Statements II - Active Xover/DSP - Active speaker systems.

[thirumalkumaran]

Might be a question which might be frowned upon.

If I wanted to make a Active statements II speakers,
What might be issues or precautions I might need to take?

Is active crossover or DSP the best route?

The major reason i'm looking this is;
1. Crossover components availability & its quality. (I'm from India)
2. No heat inside the cabinet from Crossovers.
3. easier integration & modification (Ex; Bass can be increased or decreased as per room gain)
4. Avoid too many components in my AV Rack.

Has anyone tried the same? Help required please..

Thanks all....

[JonMarsh]

There are a number of challenges to this approach. And depending on the overall system goals, some stumbling blocks.

What you're really talking about doing is developing a new speaker system using the same components as the Statements, but with an active crossover, either analog or DSP.

So, a few comments...

• Passive crossovers from a knowledgeable designer have a great deal more flexibility for how the filters are implemented as regards gain vs frequency, locations of poles and zeros, depending on the approach for typical active crossovers. But DSP can do FIR filters and other special tricks, with the right software and tools.
• Passive crossovers dissipate very little heat typically. A few watts with music program material.
• With a DSP approach, you have multiple DAC chips... multiple ways to mess up the audio performance. My experience shows there are performance issues at times with both low cost passive crossover components and low cost DAC chips, but the latter I find more annoying. Caps are critical, with inductors close behind. Anywhere you can get the drivers for the Statements, I'd expect good quality crossover components to be available.
• You gain flexilbility with a DSP, for changing bass level, but you can also modify this simply by using two power amps with passive crossover, one for the bass, one for the rest, and adjusting gain. Much simpler.
• If you look at transient signals coming out of an active crossover, you can have very high peak to peak swings on the treble, so don't expect to save much on power ratings with smaller amps.
• I did triamp systems for friends at their request in the 80's and 90's, and though they were happy with the results, I was never tempted to go that way myself.
• YMMV, if you choose to go down this route, check out the miniDSP (available in India? I don't know... India has high import duties on many items). We wish you the best of luck and success for your project.

This will be a complete design development project, requiring both measurement capabilities and system design-

CLIO Pocket (SPL and impedance measurement) should be available in India via this distributor:

MPTV Corporation
115 Bhavani Peth
PUNE 411042
Cell: +91 – 98222 65000
Phone: +91 20 26385702
mptvcorp@gmail.com

And VituixCAD can be downloaded for free from Kimmo's web site:

https://kimmosaunisto.net/Software/Software.html

[mjack]

I recently finished an active Statement 2 build. I've been listening to it for a week and think it sounds amazing. That said, Curt Campbell replied to me similar to Jon Marsh's reply. He did not feel it would quite be the same sound as his build.

[thirumalkumaran]

I mistakenly sent it to Jim, but still know the answer…
If you can kindly share the details.. that would help a lot!

[mjack]

I mistakenly sent it to Jim, but still know the answer…
If you can kindly share the details.. that would help a lot!

HI, sorry to take so long to answer. My active set up is a Denon receiver with preouts going to 2 Mini DSP 2x4's one for each speaker. The Mini DSP are connected to my pc and the out channels to a 8-channel Sonos amplifier. Needing a multi channel amp is one of the downsides to an active build. I set the crossover points to 350hz 2nd order LR and 3700 3rd order bw as Curt described. I've recently finished the passive crossovers. They have a nice balanced sound, but in all honesty I feel they have a more detail oriented sound in the active build. I will listened to them for awhile first, but I will likely go back to active for the mids at least.
Thanks, hope that is helpful, Mark.

[technodanvan]

Out of curiosity, did you use a different amp than the Sonos when using the passive crossovers?

[mjack]

Out of curiosity, did you use a different amp than the Sonos when using the passive crossovers?

Hi Danny, I haven't yet. After a little more listening, I feel I was mistaken to call them less detailed. The cross over did decrease the volume in the mids and highs, but with more volume the bass is at a better balance and the details are back. I think I need to spend since more time listening to them and perhaps with better amplification. Thanks, Mark

[technodanvan]

It's something worth considering. I don't have a set of Statements but I imagine they'd like a fair amount of amplification. The active Sonos setup may be a better pairing, maybe?

[thirumalkumaran]

Things are slow to move guys.. Actually the friend who wanted me to do this project asked me to drop due to time constraints (India is a location where things gets imported after a long time)
But this design intrigued me so much, that I plan to pursue this on my own.

Interestingly, me asking one of my friends to build a 2 way active systems works out cheaper than the expensive passive crossover components used.
So, the LF will be active driven cut off at 370, and the MF & HF will be passive split.
Still working on trying to make a 3 way active, but worried about the phase play it might bring on the system.

As the project raised from death, it will be shaded on mahogany or redwood veneer and might be named "Phoenix".

[technodanvan]

Sounds like a good plan of action. You might want to get with one of the other guys who went active to compare notes.

[mjack]

Active and passive Umik measure

I wanted to update this thread because I had questions about doing an active Statement 2 build and could find little online. Mostly due to my need to tinker, I switched my mid and tweeter networks back to active via a minidsp 2x4. I ran so sweeps with REW and a Umik before and after. I wanted to post the current results if anyone is curious.

The top is the current active measure and the bottom is the passive. 1/24th smoothing and gated to 10ms. The second graph is smoothed 1/24th but ungated. I will likely keep tinkering, but wanted to show some sweeps so far.