Thanks. WIll do...though the Crowns are holding and I have a source for new audio transformers for them.

unfortunatlely manufacturers arent looking for that niche customer, or you would be happy. i guarantee you though, if there was a high enough demand for this, someone would do it. im glad outlaw doesnt waste their time or money developing junk like this, so that they can stay in business and make products useful for the majority. while some may suffer, no one ever told you to get out there on the fringe, and as soon as something like this came out you would want to try something even more out there anyway...

you cant overlook the fact that companies are in business to make money first and foremost. we can make a tire that lasts a lifetime, but companies dont because they are interested in selling tires and making money; not putting out the perfect product. why do you think cadillacs cost so much and break down a lot?

if you want something badly enough and you know so much about doing it, then make one for yourself and sell more to the other guys out there who want it. it can be done, and surely you are the best person to do it, i believe in you.

the purist bi-amper would not like this approach anyway, because who wants an amp driving all of their speakers at one time putting out different power at the same time to different channels. they would prefer power pacs as to minimize the length of speaker cables to each speaker. those crazy canucks have been doing it for years and they even make a 60wts and a 120wts which is just what this topic called for. www.bryston.ca and tell them i sent ya.

Before continuing this discussion, I would like to say that I’m in favor of the open and polite discussion of ideas, even for respectful debate, but a “clash of personalities” or similar is not why I participate here.

Quite a few years ago, anyone who wanted more than stereo was a niche customer. Once surround started being common, anyone that wanted more than 5.1 was a niche customer. Features and capabilities that start out being ‘niche’ sometimes move to the mainstream if the marketing people think they can increase sales.

There are snake-oil extremes, and there are genuinely beneficial extremes. Having a driver connected directly to the amplifier is a benefit for many reasons and is not always extreme.

The B&W Nautilus with the tapering cones behind each driver utilizes a crossover preceding amplification and four channels of amplification are needed per loudspeaker. This loudspeaker is certainly an extreme case and requires a niche market – an exceptional loudspeaker priced like a car – but ±½dB from 25Hz on through 20KHz is an amazingly flat acoustic output curve achieved in part due to the active crossover and direct amp-to-driver connection.

I would not consider the Mackie HR824 to be an extreme niche product. This is a self-powered, true bi-amp loudspeaker showing good control of its drivers with an acoustic output that varies ±1.5dB from 39Hz on through 22.5KHz. Mackie sells thousands of these in the professional market. Even some in this forum use this speaker, or its siblings, in their HT. These are amazing speakers for their size. I would not be surprised to see this type of application end up being touted by marketers-to-the-masses in the not-to-distant future. A 990/7.1 system using this family of speakers would allow one to try out long balanced line-level cable runs instead of long speaker cables and have true bi-amp listening throughout the room.

Back to the marketing angle: balanced line-level cables were once considered only professional or niche, but are increasing in home usage, even if their use for short pre-amp out runs has a list of pros and cons that come up nearly even with unbalanced short runs.

In the Outlaw’s tradition of offering unique products at great value, it actually wouldn’t surprise me if Outlaw ventures into the ‘full-range’ loudspeaker market at some point with self-powered loudspeakers containing active crossovers and true bi-amp or tri-amp, direct-to-the-driver operation. (Hint: Scott, if you get to this point while my hearing is still good, count me in on beta testing!)

dude, i came so close to bringing up the nautilus,but thought it would fall on dead ears. they are a little out of reach for the average enthusiast!

Hey Painttoad, these are works of art... the kind of industrial design you may find in the Museum of Modern Art. These were developed by B&W as the Nautilus concept speaker, and while they are meant to be listened to, these are NOT the monitors B&W markets to studio clients who can pay any price. At $60,000+ they are expensive, but not beyond reach of any elite recording studio. These studios can afford anything that will make the product better, and ensure the artists’ confidence in the final recording. However, I have not had the pleasure of hearing Nautilus speakers.

The B&W monitors you find at Abbey Road Studios (and other equally prestigious studios) are the N801's and the N800's. These are not active bi-amped, but use the speakers' internal crossovers. What gives? If there is such a dramatic improvement inherent to an active bi-amp vs. a passive bi-amp scheme, you might reasonably conclude that B&W are snake oil salesmen, and that these sound engineers are pretenders. Those who believe this can stop reading now.

My inquiries to B&W have never contradicted the conceptual purity of a passive crossover scheme. However, as I understand, there are three principal reasons B&W is not currently advocating this approach:

1) Flexibility and convenience. (monitor placement, equipment and amplification types) “They know more people can use these units out of the box. Yes, that’s marketing to the dumb consumer too”.

2) The experience, time, and expense required to implement a successful and PREDICTABLE active crossover using the drivers and enclosures designed, developed and manufactured by B&W is beyond the ability of almost anyone. “They basically don’t trust you to do it well enough to meet, or meaningfully improve on their passive crossover design”.

3) and… The sonic penalties of using the passive crossovers developed by B&W for their drivers and cabinet enclosures are so negligible that points 1 & 2 above trump an active solution. “They like their passive crossover networks. And since they have demonstrated with the Nautilus Speaker that they can design and build an active crossover speaker, they believe they can evaluate the costs and benefits of each approach”.

So, if you have a great active crossover set-up, Fantastic. But, it must be done with equipment that is compatible, and with significant expertise. Personally, I do not have the level of confidence required to customize my speakers/system in this manner, and I believe there are much safer and productive alternatives to sonic nirvana. Yes… I own N803’s, and I passive bi-amp. To each his/her own.

Allan

thanks for that,i own 601s(602s on the list) i had my 601s passive bi-amped.the new arrangement did not allow this,but have since acquired 12/4 wire and will bi-amp again.i'm only dealing with 60x6 B&K amp,so it's not like i have gobs of power (the 1050 takes care of center/surround)

i noticed a huge difference in sound and stage,but will not get into that.

btw i use n805 jumpers instead of those cheesy straps when doing 'conventional' wiring.

I’m certainly not an advocate of anyone rushing into their speaker enclosures with cutters and a soldering iron. I will certainly be doing some electronic and acoustic measuring, testing and experimenting before going too far down the do-it-yourself active crossover road.

I have great respect for B&W. I didn’t notice that they had graphs of the frequency response of each type of loudspeaker, but I did note that they spec their passive crossover systems as ±3dB throughout the specified frequency range, while they spec the active crossover system at ±½dB. I view ±½dB variance in acoustic output as an amazing accomplishment. I also note that the much, much less expensive Mackie specs at ±1.5dB, or half the variance of the B&W passive crossover versions, even without all of B&W’s cutting edge advances in driver and enclosure technology. Of course this simple spec is not the end all and be all, and the B&W passive crossover systems outperform the Mackie’s in some other ways. A graph of the frequency response curve and other testing specs would tell us much more, but the overall variance spec does tell us something. In my thinking, moving to a direct-to-driver amplifier connection is a step forward regardless of what other technologies are incorporated.

Certainly the masses will be married to the passive crossover methodology until some mass marketers see a sales advantage in going the active route, have some modicum of success, and other mass marketers jump on the bandwagon to try and convince the masses of The Next New Thing which really isn't new, just not yet used with great fanfare. Even if this is many years off, or never happens, it should not discourage alternate thinking by manufacturers or careful adventures by hobbyists.

if only everybody went to B&W there would be less to explain.more to enjoy

Each speaker in the Nautilus line-up comes with a individually measured frequency response trace from 20Hz to 25kHz. The specs that B&W uses in their manuals and web site are for Frequency Range (-6dB low/high roll-off points), and Frequency Response (the ±3dB low/high threshold frequencies on the reference axis) which should also be interpreted as roll-off points for practical use.

While the traces are certainly not ruler flat between these extremes, the sound pressure variation is significantly less than 3dB within the speakers usable range. It should be emphasized that there are more significant characteristics of a speaker's voice that contribute to good or bad sound reproduction. These characteristics cannot be EQ'd out of a system, and deal with the accuracy, phase, and the degree to which the speaker can eliminate (never completely) unwanted sound (noise) generated by the drivers and enclosures. Off-axis response is also an important quality that is often overlooked by simple specifications. Not everyone can be at the sweet spot.

Respectfully,
Allan

we can all agree that b&w makes good speakers.

i would bet that outlaw would venture into speakers too, they do subs already!

i dont disagree with biamping passively (for more power) or actively (for more control).