50.8?
Thomas Holman (THX) claims that anything more than 20.2 is diminishing returns. Most people are happy with 5.1, but with the new formats of 7.1 via Dolby True HD and DTS HD Master Audio superior formats can be enjoyed.
What the heck is this? Is it really worth it? How do you get there?
SO WHAT DOES HD AUDIO Mean?
From the Dolby and DTS websites we have the following definitions:
“Dolby TrueHD Benefits
Produces 100 percent lossless audio that is identical to the studio master
Takes full advantage of Blu-ray Disc capabilities, with 7.1-channel playback
Offers the ability to support more than 16 channels of audio
Makes connecting your home theater easy, with a single-cable HDMI™ audio and video digital connection“
“DTS-HD Master Audio provides lossless audio that matches, bit-to-bit, the original movie's studio master soundtrack and is fully backward-compatible with all DTS decoders.”
Standard 7.1 speaker layout
Standard 5.1 speaker layout
Standard 7.1 Rear Surround speaker layout
It is already a little confusing with the discrepancy of the layouts from the pictures but what DTS is
trying to describe is different scenarios for speaker placement. As if consumers aren’t already
confused enough, I say we stick to one standard.
As you may know from my previous P Thump Blogs, we have a new Palladium Theater room. We are currently
running it off a simple receiver to prove that you can get stellar audio performance at beer barrel
prices…well the speakers are a kajillion dollars but the electronics are approachable for the average
consumer. You can get compelling 7.1 audio from any Klipsch system so don’t fret. But converting your
current multichannel system to from 5 to 7 channel can be a challenge with out spending some coin on new
electronics.
I currently have a 9.2 setup in my home theater, but the electronics are piecemeal separates from
Klipsch employee sales and 5.1 channel receivers. I want to keep things discrete to have the ultimate
control of the signal chain but decoding in new formats, such as the 7.1 formats, requires me to upgrade
my electronics.
Cost effective decoding…
I am a bit of a tight wad when it comes to certain things and an overachiever when it comes to others.
I can understand spending a lot of money on loudspeakers. Steel and Magnets cost money and you can’t
easily cheat this equation. Thus I think big motors and lots of them is the only way to get that
maximum horsepower. Spending more money on Klipsch speakers can save you 90% in amp power requirements
because the speakers are so efficient. So I go big when it comes to loudspeakers.
Electronics are another issue.
DTS has recommendation as follows for hooking up your DTS HD Master Audio
"1. Your high-def TV, high-def DVD player, and AV receiver all have HDMI connections.
This is the best possible scenario. Do this: Using an HDMI cable, connect your Blu-ray Disc or HD DVD player’s HDMI output to the AV receiver’s HDMI input. Then, connect the receiver’s HDMI video output to your high-def TV. The receiver processes the HD audio signal and passes it to your speakers; it also processes the HD video signal and passes it to your high-def TV. Simple, all digital, no loss in quality, and you get true high-definition audio and video. Plus, because HDMI allows communication between components, the audio and video “move together” when you change sources with your receiver’s remote. Note: your AV receiver must be able to process very high-quality video signals.
2. Your high-def TV and high-def DVD player have HDMI; your AV receiver doesn’t.
Use a HDMI connection between TV and player, for full high-definition video. Then, use a coaxial digital audio connection between player and receiver. Remember: because movies and music with DTS-HD encoded content contain a DTS Digital Surround “core”, your older receiver will play back DTS-HD material with DTS surround audio at twice the data rate of other DVD video surround formats. So, you’re still going to get higher quality sound than you’re used to hearing.
3. Your high-def DVD player and your AV receiver have HDMI; your hi-def TV doesn’t.
For high-definition audio, connect your player’s HDMI output to your AV receiver’s HDMI input. For the video hook-up, use a Component Video connection between your player and your hi-def TV. You will get regular high-definition video (1080i/720p) with this connection, which is excellent but not quite as good as full high-definition (1080p)."
Considering the options that I have on a limited budget this is what I am considering...
1.DVD Decode
This is a cheap solution because the practically give the decoder away with the Blue Ray player. I have
a Sony player that has a decoder with 8 analog channels out. But now I won’t have an easy solution for a
common volume control if you are using more than one preamp or receiver.
2.Cheap Receiver to Decode
This may be a good solution but for me I already have several good receivers that will yield 100 watts
per channel. Without spending bigger money this may be a compromise.
3.Aragon and updates
There was a rumor that I can use a DB 25 to RCA cable to send the Decoded Audio to the Stage One. This
system give the impression of 7 channels because it will decode Dolby EX. Ignore that fact that this
format has a mono set of rears that are matricides of RS/LS. In talking with Rick Santiago from Indy
Audio Labs, he indicated that there would not be an upgrade for the Stage One to do HDMI and TrueHD
Audio but there most likely were limitations to decoding from the Blue Ray. This would depend on the
particular player. He also has a model number from Whirlwind for a DB-25 to RCA breakout cable. Here
are his comments...
"The DB-25 to RCA that allows a Stage One to take full advantage of a 7.1 decoder-equipped player is
custom-made for Indy Audio Labs by Whirlwind Cable and is available exclusively through Full Compass.
The part number to reference when ordering is: 061609-004-DG. We’re directing our customers to go that
route to experience the latest HD audio formats with a Stage One (or ACT-3 or SoundStage with the Stage
One-level internal upgrades). Customers can contact Full Compass directly or call Indy Audio Labs with
any additional questions."
Indy Audio is planning on some new announcements in the fall for products. We at Klipsch wish them ALL
the best!
I can't even imagine how consumers are doing with considerations of Blue Ray formats. Most are probably
still struggling to understand what Prologic is and why their rear speakers don't make sound all the
time. It is hard enough for an engineer to understand the logical steps for upgrading their theater
systems. But in the end,(0r at least in the next 5 years), people will be plugging their newly bought
integrated systems with HDMI cables and letting the system do the rest. Now if only they had robots for
the placement of speakers...Forget about WAF!!!
Thanks to Falcon20X for the cool picture at the front of this blog!
In this final installment of the Palladium crossover design I will get into the thick of it, the final touches and delicate nuances of equalization to give you that satiny smooth shimmer from a speaker system with ultra flat response.
In the picture of the crossover you can see many large components on this board. This is only one of two boards on the P-39 crossover. No expense was spared in the deliberate design of this crossover. If you look closely you can see that all the components are very high quality components, with thick wire, fat caps, and premium ceramic resisters. The coils are all air core, which means that saturation issues are minimized. The caps are very high power at 250 Volts. The resisters are elevated off the PCB to improve the thermal transfer to air. All of these characteristics are determined to improve the linearity of the acoustic response at high power.
In the schematic for the circuit you can observe the simple topology. It is simple because the tweeter and horn mate together eloquently and require very little massaging to line up with the rest of the system. In a perfect world you would not even have a crossover other than for power protection at the frequencies it was not intended. That is basically what you have here. The super-tweeter was designed specifically for this system thus there is nothing to fix. While most Hi-Fi speaker companies are forced to buy off the shelf components, Klipsch customizes every component for their need. Not only is this a compression driver with high efficiency it is also a “super” tweeter with output to 30 kHz. In horn loaded systems it is difficult to get flat responses. The trade off is high SPL and lower distortion, but in this tweeter there are no trade offs since the response is very smooth and requires not equalization. In this schematic there is a third order high pass filter with a pad to attenuate the level. Simple…Pure…Magic!
In the low frequency section I have left out the cascade network because it is redundant and I am running out of paper to show you. But what you have is two different low pass 2nd order networks set at different frequencies which we call a cascade network. Why two LP systems? The strategy is to match the area of the radiating surfaces to blend the propagating wave fronts in a balanced way. In other words, if you have two areas such as a mid bass horn and a woofer cone with equal area, their influence on the summation at the crossover region will be equal thus the energy will be equal in the room as the spectrum of sound move up in frequency. This will give you equal Q values so that equal energy is loaded into the room. If this rule was not applied you would have additional sound shooting up or down but would not be measured on axis. You could hear this additional energy in the room from the reflections on the floor or ceiling but it would not show up in the frequency response on axis. This is something most people ignore if they are following the polar directivity of a system. This measurement requires an anechoic chamber large enough to have the microphone.
The filter depicted is a second order with an additional EQ to add a shelf to the upper woofer so that the phase summation is complete. This network sums with the midrange.
There is a general rule that I use in designing acoustic loudspeakers…“Get the vocal region right!” It is crucial to get the midrange right because the vocals fall into this region. Everyone was birthed by their mother. Well unless you were a test tube baby 
but the point of the matter is that we all know what a female voice sounds like. It was the first thing we ever hear and hopefully it was the thing we paid the most attention to growing up. This inherent trait defines how we react to the midrange. Our ear is tuned to the upper tones of the female voice, so one must never ignore the importance of this region of tones.
The heart of the P-39F system is the midrange. This defines the uniqueness of this product more than any other area. Few if any of our competitors have a higher sensitivity in the midrange than our palladium floor standers and center channel and that is what sets us apart from the rest. When you listen to the Palladiums it will be the first thing you notice after the great looks, transparent vocals that are effortless, because the distortion is so much lower than anything else you have ever heard. On top of this we have adjusted the response to be ultra smooth so nothing honks or barks at you. This is why there are so many components in the midrange.
The eloquent design of the midrange can be broken down into regions which I have denoted in the picture of the schematic. This may not be straight forward for the novice crossover designer so let me break it down further and show you the response with and without that particular node.
In part II we revealed the basic function of a band pass filter above. There is the resistor pad “R”, the HP filter “C” and the LP filter “Z” (which is a wire wound inductor). The symbols are superimposed on the graph to denote the filter effect.
I will now go backwards in development of the finished midrange design showing the output response. The graph above shows the effects of the Z2 LCR node (resistor R47, inductor L 25 and the capacitor C19). This is a tuned notch filter. The frequency is centered for the L and C and the resistor resist a total short to ground. If indeed there was no resistance in this node the impedance of the system would drop to zero, because the circuit is shorted to ground at that tuned frequency, thus the resistor inserted to increase the system impedance. Notice how Z2 pulls out the spike at 5 kHz. This allows the response to be well behaved when converging with the tweeter circuit.
Z2 and Z1 are now deleted from the circuit to show changes from these nodes. Z1 is a similar tuned circuit at 400 Hz which allows the same smooth transition into the woofer circuit.
C18 is now considered in this parallel trap. R44 is the resistor that is attenuating the midrange but when we include the C18 cap we create a short or bypass around the R44 attenuator. At this point we see a high pass filter centered at around 1300 Hz. We can consider this a HP EQ.
Inductor L24 is now considered in the circuit above. This device is the sister to C18 in the fact that it is a low frequency bypass instead of a high frequency bypass. The response again is elevated in this LP region creating the effect of the final haystack shown.
The response above demonstrates how each section of the Palladium P-39F work together. We call it a
“crossover” or Xover because the separate filtered section create an “X” when the slopes crossover.
The summation of all sources is plotted in red, the green is LF, Blue is midrange, yellow is HF and the
black curve is the system impedance curve. Since each of the sections are in phase with one another we
show total acoustic summation. If one were to reverse the polarity of one section you would see a deep
valley in between sources due to the lack of summation equal to the slopes of the filters.
The Palladium midrange is a major achievement in the book of audio. Check it out at our listed dealers.
Today we are going to dig deeper into the design theory and process for the Palladium P-39F crossover.
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If you were to study Electronics 101 which would go over simple filter design you would find that there are three primary components for passive crossovers; Resistors, Inductors and Capacitors.
Resisters perform similar to their term; the resist electrical current.
Inductors according to Wikipedia… “An inductor or a reactor is a passive electrical component that can store energy in a magnetic field created by the electric current passing through it. An inductor's ability to store magnetic energy is measured by its inductance, in units of henries. Typically an inductor is a conducting wire shaped as a coil, the loops helping to create a strong magnetic field inside the coil due to Faraday's law of induction. Inductors are one of the basic electronic components used in electronics where current and voltage change with time, due to the ability of inductors to delay and reshape alternating currents.”
Capacitor according to Wiki…“A capacitor or condenser is a passive electronic component consisting of a pair of conductors separated by a dielectric. When a voltage potential difference exists between the conductors, an electric field is present in the dielectric. This field stores energy and produces a mechanical force between the plates…
An ideal capacitor is characterized by a single constant value, capacitance, which is measured in farads. This is the ratio of the electric charge on each conductor to the potential difference between them…
The properties of capacitors in a circuit may determine the resonant frequency…”
In the first schematic to the right you can see a high pass filter. This filter allows higher frequencies to pass through the crossover without attenuation due to the use of a capacitor (C). The resistor (R) is included to attenuate this section for purposes of equalization. You can see in the response curve that the light blue “raw” curve is transposed to the dark blue curve after the crossover filter is inserted in the circuit. This design helps protect the drive component by limiting the exposure to low frequency power. In this case it minimizes the excursion of the diaphragm due to the low frequency.
In the left schematic you can see a low pass filter. This filter allows lower frequencies to pass through the crossover with little attenuation due to the inductor (Z or L). You can see the effects of the crossover in the graph. The higher frequencies are reduced, and the sharp resonant peak is greatly reduced to an insignificant level.
Setting the value of both the C’s and Z will tune the crossover to the specific needs of the driver to yield a flat frequency response.
The schematic above shows all three types of components…R, C and Z. This circuit is considered a band pass filter because it allows a midrange bandwidth of frequencies to be passed to the midrange driver. By setting the Z value to the top of the filter range and the C to the bottom we can create the optimum band pass filter.
This next graph shows the schematic for a P-39F with all values listed. Multiple components or poles are used to give more extreme filtration to their intended drivers. This allows for minimal interference or cancellation between drivers in the “crossover” regions.
You cans see the prescribed poles or orders to each section of the crossover. There is also a fourth filter set for cascading LF woofers which is not depicted.
We will break this down further in the next installment of the "Art of Palladium" blog.