What are your opinions of DSP's for speakers


This seems to be a popular trend with many speaker brands. Some have internal amplification with DSP's and some have external implementations of it like Legacy. I have heard some good results with it being used but don't necessarily like the idea of everything being digitized for the sake of room/bass correction. Do you own or plan on buying a speaker like this, or have you heard any using it? 

willywonka

@speed121 they're one of the best speakers I've heard so far and I've heard many. I have a friend who has a mastering studio and he uses the 8C there and has a pair with some PSA subwoofers for his TV/personal music space 

 

They're incredibly effortless with presentation, tangible elements in a mix are just laid bare in all its beauty. Gives you the truth as is which I adore 

Is it possible to have perfect room, treated or not?  My understanding is that, at the very least, it's almost impossible to treat a room for low frequencies completely.  One may have an excellent room that sounds very good but that doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement.  DSP can implement functions that simply are not possible with room treatments, such as variable phase correction across the frequency range.

I implement DSP in my two channel system (via MiniDSP hardware and Dirac Live software).  If there is any degradation in sound, as some claim, I don't hear it and the benefits achieved through DSP room correction far outweigh any.  For me, in my space (partially treated with absorption panels on key surfaces, 14x24'), my system went from sounding not right, fatiguing, uneven bass response, to one I look forward to listening to every day.  I'm sure it's not perfect, but I couldn't tell you what's wrong with it.

To misquote, keep the signal path as simple as possible, but not simpler.  Who out there uses a single driver loudspeaker with no electrical crossover?  It's a far less cluttered signal path than the complex multi driver setup most people use.  But maybe it's too simple and has too many compromises.  For most listeners the added complexity of a multi driver loudspeaker is worth it.  Loudspeaker design is filled with compromises and using DSP is just another compromise.  If it works, then it works.

DSP packages in speakers are typically for implementing active crossovers, obtaining a performance benchmark, etc, not for "room/bass correction". 

The best sounding Klipsch speaker, for example, is the flagship Jubilee model which comes with DSP/active crossover. The "essence of music" didn’t get lost on the Klipsch Jubilee and it sounded very good. But, the "essence of music" got lost a lot to my ears on the lower model purist Klipsch heritage speakers. Purism lost the essence of music on that one, for sure.

Room Correction, etc, you don’t need to worry about it. Your 2 channel purist electronics won’t have any of it, with a couple of exceptions perhaps. Yamaha, for example, introduced some room correction with reflective sound control filters, etc on one of their 2 channel integrated amps, R-N2000A, which is tech borrowed from their multichannel gear. You could toggle it on/off and determine which sounded better, i.e. decide if the "essence of music" got better with it turned on or off

On the same note, any purist DAC which says FPGA is very much in the DSP realm. The guy who bought some 80k apparently "purist" dac which sounded like his soul finally came alive actually ended up buying a DSP dac. It was the DSP that brought his soul back from the dead in such instances, it appears.

This seems to be a popular trend with many speaker brands. Some have internal amplification with DSP’s and some have external implementations of it like Legacy. I have heard some good results with it being used but don’t necessarily like the idea of everything being digitized for the sake of room/bass correction. Do you own or plan on buying a speaker like this, or have you heard any using it? 

@atp001  it is impossible to have the perfect room but it is possible to get as close as you can. And that is done with targeted treatment. Using treatment you'd need and not just placing them anywhere in the room. Good speaker/room coupling with SBIR effects taken into consideration, subwoofer integration where necessary and then top that with good and sound DSP implementation and you have as perfect of a space for audio as possible