glyphin
18-11-2015, 17:00
I'm a fan of time and phase coherence. First order crossovers or single driver speakers are the only ones I can enjoy listening to for long periods of time. It may be because I have a lot of experience with playing classical musical instruments. I'm starting to understand how time/phase coherent designs place great demands on driver quality, so I'm developing an appreciation for the importance of the low impedance (Le) spec, combined with a flat frequency response, as well as harmonic distortion graphs. And an appreciation for expensive speaker drivers.
I'm currently using Class D amplification. Would love to get into Class A but the power usage / running costs are hard to justify. My nCore NC400 amps are very listenable though. For a source I had built a PC-based audio system about 15 years ahead of its time (back in 2000), with CDs ripped onto my 40 GB hard drive. Nowadays I pretty much only listen to streaming music - convenience and musical variety wins over quality, sad to say.
Audio is a fascinating hobby full of tradeoffs that force you to constantly re-examine your priorities. For instance, the difference in speakers between a sealed enclosure and open baffle enclosure is the sealed enclosure can provide better low-end frequency response and power handling, at the cost of higher low-end second order distortion. The lower frequency response allows you to go further without requiring a crossover, which always affects phase. So essentially an open baffle is also trading off phase performance at the low end. Now, how much second-order distortion is worth a later onset of phase rotation? This dilemma provides endless entertainment.
I'm currently using Class D amplification. Would love to get into Class A but the power usage / running costs are hard to justify. My nCore NC400 amps are very listenable though. For a source I had built a PC-based audio system about 15 years ahead of its time (back in 2000), with CDs ripped onto my 40 GB hard drive. Nowadays I pretty much only listen to streaming music - convenience and musical variety wins over quality, sad to say.
Audio is a fascinating hobby full of tradeoffs that force you to constantly re-examine your priorities. For instance, the difference in speakers between a sealed enclosure and open baffle enclosure is the sealed enclosure can provide better low-end frequency response and power handling, at the cost of higher low-end second order distortion. The lower frequency response allows you to go further without requiring a crossover, which always affects phase. So essentially an open baffle is also trading off phase performance at the low end. Now, how much second-order distortion is worth a later onset of phase rotation? This dilemma provides endless entertainment.