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In the Forum: Audio Discussions
In the Thread: Crossover Design
Post Subject: Then perhaps a new crossover is not needed?Posted by drdna on: 10/29/2005
Thanks very much for your prompt, courteous and informative reply!
My thought about the crossover design for the EdgarHorn was due to a number of things:
1. This particular EdgarHorn is being sold to make way for a Cain & Cain speaker which is based initially on a single-driver type backloaded horn. To me this suggested that the seller was seeking the benefits of the crossoverless design, so he must be dissatisfied with the crossover in the EdgarHorn.
2. Numerous posts on various forums, including this one, refer to the "improvement" when removing crossover elements from the EdgarHorn. Now the listeners may be confusing coloration with improvement due to the imbalanced frequency response; but I know from experience that changing to Teflon, Copper Foil, Air Caps etc. can improve the dynamics of the sounds and brings me more emotional involvement with the music. So, it stands to reason that since all capacitors and other elements are flawed, removing them entirely would be beneficial for the sound. Of course a crossover needs to be put elsewhere, but then different design challenges present themselves which may be easier to deal with than at the speaker crossover level.
3. The idea of multi-amping seemed fundamentally good since less signal will go to each amplifier. When the amplifier is presented with less signal from the source and also back from the speaker, there will be less electromagnetic field fluctuation which will change amplifier performance on a moment-to-moment basis; this is one of the challenges in designing the topology and physical layout of the amplifier, as it is usually a bunch of elements creating rapidly fluctuating electromagnetic pulses crammed into a tiny box.
4. Many others still have commented that the EdgarHorn benefits from more power. While I am surprised at this since they are very efficient speakers, multi-amping also addresses this issue.
5. Most of the posts about EdgarHorn on various forums talk about changing the crossover or the drivers. It stands to reason that the drivers are used to meet a certain price point so it might be possible to improve the sound this way. But a lot of people talk about the crossovers as well as being problematic, and describe dramatic improvement when comparing to a line-level crossover design. Perhaps these people are ignorant or perhaps they feel the need to constantly DIY things, but when I heard that many people preferred a digital active crossover to the passive speaker crossover for the EdgarHorns, I thought to myself, there must be something really seriously wrong or bad about that crossover if listeners prefer even a horrible digital signal processing unit to the regular crossover.
Now for all this I am talking very much without anything in my experience to support me. I have not compared sided by side EdgarHorns with speaker level crossovers and line level crossovers, so I do not know if this really will be beneficial or not. It is an expensive experiment to perform if the benefit is uncertain. One thing which strongly encouraged me to make such a plan was the existence of the Super Melquiades. Here is fundamentally a similar system with horn loudspeakers driven by SET amplifiers, but there must have been a reason and a sonic benefit to create the multi-amp Super Melquiades, instead of just using a single Melquiades amplifier to drive the ultra-efficient loudspeakers, which easily has enough power to drive it I would imagine.
So the question really becomes whether this is a worthwhile experiment or not. I have no great desire to DIY unless there is a real benefit. From what you are saying, Romy:
<<At least my own experience indicted that multiamping is not always the optimal solution in some case and patricianly in case of the EdgarHorn>>
there is some fundamental difference between the EdgarHorn design and your own speakers which makes the multi-amping beneficial for your speakers, but you don't think it will have as important an effect for the EdgarHorn design. May I ask what is this difference, or if not quantifiable, is this then based on your listening impressions of the two loudspeakers?
Of course this is good news for me, if true, since then I will not worry about the SuperMilq. I assume Romy, you would suggest trying a single Milq to drive the Titans full-range -- a much more affordable option? The bottom line, what drives me in this, is of course the sound. And it is still the sound of live music which involves me emotionally more than any record. The 2A3's while quite decent sounding to me, are easily heard as a sonic signature which I have accepted. The way the Milq amplifier has been described it sounds like a revolutionary step; this is what I find most effective in giving me satisfaction musically. I find tiny incremental changes with different tubes, dampening materials, etc. a bit annoying. These give very small changes in the sounds, but do not bring me closer to the music ultimately. I had hoped that a more fundamental change like multiamping or using the Milq amplifier would be more of a revolutionary step.
Cheers!
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