How come that when most audiophiles


follow the philosophy of "shorter, less complex signal path is better", they then wire their carefully chosen equipment to speaker cabinets filled with a boatload of transformers, capacitors, resistors, and drivers which exhibit gross non-linearities which are only compounded by adding them all together? I believe that the reason is the "specification game" again, where people believe that speakers must have a frequency response from DC to light +-3db, and as a result, speaker systems must have many drivers to cover the range. Notice the specs only show freq. response, and nothing about phase non-linearity induced by multiple crossover components. This seems to be a non-linearity in system philosophy where short signal path does not apply to speaker systems, but is paramount in all other aspects of the system. I use a direct input from source to OTL amp and DIY Fostex based 1-way speaker cabinets. The result is very natural, dynamic, phase-coherent,detailed, and revealing. The only non-linearities I have to deal with are the ones inherent in the driver/cabinet combo. With some careful design and impedence curve mods, I get a more musical sound than any "high end" speakers I have ever heard(and I've heard alot) as well as any of the multi-way speakers I've ever designed and built(also alot). Why do you think that there is this disconnect in thinking regarding short signal path as it relates to speakers?
twl

Showing 1 response by gthrush1

I agree, and that is why the theoretical "best" way to go is a low-distortion (e.g. Bryston, Westlake, etc.) external crossover, remove ALL crossover components from the speakers, connect each driver to its own set of binding posts, and drive each with a dedicated low-distortion monoblock amplifier (e.g. Bryston, Boulder, etc.).

Or, the easier approach would be to use a pair of quality pro monitors like the PMC AML-1, which is essentially a Bryston 10B / 2B / 3B built into the cabinet with custom drivers. They retail for about $5k, but you probably could not beat them for the price with "audiophile" gear.