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Active crossover feature
#1
I wondered if Devialet develops anything in this direction on their expert line. I can imagine myself spending more money on high end drivers and cabinets instead of Mundorf, Duelund etc.
It would simply require few more output ports and a well developed configurator (multi point slopes for example). With little extra (not expensive) equipment people could make their dream systems.
Other way would be selling modules which can be built into the cabinet and stacked with something like dialog. This would be even better as it would eliminate speaker cables.
Any comments on this, please?
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#2
I have a couple of thoughts on this. First with the Expert range, I would have thought that it would be fairly easy to have an active crossover feature in the configurator, maybe even programmable SAM style to suit specific speaker needs. You would then need an additional Devialet or two, so as to actively bi-amp or tri-amp. So I, for example, would need another D800 to actively bi-amp my Blades. Headroom is good, yes? Frighteningly expensive maybe, but with cheaper second hand Devialets coming onto the market, who knows. For Devialet, this could be a cunning way to sell extra amps to existing customers.

Then we have the Phantom. Consider that each Phantom has eight amplifiers, with the new mini ADH core on a single board. It can only be a relatively small step to configure multiple Phantom amps to be a speaker specific, SAM enabled, multi channel active amplifier, just add a shiny box and a bit of configuration. Bonkers? Maybe not, I can't see why it couldn't be done?
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#3
Yes, one way would be to bi/tri-amp with current expert line, but if they added few more speaker ports with new releases it could be done within one unit (two way, maybe even three way system). Basically most of the power needed is for bass, mids and highs can be run with much less power.

In regards to separate modules, they could be built into any speaker, especially new designs. This would compete with Phantom, but it would have to be in a larger box as Devialet holds rights for HBI. On the other hand, imagine latest Accuton diamond drivers run by active crossover, SAM-ed (one will not have to send speakers to France soon) and ADH. What lacks is the analog input, but that can come with upgraded Dialog for example.

All in all, I think this is quite realistic, and not hard to implement at all (for Devialet or some other company, not for me ;-) ). There could be many who won't accept this solution at first, especially when you put sum of $$$ one spent on speaker cables, and passive parts in the speakers.
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#4
Devialet D-premier, D250 and D200 has an active crossover feature via the configurator and that was a major reason for me to originally buy a D-premier. It can be used in different ways.
RCA 1&2 can be configured as an analog preout and that output can be  filtered with 1st to 4th order high or low pass and the speaker output can be filtered correspondingly.  I am using the low pass option with 2 monoblocks for my woofers see: http://devialetchat.com/showthread.php?tid=576

Alternatively on can use 2 D200 (=D400)or D250  (=D800) with digital connections. One amp can be configured for low pass and the other high pass. The second way to configure that setup is to have one amp left (one channel lowpass and the other high pass) and the 2nd right with the same settings (would allow short speaker cables). So the amps will be not used as mono amps with their improved specs but getting rid off the passive crossover (no matter what fancy Duelund etc. parts one has)will make a much more significant improvement in sound quality. I was tempted to trade-in my D-Premier to get a D200 pair but then I decided to go for the D250 upgrade.

That active cross over works quite well, the only feature I am missing is a time adjustment to better align woofers with the rest of the frequency spectrum. SAM has that feature but the use of SAM is excluded when using the crossover function. I guess Devialet has the knowhow to develop a time alignment functionality and I hope they will implement it as they promised 3 years ago.
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#5
Thanks for the reply and the link. I see you wrote about your configuration a year ago. I wonder if anyone has any indication of Devialet going more in the direction of using active crossover.
I opened configurator and saw it was possible to do it with two D200. This is just a tiny window into the space Devialet could jump in. Maybe current line isn't ready to do much or it is a bit clumsy, but given the pace technology develops nowadays the next iteration should definitely be (if they decide so). One D200 with 6 ports for 3way left channel, and another for 3way right (configurable for 2way as well) and we are in the game.
In regards to the cables, Devialet can make some cheap two/three way cables. They don't have to be fancy, SAM will correct it ;-)

If anyone needs a short explanation why the active crossover would be very good option, this article gives few hints: http://www.tonmeister.ca/wordpress/2013/...dspeakers/
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#6
(04-Jun-2015, 01:31)mirekti Wrote: Thanks for the reply and the link. I see you wrote about your configuration a year ago. I wonder if anyone has any indication of Devialet going more in the direction of using active crossover.
I opened configurator and saw it was possible to do it with two D200. This is just a tiny window into the space Devialet could jump in. Maybe current line isn't ready to do much or it is a bit clumsy, but given the pace technology develops nowadays the next iteration should definitely be (if they decide so). One D200 with 6 ports for 3way left channel, and another for 3way right (configurable for 2way as well) and we are in the game.
In regards to the cables, Devialet can make some cheap two/three way cables. They don't have to be fancy, SAM will correct it ;-)

If anyone needs a short explanation why the active crossover would be very good option, this article gives few hints: http://www.tonmeister.ca/wordpress/2013/...dspeakers/

Hi mirekti. It is not clear to me what you actually want here. If you by "6 ports" mean six amplifier channels in one chassis I undrestand. However I do not think Devialet is prepared to build a multichannel expert amplifier. That would of course be nice, but if you want to keep it the size of, say the 200, the power supply would have to feed six channels instead of two. You'd be left with maybe 35 - 50 watts per channel. Probably not enough unless your speaker system has very high sensitivity. And the current case is quite full with only two channels. With four more amplifier channels in there I do not know...
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Devialetless!
Roon, ROCK/Audiolense XO/Music on NAS/EtherRegen/RoPieee/USPCB/ISORegen/USPCB/Sound Devices USBPre2/Tannoy GOLD 8
250 Pro CI, MicroRendu(1.4), Mutec MC-3+USB
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#7
Hi Ogs,

by six ports I though of 3 channels (low, mid and high). Basically, low and mid could be declared as L and R (as they are now), but if you get another D200 you could use it as 3way active crossover. In that case L would become Low, R would become Mid. One D200 for left channel the other D200 for right channel. Only thing missing at the moment is one more channel (for the highs).
In regards to the needed power, I believe only LF would need more power. That leaves you with current two channel as it is and a very small extra power amp for the highs. I don't think the size need to increase, and if so it should be minimal.
Last part would be to add something like this: http://www.minidsp.com/products/audio-pl...ced-detail in the configurator.

Does it make sense?
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#8
(04-Jun-2015, 17:19)mirekti Wrote: Hi Ogs,

by six ports I though of 3 channels (low, mid and high). Basically, low and mid could be declared as L and R (as they are now), but if you get another D200 you could use it as 3way active crossover. In that case L would become Low, R would become Mid. One D200 for left channel the other D200 for right channel. Only thing missing at the moment is one more channel (for the highs).
In regards to the needed power, I believe only LF would need more power. That leaves you with current two channel as it is and a very small extra power amp for the highs. I don't think the size need to increase, and if so it should be minimal.
Last part would be to add something like this: http://www.minidsp.com/products/audio-pl...ced-detail in the configurator.

Does it make sense?

Sure it makes sense. For six channels you'll need three D200 or maybe two D200 and a D120. Then you'd need a DEQX HDP-5 with Reference Calibration Kit for speaker unit correction and advanced cross over design. The built in cross over function in the Devialet amps would be inadequate for this task as it does not contain group delay correction or equalising for individual drive units. The difficulty getting this to sound good would be massive.

We are talking more than 25.000 Euro before cables. This would certainly be great fun and I am sure it could sound fantastic if done correctly, but I do not think it is realistic. It would be sort of scaled down version of the B&W Nautilus + eight mono blocks set up that Devialet has used in some shows. In Munich it did not sound too good either according to reports here and elsewhere.
*
Devialetless!
Roon, ROCK/Audiolense XO/Music on NAS/EtherRegen/RoPieee/USPCB/ISORegen/USPCB/Sound Devices USBPre2/Tannoy GOLD 8
250 Pro CI, MicroRendu(1.4), Mutec MC-3+USB
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#9
(04-Jun-2015, 21:58)ogs Wrote: Then you'd need a DEQX HDP-5 with Reference Calibration Kit for speaker unit correction and advanced cross over design. The built in cross over function in the Devialet amps would be inadequate for this task as it does not contain group delay correction or equalising for individual drive units. The difficulty getting this to sound good would be massive.

Wouldn't it work with a basic Devialet crossover feature, and than bringing the speakers to a dealer equipped with SAM lab?
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#10
The little Phantom has eight amps inside, apparently. I wonder how these would perform if liberated from their little dinosaur eggs? Or even what spec they are? Maybe Devialet do have the technology to make a small, low cost multi channel amp, if they really wanted to?
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