DRC with a fine speaker

Abstract: Has all loudspeakers equal need for DRC?

My first DRC attempt was with my laptops built in speakers (perhaps a 2$ installation however labelled “Bang & Olufsen” 😉 ) and the improvement was huge!

But how good was it in absolute terms? Not all that good, the bass was VERY limited and weak, as was the power to play loud.

My next try was my new Klipsch Palladiums.

As my normal listening room was occupied with my old speakers (modified Altec Valencia´s with Tangerine phase plugs and JBL-075s). I opted for our guest room, much too small and not with good acoustic properties. Something had to give? The decision was to set up the listening position near field, to minimize the influence of the less than optimal room. The speakers were set 130 cm apart and the listening position 100 cm in front of them, where the toe in axis of the speakers met.

The amp used was an old spare, a Sony DA50ES of about twenty years of age, however the Sony ES line was always well constructed, so no problems expected there.

The measurements before filters are listed below in white and with filters in green.

Palladium P37F near field frequency response avg of 8 mic positions
Palladium P37F nearfield impulse response avg of 8 mic positions

As You can see the average mesurements in 8 microphone points some 15 cm apart is about +- 5dB from 30 to 22k Hz and the ringing of the impulse, is not much different after the initial “down spike” wich ideally should be zero of course. So not so much correction made by DRC here.

When compared to my first tests – my Laptop built-in speakers, with its huge filter corrections – You would expect a much lesser improvement of the Palladiums by the DRC, than with the laptop.

Laptop built in speakers impulse response
Laptop built in speakers frequency response

The listening tests confirmed that. The impulse response of the laptop, points to severe phase problems apart from the ringing. That the DRC filters took good care of. Whereas the impulse response from the Palladiums, reveals a well-behaved system, with both phase and ringing. Actually so good that the difference hardly could be heard. The stereo imaging was the exception, with noticeable sharper placement of voices and instruments, with the DRC filters.

Conclusion: Better loudspeakers benefits less from DRC than worse ones.

16 Replies to “DRC with a fine speaker”

  1. Do you mind if I quote a few of your posts as long as I provide credit and
    sources back to your website? My blog is in the exact same area of interest as
    yours and my visitors would genuinely benefit from some of the information you
    present here. Please let me know if this alright with you.
    Regards!

  2. Hey very cool website!! Man .. Beautiful ..
    Superb .. I will bookmark your website and take the feeds additionally?
    I’m satisfied to search out so many helpful info right here within the submit, we need work out more techniques on this regard, thank you for sharing.
    . . . . .

  3. It’s a pity you don’t have a donate button! I’d certainly donate to this outstanding blog!
    I guess for now i’ll settle for bookmarking and adding your RSS
    feed to my Google account. I look forward to new updates and will share this website with my Facebook group.

    Talk soon!

  4. I like it! Interesting information over this website. It’s pretty worth enough for me. In my view, if all site owners and bloggers made good content as you did, the internet will be much more useful than ever before.| I couldn’t resist commenting. I have spent 3 hours looking for such infos. I’ll also share it with some friends interested in it. I have just bookmarked this website. Right now with the job done, I going to enjoy some online gay cams. Thank you!!Greetings from Monterrey!

  5. Hi, I do believe this is an excellent blog. I stumbledupon it 😉 I am going tto
    revisit once again since i have book marked it. Money aand freedom is the
    greatest wway to change, may you be rich and
    continue too help other people.

  6. Excellent blog here! Also your website loads up fast! What web host are you using?
    Can I geet your affiliate link to your host?
    I wish my website loaded up as quickly as yours lol

  7. It’s a shame you don’t have a donate button! I’d certainly donate to this outstanding blog! I suppose for now i’ll settle for book-marking and adding your RSS feed to my Google account. I look forward to new updates and will share this website with my Facebook group. Talk soon!

  8. Excellent article! If You think about it, worse technology has more to gain on improvements than already refined.

  9. Amazing! Why spend small fortunes on HiFi eqp? When the effect quickly gets very marginal. Are we looking for better sound or just status?

    I will be following this blog closely to see how I can get big improvements for small money on my cheaper eqp in the kids rooms, the kitchen and the summer cottage using DRC, rather than marginal improvements for big money, without it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.