Whatever happened to the quality of reproduced sound in the home? S. Linkwitz 2014

I'm glad that more and more people are looking at just how important the radiation patterns of loudspeakers are to achieving specific goals.

microstrip said:

Very interesting keynote address by Siegfried Linkwitz at ALMA International Winter Symposium, 2014. Great talk, thought provoking, from a known loudspeaker expert known for controversial designs and non aligned positions about sound reproduction.

http://www.linkwitzlab.com/ALMA%2714/Sound_quality.htm

PS : No, S. Linkwitz didn't address HiRez in his talk. May be he had no time ...

Click to expand...

Thanks for the link: It was interesting to read this by the famous Linkwitz, including his comments on speakers by Wilson, Dynaudio, mbl, TAD, etc.

I agree about removing the passive crossover.

There are some things in audio that require complexity and there are some things that benefit from efforts towards simplification. The best tools to start off with, are an open mind and a willingness to learn.

theophile said:

I agree about removing the passive crossover.

There are some things in audio that require complexity and there are some things that benefit from efforts towards simplification. The best tools to start off with, are an open mind and a willingness to learn.

Click to expand...

Which is why the Devialet team with their SAM solution looks very interesting as the primary purpose IMO is to get back motion control and reduce interraction from crossover/drivers/transducer (more so at low frequency and bass-mid transition).
Some have misunderstood SAM as being a correction solution for either room or speaker FR.
Question is how well does it work; I would love to know the modelling framework they came up with as it does seem very advanced (Paul Miller of HiFi News was surprised at the good perceived results with his 802d).

Cheers
Orb

Orb said:

Which is why the Devialet team with their SAM solution looks very interesting as the primary purpose IMO is to get back motion control and reduce interraction from crossover/drivers/transducer (more so at low frequency and bass-mid transition).
Some have misunderstood SAM as being a correction solution for either room or speaker FR.
Question is how well does it work; I would love to know the modelling framework they came up with as it does seem very advanced (Paul Miller of HiFi News was surprised at the good perceived results with his 802d).

Cheers
Orb

Click to expand...

Is there a link to a page which explains the "SAM"? I had a look on the Devialet site but I couldn't find anything. Thanks.

theophile said:

Is there a link to a page which explains the "SAM"? I had a look on the Devialet site but I couldn't find anything. Thanks.

Click to expand...

I thought they may had already mentioned it on their website but the information out there (not their site) is rather sketchy to say the least; some of the parameters were mentioned by Paul Miller.
Devialet are usually pretty good with patents (read a few for theirs relating to the D-Premier in the past) but so far cannot find any patents pertaining to SAM.
The acronym stands for Speaker Active Matching.
However it may be more in beta at moment and why there is not too much information forthcoming as of yet.

Basically SAM requires a profile for each speaker (due the variables involved) for what seems I mentioned earlier and not to correct speaker FR or room.
So support is pretty restricted to whatever speakers Devialet decide to do, and/or speaker manufacturers that are happy to co-operate with Devialet.

Edit:
Just remembered more information and the solution will be presented-working at Munich '14 show.
Cheers
Orb

The article does contain a reference to Hirez and a criticism of vinyl:

"Open reel and cassette tape are gone, but vinyl is hanging on though it is very limiting for producing highest quality playback. Digital disc formats and digital streaming of high-definition content should by all rights become quality standards.

But the digital world also has produced lossy coding and the concept of "good enough"."