Quad 606 with a Quad 405
 

In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
The most dramatic change I ever heard was in a shop when the removed the
Isobariks and tried Quad 63's. From awful to excellent. They shop droids
hated the Quads. But then they were unable to hear that one of the tweeters
in one of the Isobariks was busted... :-)


"Never in the field of domestic audio was so much bull**** dispensed by
so few and believed by so many"

The problem, alas, was that it was a 'key' few people in just the right
places to influence readers of the magazines, and those who innocently
walked into the shops in question. IMHO the results blighted UK domestic
audio for over a decade.

I don't blame those who went into the shops, and bought the gear. Often
they were given no real chance to hear alternatives or make a judgement for
themselves without being led by the magazines and salesdroids. In the case
I had in mind we had to nag the driods until after I'd shown the Isobariks
were damaged to force them to even bring any other speakers (the 63's) into
the room. They did so with bad grace, mumbling comments about how poor the
63's were.

I wonder if they sold the Isobariks to someone without replacing the broken
tweeter...

Remember this was also the days when part of the 'wisdom' was that any
other speakers in the room might 'upset the sound'. Maybe by allowing the
listener to discover how they were being led to buy actually compared with
alternatives. :-)

Curiously, the items in question had carefully controlled 'franchises' with
higher mark up rates. Triumph of marketing over content. Given the
treatment in the magazines, the items 'sold themselves'. The punter walked
into the shop asking to hear that specific setup, heard it, and bought it.
No real comparisons or experimentation.

No doubt this all still goes on in some cases. One of the reasons I got fed
up with the audio biz as a living. I also know of other engineers who left
the field for similar reasons.

Maybe these days I am a gamekeeper turned poacher... :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html

Quad 606 with a Quad 405
 

"MiNe 109" wrote in message


You'll notice adding amps didn't make any difference to
me until I added the new crossover.

That is the expected result.

However, that
improvement was such that I wondered if Linn purposely
degraded the passive crossover.

Sighted evaluation with a big delay between before and after. Who knows?

FWIW, Linn claim deeper
measured bass for the active version.

Easily accomplished by throwing some eq into the active crossover. OTOH,
there are so many other opportunities to change midrange frequency response,
system balance, etc.

There's really nothing wrong with a well-designed passive crossover. But
using an active crossover gives the designer more options.

Quad 606 with a Quad 405
 

In article ,
MiNe 109 wrote:
In article , Jim Lesurf
wrote:

In article
,
MiNe 109 wrote:


Am I the only one who has actually used a multiple amp passive
system? In my case, Linn Kabers, a single LK100 was better than a
Majik integrated, but two LK100s weren't better than a single. Three
with an active crossover were a massive improvement.


[snip details of Q and A]

Thanks for the response. Helped to clarify the situation.

I don't assume bi-amping as such was the difference, but the active
crossover I think responsible for the improvement requires separate amps
for each driver. Since one removes the passive crossover to install the
active, no direct comparison is possible.

You'll notice adding amps didn't make any difference to me until I added
the new crossover. However, that improvement was such that I wondered
if Linn purposely degraded the passive crossover. FWIW, Linn claim
deeper measured bass for the active version.

The above seems very plausible as a reason to me. Thanks.

However it makes clear that the comparison you did was quite unlike the
process where someone simply uses two amps instead of one whilst leaving
the 'crossover' networks as were.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html

Quad 606 with a Quad 405
 

In article , Arny
Krueger
wrote:
"MiNe 109" wrote in message


You'll notice adding amps didn't make any difference to me until I
added the new crossover.

That is the expected result.

However, that improvement was such that I wondered if Linn purposely
degraded the passive crossover.

Sighted evaluation with a big delay between before and after. Who knows?

FWIW, Linn claim deeper measured bass for the active version.

Easily accomplished by throwing some eq into the active crossover. OTOH,
there are so many other opportunities to change midrange frequency
response, system balance, etc.

There's really nothing wrong with a well-designed passive crossover. But
using an active crossover gives the designer more options.

I don't have any specs to hand on the Kabers. However Linn have in the past
had a habit of producing speakers with quite 'nasty' impedance plots,
dropping well below 4 Ohms in places. They may also have followed Naim's
religious faith in using a 0.22 Ohm output series resistor in the power
amps. Thus making it easy for slight changes in the filtering to alter the
overall response. So what Stephen and yourself have said seem quite
plausible.

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html

Quad 606 with a Quad 405
 

"Bob Latham" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Serge Auckland wrote:

Arny, as this is a UK news group, we normally use UK nomenclature. This
side of the pond, using two amplifiers but retaining the passive
crossover is generally called "bi-amping" whilst using two amplifiers
with electronic crossovers is generally called "active".

Sounds about right to me.

The former is of no value whilst the latter provides many benefits.

Such overwhelming confidence presumably means you've tried it.


Bob.

--
Bob Latham
Stourbridge, West Midlands

As I grew up in Broadcast, active 'speakers were quite common. I discovered
active 'speakers for home use in the mid '80s and have not had passive
'speakers since. In my view there are several benefits from active
operation:-

1) Not having a passive crossover means no resistive losses in the
inevitable series resistance of inductors in series with bass units, and
with consequently better damping factor, although it is a moot point as to
how much the slightly improved damping factor matters.

2) Crossover frequencies and slopes can be much more accurately and
repeatedly tailored with electronic crossovers, especially if done in DSP
than is possible with passive lumped components.

3) The power output of an active system is additive, as the bass amplifiers
only amplify bass signals, ditto for the treble. Using two 100 watt
amplifiers driving 8 ohm bass and treble units is equivalent to a single 400
watt amplifier driving the same drive units passively crossovered as the *
peak voltages* are additive.

4) As I don't get pleasure from owning lots of boxes, nor playing mix 'n
match with amps etc, an active system having everything in the one box is
domestically more acceptable, and is cheaper as you're not paying for fancy
boxes for the amps, nor have to find the space for them.


I use Meridian 'speakers in my main system and small Genelecs in my second
system, and nothing I've heard recently would make me change.

S.



--
http://audiopages.googlepages.com

Quad 606 with a Quad 405
 

"Jim Lesurf" wrote in message
...
In article ,
tony sayer wrote:
The most dramatic change I ever heard was in a shop when the removed the
Isobariks and tried Quad 63's. From awful to excellent. They shop droids
hated the Quads. But then they were unable to hear that one of the
tweeters
in one of the Isobariks was busted... :-)


"Never in the field of domestic audio was so much bull**** dispensed by
so few and believed by so many"

The problem, alas, was that it was a 'key' few people in just the right
places to influence readers of the magazines, and those who innocently
walked into the shops in question. IMHO the results blighted UK domestic
audio for over a decade.

I don't blame those who went into the shops, and bought the gear. Often
they were given no real chance to hear alternatives or make a judgement
for
themselves without being led by the magazines and salesdroids. In the case
I had in mind we had to nag the driods until after I'd shown the Isobariks
were damaged to force them to even bring any other speakers (the 63's)
into
the room. They did so with bad grace, mumbling comments about how poor the
63's were.

I wonder if they sold the Isobariks to someone without replacing the
broken
tweeter...

Remember this was also the days when part of the 'wisdom' was that any
other speakers in the room might 'upset the sound'. Maybe by allowing the
listener to discover how they were being led to buy actually compared with
alternatives. :-)

Curiously, the items in question had carefully controlled 'franchises'
with
higher mark up rates. Triumph of marketing over content. Given the
treatment in the magazines, the items 'sold themselves'. The punter walked
into the shop asking to hear that specific setup, heard it, and bought it.
No real comparisons or experimentation.

No doubt this all still goes on in some cases. One of the reasons I got
fed
up with the audio biz as a living. I also know of other engineers who left
the field for similar reasons.

Maybe these days I am a gamekeeper turned poacher... :-)

Slainte,

Jim

--
Electronics
http://www.st-and.ac.uk/~www_pa/Scot...o/electron.htm
Audio Misc http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/index.html
Armstrong Audio http://www.audiomisc.co.uk/Armstrong/armstrong.html

When I was involved with consumer audio in the mid '80s, (some may remember
Beechwood Audio in Braintree and Bury St Edmunds) I ran an ad in the April
edition of Hi-Fi News offering single ear demonstrations. This required two
customers, one would listen with their right ear blocked, and the other with
the left. At the end of the piece of music, each listener would tell the
other what they had just heard, thus restoring the stereo experience.

It attests to the spirit of the time that only a few older customers
actually understood the ad for what it was......

Not surprisingly, I returned to the relative sanity of broadcasting shortly
afterwards.

S.

--
http://audiopages.googlepages.com