, no rush. I was just worried it might have gotten over looked.

Ah, I see now. I couldn't find any posts from you in the Modula Extreme thread. After poking around a bit your actual posts are in this thread starting somewhere around pg 37.

I'll start from there.

[jackies]

Some pics of my version, finally done..

8O Wow those are very nice, certainly among the better diy examples out there! :T
My own project is still going (much) slower than I thought, even though I was trying to be less creative and push more towards finishing it - lacquering the cabinets now...
8)
Image not available

[JonMarsh]

Looking pretty nice- what woofer are you using?

As they say, slow work takes time, and some of these projects wind up being VERY slow! It's often a matter of difficulty finding the time. 2009 was very slow at work because of the economy- this year, a very different story, though next may "improve". Looks like you are getting their, though!

[jackies]

I have both Accuton and Eton woofers - planning to start with Accutons and see how I like them, my previous attempts showed that they have that nasty 2.5khz peak that I could hear even with quite a bit of filtering. If I feel they don't integrate to my liking, I will proceed with Etons, they have a less pronounced peak...

[JonMarsh]

Beau, I'm still quite interested in learning more about your speakers.

He seemed to imply they were an existing design, but I've never seen one quite like that. Though there's some obvious similarities to sdl2112's wg stuff. Can anyone else point me in the direction of what ever they are?



It is not for the faint of heart, but it also isn't that difficult to do any more, especially if you pick your hardware carefully. You do still need to be careful with significant point upgrades (10.7.x), but the typical weekly patches/upgrades aren't really an issue.

The biggest issue for you is likely to be that it is more time consuming to build/maintain one.

Yes, the time to spend building and maintaining is an issue for me- much simpler to throw a little extra money at the problem and have things just work out of the box and afterwards.

BTW, if you're looking for a premium DAC on a less premium budget, wait until November for the NAD M51.



Uses the same basic chipset as their M2, allegedly does very accurate conversion at high frequency of PCM to PWM at 844 kHz. Claimed S/N is 130 dB, because the chip is an 8 channel part, and four are paralleled for each Stereo output. MSRP of $2K.

The interesting thing is that it has HDMI inputs as well as the usual S/PDIF and AES-EBU and USB; it can decode a stereo PCM stream off a Blu-Ray player and pass on the video to your flat panel TV. That would be ideal for me bedroom setup.

Of course, it remains to be seen if it will hold it's own with a Berkely Alpha DAC (currently in the bedroom) much less the MH Lio-8, but I'll probably get one in December and find out. Could be a value leader, and I need to have something to take over to my GF's, to get a music system besides her vinyl going there.

[Generic George]

Yes, the time to spend building and maintaining is an issue for me- much simpler to throw a little extra money at the problem and have things just work out of the box and afterwards.

That's pretty much what I figured, but until Apple decides to give us something with expandability, but without some of the gold plated features the Mac Pros have, the hackintoshes do fill a niche Steve has been unwilling to provide a solution for. Maybe we'll see a change on that score now, but I'm not holding my breath.

You probably already know this, but if you are looking into an SSD for your mac pro, I would definitely pick up a SATA III controller, since the best of current generation SSD have a throughput that's almost twice what SATA II channel will take and until they release some updated models they just have the SATA IIs.

Alas OCZ seems un-inclined to provide mac support for their Revodrive 3 PCIe based SSDs, which have the throughput of 3 or 4 raided SSDs (up to 1,500 MB/s). A direct PCIe is definitely the future for primary storage.

BTW, if you're looking for a premium DAC on a less premium budget, wait until November for the NAD M51.

Uses the same basic chipset as their M2, allegedly does very accurate conversion at high frequency of PCM to PWM at 844 kHz. Claimed S/N is 130 dB, because the chip is an 8 channel part, and four are paralleled for each Stereo output. MSRP of $2K.

The interesting thing is that it has HDMI inputs as well as the usual S/PDIF and AES-EBU and USB; it can decode a stereo PCM stream off a Blu-Ray player and pass on the video to your flat panel TV. That would be ideal for me bedroom setup.

Of course, it remains to be seen if it will hold it's own with a Berkely Alpha DAC (currently in the bedroom) much less the MH Lio-8, but I'll probably get one in December and find out. Could be a value leader, and I need to have something to take over to my GF's, to get a music system besides her vinyl going there.

It sounds like an interesting device and it's specs are impressive, but my initial interest was derived from your description that made it the LIO-8 sound like it was more in the area of an DSP/active cross over device. An uber-DAC is not something I've really got any use for. My set up is primarily HT/video games oriented.

Being a long time Mac User, your mention of the mac's potential use also intrigued me.

[dwk]

Er, scratch that. A $4k LIO-8, is rather more than I'd be looking to spend on something like that.

If you're looking to do a multi-channel DSP xover setup, there are cheaper options than the LIO-8, although you give up some quality compared to the Metric Halo. Lynx and Apogee both have 8-channel firewire solutions in the $2k range, and below that the Steinberg MR-816X is really very good at $700. I'm using the Steinberg in a PC based setup but it's also supported on OSX; I'm basically replicating the NHT Xd system, and am quite happy with the results even given the fairly crude filters I'm using.

I'm using Reaper as my DAW/DSP platform, and as far as I know it's fully supported on OSX and is stupidly cheap for personal use, although there are other ways to accomplish the same thing.

[JonMarsh]

I've heard good things about the Steinberg for the money. For me, a big question in any of these solutions is having a unit that can do the DSP crossover work even at quad rate inputs (176.4 and 192). The LIO-8 can do that with band splitting crossovers, even to make a three way, but it's getting close to the limits.

If you can can a simpler/less expensive solution to work for a specific situation, well that's certainly a good way to go.

For the module Xtreme rebuild, I'm thinking to make this my first serious effort at DSP based crossover; just have to figure out the amplifier complement to try for this- using my best HF amp on the tweeters seems overkill, at 200W/ch! And a lot of quasi class A heat burn due to the XD biasing!

May be time to build something fun in the 25-50 watt range- but time's the problem there.

I've got a class D project going on a work now, and it might be fine for the bass and mids- or not- (many a slip twixt the cup and the lip), but HF I'm doubtful about, though not ruling it out. More on this later- probably early December.

[JimS]

For me, a big question in any of these solutions is having a unit that can do the DSP crossover work even at quad rate inputs (176.4 and 192). The LIO-8 can do that with band splitting crossovers, even to make a three way, but it's getting close to the limits.

YES - inquiring minds want to know . . .

I've been shared a 3-way template with band splitting that fits in at 92%, but it is not quite as "interesting" as some of your designs. I've got the W/M and dipole shaping for the Arvos running well at 2x but am having trouble springing for +dsp license for the 2 albums I currently have at 4x. Your SACD collection would make the +dsp value prop much more interesting. Good news is they now support 30-day demo license so I'm waiting for work to die down a bit before playing.

PS - in MIOStrip, does 10db boost at 30Hz (bw 1) sound about right to approximate the passive dipole correction circuit?

PPS - why not a dipole update to play with dsp? Environment-friendly, use 3/4 less wood, and all that . . .

[jackies]

Hooray!
Finally, assembled my speakers - liking it so far!
Still need to work on some details, experiment with port and stuffing...
Now, to build a few amps...
:B

Image not available

[cjd]

Sure got some talented engineers on this page. sdl, very nice work and writeup, pays to be somewhat obsessed.

FYI, if you are not following the diy waveguide thread at PE, D. Rose is offering waveguides with baffles for approx. $75/par to fit PE boxes. I'm assuming D. Rose can replicate whatever waveguide you desire (within size limits). Pretty cool I think:

And I now have a pair to mess with! Awesome door prize... What to do with them though...

[---k---]

Jackies, very nice! That veneer looks perfect.

[JimS]

Wow - those look great :T

[Face]

Beautiful!

[JonMarsh]

Great job on the veneer and assembly!! :T

[Hdale85]

Hooray!
Finally, assembled my speakers - liking it so far!
Still need to work on some details, experiment with port and stuffing...
Now, to build a few amps...
:B

And what amps are you building

I still have these PCB's for Aleph X's that I'm going to hopefully start working on next year after my HT setup is somewhat complete.

[jackies]

Gotta say - I had this woodworking dude do the veneer - I could have probably done it myself, but decided it'd be faster and better to just pay somebody to do it. So no achievement on my part here.
Biggest thing for me is that speakers are finished, and I actually like the sound!

Amps, yeah - I'm currently messing about with Sumo Nine Plus, already rebuilt the psu, and have an almost finished F5, thinking if I should attempt a 6C33C SE...

[meb46]

Jon,

Have you completed the Ardent SDX-2's? Are you going to make available any details on this? Looks like a fabulous project to consider

[JonMarsh]

YES - inquiring minds want to know . . .



PS - in MIOStrip, does 10db boost at 30Hz (bw 1) sound about right to approximate the passive dipole correction circuit?

PPS - why not a dipole update to play with dsp? Environment-friendly, use 3/4 less wood, and all that . . .

Yes, sounds like it's in the ballpark.

Re PPS, in the pipeline. Parts on order for tweets and woofers; upper passive crossover first pass completed, wood cutting started. Who knows, maybe some working hardware by Xmas or NYE. Taking two weeks off.

[JonMarsh]

Jon,

Have you completed the Ardent SDX-2's? Are you going to make available any details on this? Looks like a fabulous project to consider

One cabinet modified for the Illuminator drivers and testing to start December 16.

As Sam and Dave used to say, "Hold on, I'm coming..."

:W

[JimS]

Yes, sounds like it's in the ballpark.

Re PPS, in the pipeline. Parts on order for tweets and woofers; upper passive crossover first pass completed, wood cutting started. Who knows, maybe some working hardware by Xmas or NYE. Taking two weeks off.

Nice to know b/c it sure does sound good . . .

Yes, saw the picante in "QT mode" in the drivers thread - subscribed

[JonMarsh]

I've got a real burr up my butt to build something new, as well as suss out the LIO-8 more, and I'm hoping this will satisfy both.

I DO plan to develop an EQ profile for a more conventional front end like DC2496 (got one sitting around a couple of years- I have heard demos of systems using it at RMAF that really were painful, but after hearing it digitizing the output of my LIO-8 for the two way at the Northern CA DIY for JonP's system, I had to say that in the right circumstance it can sound pretty decent. I.E., in the other systems, the problem lay elsewhere. Lower buck drivers should be feasible- something like the RS180 + RS265HO on the bottom. Top end may be a slight problem, but the N26c is inexpensive enough (compared with things like SS 6640!) that I hope folks won't object. My main concern is how much of a going concern Transducer Labs is. I figure the more money I spend with them, the more likely that is.

[meb46]

Excellent... loking forward to seeing the details

[Bear]

I've got a real burr up my butt to build something new, as well as suss out the LIO-8 more, and I'm hoping this will satisfy both.

I DO plan to develop an EQ profile for a more conventional front end like DC2496 (got one sitting around a couple of years- I have heard demos of systems using it at RMAF that really were painful, but after hearing it digitizing the output of my LIO-8 for the two way at the Northern CA DIY for JonP's system, I had to say that in the right circumstance it can sound pretty decent. I.E., in the other systems, the problem lay elsewhere. Lower buck drivers should be feasible- something like the RS180 + RS265HO on the bottom. Top end may be a slight problem, but the N26c is inexpensive enough (compared with things like SS 6640!) that I hope folks won't object. My main concern is how much of a going concern Transducer Labs is. I figure the more money I spend with them, the more likely that is.

Jon - not to tell a moderator his job or anything, but it seems like the cat is out of the proverbial bag on the Arvo Part redux, so it would be useful to throw open a new thread for people to watch your progress... ;x(

That being said, if you are willing to consider a MiniDSP as a DSP alternate (a substitute for or in addition to the DCX), I am happy to lend you mine for the duration (I'll buy whichever of the filter sets is most appropriate). With newborn twins and a partially-built CNC machine, there is little chance of my getting around to using it any time soon.

[JonMarsh]

An interesting proposal... I've only heard a little about that unit, but obviously I should investigate more.

Newborn twins. Wow.... you have got to be really busy, in the family kind of way- both you and your wife, of course! Congratulations! That's really cool! Mine is 26, and she's doing pretty well on her own these days.

I've got a big biz trip next week, then I'll have the decks clearing off and I'll be in touch. Probably take your advise and start that thread soon, once I have a little bit of collateral to post.

[JonMarsh]

Jon - not to tell a moderator his job or anything, but it seems like the cat is out of the proverbial bag on the Arvo Part redux, so it would be useful to throw open a new thread for people to watch your progress... ;x(

That being said, if you are willing to consider a MiniDSP as a DSP alternate (a substitute for or in addition to the DCX), I am happy to lend you mine for the duration (I'll buy whichever of the filter sets is most appropriate). With newborn twins and a partially-built CNC machine, there is little chance of my getting around to using it any time soon.

Well, color me out of touch... I've checked out their site, fairly interesting- glad to see it's 24 bit, wish it was a higher sampling rate, but pleased to see that they have Mac OSX support.

What version of hardware do you have? The 2 way Crossover PEQ looks like it might do the job, and the price for the software modules is certainly reasonable. Intriguing for a lower buck approach. The bucks for the balanced 2 X 4 in a box aren't bad at all.

[Hdale85]

Yeah those MiniDSP boards are interesting.

[Bear]

Well, color me out of touch... I've checked out their site, fairly interesting- glad to see it's 24 bit, wish it was a higher sampling rate, but pleased to see that they have Mac OSX support.

What version of hardware do you have? The 2 way Crossover PEQ looks like it might do the job, and the price for the software modules is certainly reasonable. Intriguing for a lower buck approach. The bucks for the balanced 2 X 4 in a box aren't bad at all.

The hardware is reasonably common across the platforms, though I have unbalanced 'base', rather than balanced IIRC (they're in a box "over there"). The 2x8 and 8x8 are newer than when I bought. The software modules are really the key, and at $10, they make it pretty easy to play, though not quite to the same degree as the DCX -- just cheaper, more compact, more reliable, etc. The digital input might be worth my grabbing as an extra for the project, though.

[JonMarsh]

Well, if I decide to "develop" for the MiniDSP boxes I'll probably spring for a two by four balanced because of my current electronics. But I could get it running on unbalanced for first tests, so after I get speaker hardware built, I'll get back to you.

First pass will be on the LIO-8; I may even get Spectra Foo so I can do all the measurement with their software as well, though I'm very happy with Fuzzmeasure, and I don't know if Spectra Foo will create FRD files or anything similar.

[dlneubec]

Hey Jon,

I've been looking at the miniDSP for an upcoming, potential hybrid project. I found a series of tutorials that help give you an idea of what it can do and how easy it is to do.

miniDSP tutorials

[CraigJ]

I found a series of tutorials that help give you an idea of what it can do and how easy it is to do.

miniDSP tutorials

I think John Reekie has done a very nice job of showing how easy it is to use a digital crossover. Regarding comparing the cost of a minidsp versus dcx, the dcx can be purchased for $212-$219 in the states.

Cj

[JonMarsh]

Hey Jon,

I've been looking at the miniDSP for an upcoming, potential hybrid project. I found a series of tutorials that help give you an idea of what it can do and how easy it is to do.

miniDSP tutorials

Thanks for the Link, Dan! Those tutorials are very nicely done. Have you experimented with these boards?

BTW, I noticed from the tutorial that the 2x8 boards run at 96 kHz- definitely a change for the better.

Now, if only I can convince someone that these would be the perfect stocking stuffers for me this Xmas... :rofl:

This looks like an opportunity for a good Parmetal chassis and some of my own linear supplies. Or an LT evaluation board to start with!

[dlneubec]

No experimentation yet and no real experience with active, so it's mostly new to me. They do look interesting enough that I will most certainly end up with one or two, once I understand what would work best for my application.

From what I've read, if you get in to their biquad filetering capabililty and I downloaded a spreadsheet that can do most of the work, you can do even more than you can with a dcx.

[JonMarsh]

Well, this is unusual... I think. I was curious about Room EQ wizard, in it's current incarnation, and tried to register (for the first time) at HomeTheater Shack, but apparently my email addresses (both .mac and gmail) are banned there (pre-banned? ) and I couldn't register. Curious.

[5th element]

The miniDSP stuff uses the sigmaDSP line from analogue devices and having used the flagship processor myself I know more what they are capable of.

Minidsp limit the internal sampling frequencies to 48khz on the less powerful boards and go up to 96 on the larger ones. They claim that they do this so as to keep the maximum number of filter stages high enough so that you wont run into processing problems. As the DSP cores run at a fixed frequency you get 4x the filtering power @ 48khz as you would get at 192khz.

Now I run the flagship chip (which I'm pretty sure is what minidsp are using on the 2x8 ) @ 192khz, with an 8 way using a pretty complex crossover and have only used around 60% of what the chip can manage. In most practical situations I cannot see someone hitting the limits of what the chips can do even at 192khz, that is if they are used correctly.

I really don't know why Minidsp adopt the position of, the units work at a default of 192khz and you can reduce this if necessary for your design. Even with its more limited power the original minidsp (if they are using the 1701 chip) would have enough juice for the majority of designs and 192 is kinda needed to use pure delay stages correctly. 20us steps @ 48khz are far too large for fine tuning and the 10us steps at 96khz are just about acceptable imo.

[JonMarsh]

The miniDSP stuff uses the sigmaDSP line from analogue devices and having used the flagship processor myself I know more what they are capable of.

Minidsp limit the internal sampling frequencies to 48khz on the less powerful boards and go up to 96 on the larger ones. They claim that they do this so as to keep the maximum number of filter stages high enough so that you wont run into processing problems. As the DSP cores run at a fixed frequency you get 4x the filtering power @ 48khz as you would get at 192khz.

Now I run the flagship chip (which I'm pretty sure is what minidsp are using on the 2x8 ) @ 192khz, with an 8 way using a pretty complex crossover and have only used around 60% of what the chip can manage. In most practical situations I cannot see someone hitting the limits of what the chips can do even at 192khz, that is if they are used correctly.

I really don't know why Minidsp adopt the position of, the units work at a default of 192khz and you can reduce this if necessary for your design. Even with its more limited power the original minidsp (if they are using the 1701 chip) would have enough juice for the majority of designs and 192 imo is kinda needed to use pure delay stages correctly. 20us steps @ 48khz are far too large for fine tuning and the 10us steps at 96khz are just about acceptable imo.

Very useful feedback! If these catch on here with uses at HT Guide, maybe we'll need to create a forum subsection for them.

[cjd]

I'd love to hear more feedback on the newer digital - I've heard the DCX enough to have decided to just stay away - not worth it for the munge it adds.

[Paul W]

Well, this is unusual... I think. I was curious about Room EQ wizard, in it's current incarnation, and tried to register (for the first time) at HomeTheater Shack, but apparently my email addresses (both .mac and gmail) are banned there (pre-banned? ) and I couldn't register. Curious.

Hi Jon,
Though I did have an account at HTS, I had to re-register through a different email address. Don't think I ever posted there...let alone say anything to get banned!