Hard floor + speaker spikes. What's the deal?

[saif]

How do digtal speakers work?? Surely the sound is always going to be analogue. At some point there has to be a DAC and surely that has to be away from the vibration of the speaker or isolated.

Charlesr, please explain - I am intrigued.

I would have thought that, theoretically, you would want the best signals with no errors (solid state?) and one hardcore DAC built into your amp (or supplying the amp with v short cabling) then supplying the analogue signal to the speakers. I would have thought that would be the most direct signal to sound combo with least loss opportunity.

[kernow]

The meridian speakers have a powered amp and dac inside, but they aren't the same thing charles is on about.

I agree, the sound has to be converted from a digital signal into analogue eventually.

interesting talk about short signal paths, my cd player has a variable output so the need for a pre or integrated amp is negated, the variable output comes straight from the DAC into a power amp, nothing in between.

[mr_fantazmo]

The speakers crisp was talking about a fully digital speakers, the beolab 5's.

Words can't really describe how they sound, almost like a wall of sound hitting you.

I'd recommend anyone taking a few cd's into a B & O store and giving them a listen. Any salesperson would gladly spend some time demo ing them just as an excuse to play them.

Personally i have them on all the time as our shop is quite small and open.

[kernow]

hmm, B&O, no thanks, had some Beovox cx100's before, and while they were alright, .. well.. meh

[mr_fantazmo]

These ones cost ?11,000

[kernow]

Cost doesn't really mean that much when you're talking B&O

[EvilBoris]

As far as I can work out from those Beolab speakers is that they just offer the same functions that a decent amp/receiver will offer (automated EQ adjustment and room acoustic optimisation).

It might be very cool to have a 'digital' speaker but it isn't digital really is it? (because that is impossible), its just a normal speaker with some microchips and a microphone built in.
What next digital broccoli that tells you how long it needs to boil?

[Bada Bing!]

A lot of floorstanders come with little circular feet with pits in them that your spikes sit on. To be honest, even though my Tannoy's came with those things, I just put the spikes right onto the foor in the old house. You definitely need some form of isolation to stop booming, but spikes on the floor are fine, so long as you don't knock them over or bump them.

[charlesr]

It might be very cool to have a 'digital' speaker but it isn't digital really is it? (because that is impossible)

Wish I could find that article. It's not impossible. It's been done. It was just immensely expensive coming in at ?4m if I remember rightly. There was no moving cone. Just a vast array of clicky things.

[Bada Bing!]

I love to laugh at these AV mags when they "review" a piece of speaker cable on sound quality. I've gone from big fat and fancy silver coated speaker cable to ultra thin stuff from Richer Sounds to go under the carpets and the system sounds EXACTLY the same.

I believe in spending maybe £150-£250 per speaker to get to within 95% of the perfect sound quality. I'm not willing to spend 6 or 7k per speaker to get the other 5%. Although, if I ever come across a set of McLaren's at the right price I could drop that opinion.

[EvilBoris]

Wish I could find that article. It's not impossible. It's been done. It was just immensely expensive coming in at £4m if I remember rightly. There was no moving cone. Just a vast array of clicky things.

Surely the very definition of sound is a molecule vibrating, that can't be caused by something that isn't any form of energy surely?

[dataDave]

Surely the very definition of sound is a molecule vibrating, that can't be caused by something that isn't any form of energy surely?

The little clicky things make sound though right? Or they wouldn't be clicky.

[kernow]

surely it has to *eventually* be transformed into an analogue waveform, even by the clicks.

[Crisp_Rapper]

Personally i have them on all the time as our shop is quite small and open.

i have fallen head over heels in love with the lab 9s... truly. what a ****ing set of speakers those are! whereas the lab 5s are REALLY stupidly amazingly accurate and one for audiophiles, the lab 9s truly excel as a highly powerful 'music fan' speaker. they're not as accurate but holy **** does music come alive when played through them.

i was re-fitting the harrogate store again tonight and stayed behind to get finished, after i was done i played some more tunes and i have to say i prefer the lab9s to the 5s.....

it's purely down to the accuracy of the sound, the 5s give you what you're supposed to be hearing from mixing studio right to your ears. the 9s though sound like how you expect the music to hear and for that reason alone i adore them. that and they keep driving harder than the 5s!! i had the 5s drop out at around 88 but the 9s kept ****ing on going, it was terrifying.

[Charlie]

interesting talk about short signal paths, my cd player has a variable output so the need for a pre or integrated amp is negated, the variable output comes straight from the DAC into a power amp, nothing in between.

Makes sense sending the source signal through as few components as possible as they all colour the audio signal with their unique characteristics as it journeys to the speakers. What kind of setup do you have?

The speakers crisp was talking about a fully digital speakers, the beolab 5's.

Words can't really describe how they sound, almost like a wall of sound hitting you.

I'd recommend anyone taking a few cd's into a B & O store and giving them a listen. Any salesperson would gladly spend some time demo ing them just as an excuse to play them.

Personally i have them on all the time as our shop is quite small and open.

I'm sure they sound pretty good but I'm one of those who favours an analogue sound over a digital sound. Both have their strengths and weaknesses; analogue is warm, rich, and full of soul but lacks absolute clarity while digital is crystal clear, provides better resolution but too often sounds rather cold and sterile. I upgraded (or downgraded - depending on your view) the DAC chip in my CD player from a Philips 24bit chip to a Philips 16bit chip and it sounded much better. Indeed analogue is undergoing something of a revival and it's increasingly common to see old 16bit DAC chips go for hundreds of pounds while their 24bit modern-day counterparts can be picked up brand new for ten, twenty, thirty pounds. At the end of the day though it's horses for courses and you take you pick and pays your money.