I have always had a fetish for active speakers, more so where we can play with crossover assignment for each driver.
The other reason for the benefit of active speakers is that one does not have to bother about amplifier matching, keep the signal path shortest and also avoid clutter.
However for most audiophiles though, it can be a caveat as they often like to play around with individual components in an attempt to achieve their intended sound out of the speakers.
That said in Jan 1019, I read this thread for the first time and caught up with Raghu
@liverpool_for_life .
At that time I was running a full 4-way active setup in my car with ALLO amplifiers and a regular 2-channel setup at home integrated with a subwoofer (which I still continue to have).
So I was privy to the benefits of both active and passive setups.
Additionally a month or so back in late 2018, I had auditioned a full active ATC 7.1 setup at Cinema Focus costing I think around a 1.5 crores, inclusive of receivers and processors in a dedicated fully treated room.
The movie experience was phenomenal to say the least, but the same setup was dull and insipid for music.
He also had a semi-treated room for 2-channel music, but was running passive ATCs there.
Coming back to Jan 2019, I was intrigued with the Seatons that Raghu (
@liverpool_for_life ) had setup at home and was soon knocking on his door for audition.
Listening Environment:
The room is big (around 24x16x10) and is almost a divider for his house. On the right side from where you face the speakers, there is a concrete wall that opens into two rooms and on the left to a balcony in the first half and a drawing room on the rear half.
The back wall has a window in the middle.
The Beginning of his journey
After setting up the behemoth Seaton speakers I think somewhere in late 2017 or mid 2018, Raghu (
@liverpool_for_life ) had realized that he needed professional intervention to do acoustic corrections albeit the digital correction provided by the receiver to get the best out of the setup.
He engaged a well-acclaimed professional, and then started his long journey to treat the room and improve the sound.
When I visited him in Jan-2019, he had done substantial treatment with diffusers on the front wall (the wall behind the listening position) and had blocked the opening to the drawing room with a heavy door.
The rear/back wall (wall behind the speakers), ceiling and the side walls were still bland and there was not much furniture was in the room
When conversing with him in the room, I realized that the room was very alive, reflective and echoey even to the simple clap test, mainly due to lack of enough furniture and multitude of reflective surfaces, especially the back wall which had to douse the rear waves from 3 speakers and two 18 inch subs.
We started with 2-channel music and as I had expected, the sound was diffused and extremely veiled and devoid of details, especially the subtle ones as they got diffused in the reflections. This is bound to happen in a large room which essentially behaves like an enclosure by itself.
But the setup performed quite well for movies and the subs were a revelation. The movie experience made me realize the potential of this setup for 2-channel music also after Raghu went about completed treating the room.
The current scene
2 or 3 months back we caught up again on the phone as he was intending to invest in Digione Signature and sought some opinion as I use it as my primary source. He had also visited home once during that time and detailed to me about many changes he had brought about.
In the last few days as he has mentioned, I built some cables for him and visited him again yesterday to help install the new cables.
Between 2019 and 2021, interspersed with the Covid issues, he has finally got close to finishing the room where he has now added panels on the ceiling and the back wall, a carpet and one line of very comfortable sofas to give it a theater look and which are positioned at the best spot in the room with minimal phase cancellation.
On the hardware side, he has added Atmos speakers and two subs in the rear and upgraded his processors, projector and screen.
While conversing, the room appeared much much quieter signifying the efficiency in the room treatments undertaken,
As laying the new cables took quite a bit of our time, I could only spend a short time to listen. We had moved the speakers a bit to lay the cables so they were not in the most optimum position.
I just listened to 4 or 5 songs from a PC enabled software vide streaming which for me is not the best source.
But that was the best we could do in that short time.
The music that flowed out from the two speakers vindicated the effort and the impact of the acoustic corrections.
But it was still lacking in some details and a bit shrouded in tonality. Mid way through the 1st song, I realized some DSP was in effect, and I asked Raghu to defeat all his DSP and digital equalization that had been run through the Anthem correction software.
The music immediately opened up and the details started to come out with much better layering.
I could push up the volume a couple of notch up and the music held up brilliantly.
Overall the image, stage width and height are very well achieved. I will not yet talk about the bass part as we had no time to tune-in the sub, but I know these are fantastic subs and Mark of Seaton is known for his subwoofer build expertise.
For me moving from the 2-channel sound I heard from the same setup in Jan 2019 to yesterday was absolutely immediate and is not even worth comparing on a positive note
The midrange tonality just needs a bit of tune in to my ears in the short time I heardw.
But I would be hearing it again when all the work is finished and from a better source like the Digione Signature that he has and also to some great movie experience.
Overall, a remarkable and admirable achievement by ( @liverpool_for_life ) that defines a hallmark of patience and belief in the equipment.
In a nutshell, in a world where we keep on changing equipment even after buying after research and auditions, it vindicates if we address issues that lie out of the scope of the equipment like the room rather than changing gears endlessly.
With regard to 2-channel music, I am in the school of though that acoustic correction is a more appropriate approach over digital correction as the play is only with 2 speakers. I don’t like to tinker with the purity of the signal at source through DSP, especially after investing in good source, DAC, pre and amp etc.
My premise is that digital correction should be minimalistic at the most.
The ballgame is totally different with regard to home theater that incorporates multiple channels in the source itself.
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