sleach Posted June 15, 2014 Posted June 15, 2014 (edited) Hello, I am embarking on a project to see if I can improve the amplification of my speakers. Any advice would be very welcome: I will try and keep an open mind! I bought a pair of Martion Bullfrog speakers. These are "active" in the sense that they came with a modified amplifier and a minidsp. The minidsp is acting as ad/da crossover and eq. The amplifier is a monacor stageline sta1000 offering 350wpc for the 15"woofers and it has been modified to add two 10w amps for the 1" horn loaded compression driver tweeters. I think the amplification could be better, and I am sure the dac could be better. I play all my music from a Mac mini using puremusic. There are two options I will be trying: first using the puremusic crossover and a multichannel dac. I have a lynx hilo I will use to try this. The other option is a minidsp nanodigi into two dacs. On hand I have an Arcam irdac, the hilo and a "dangerous music source". For the amps I am going to try a pair of ncore monos for the bass. Not sure what to use for the treble yet. Maybe some valves. I have an old audio space mini 1998. Or maybe a nice class A SS amp. Maybe a Bakoon or a 2nd hand firstwatt if I can find one. Something like that. Or can I use a higher powered amp with a preamp? So, as I say, advice and comments would be most welcome! Thanks Sam If all fails I can still use the original gear that shipped with the speakers, having lost only hard earned money and precious time! Sent from my iphone Edited June 15, 2014 by sleach
WarwickF Posted June 15, 2014 Posted June 15, 2014 Hi Sam There is scope for improvement if you want to spend the money but I think it will be an expensive exercise. The standard amplification supplied comprises the Stageline amp for the bass and two 10 watt "Pure Class A" amplifiers for the treble. N-Core for the bass would be a good choice and if you want to improve on the MiniDSP I think DEQX would be worth investigating. Good luck with the journey. I would love to hear the result when you are finished. Warwick
sleach Posted June 15, 2014 Author Posted June 15, 2014 I certainly will, Warwick! Since I remodeled my room I feel I have a glimpse of what these speakers might be capable of! I'll try and keep expenses down, but I have to find out! Sent from my iphone
WarwickF Posted June 15, 2014 Posted June 15, 2014 Why not, the journey is half the fun. Keeping the cost under control will be a challenge.
djb Posted June 16, 2014 Posted June 16, 2014 Climate change is endangering many frog species Bi amping them seems cruel and unnecessary
sleach Posted June 16, 2014 Author Posted June 16, 2014 Twice the croak means more mating opportunities! Also they don't have crossovers... Sent from my iphone
sleach Posted June 16, 2014 Author Posted June 16, 2014 Swamped with puns. No flies on you guys. Sent from my iphone
sleach Posted February 20, 2024 Author Posted February 20, 2024 After many years I have managed to get these speakers back! I'm still interested in possibilities to update the front end. The crossover and DAC is currently a minidsp 4x10hd. The amp is a img sta1000 for the bass, 2x10w class A amp boards for the treble. Frontend: I'm thinking of using a minidsp flex digital or shd studio for the crossover and dsp, okto research for the dac. Or, audiolense or camilla in a pc then okto dac. Amplification: i have a pair of march p501 that could be great for the bass. Thinking of hypex nc52 for treble, or the class a amps selected by Martion himself. Or: a just pair of hypex 503, bridged for the bass. Just thinking.... 1
andyr Posted February 20, 2024 Posted February 20, 2024 11 minutes ago, sleach said: After many years I have managed to get these speakers back! Congratulations! 11 minutes ago, sleach said: The crossover and DAC is currently a minidsp 4x10hd. At the risk of teaching you how to suck eggs ... you do realise that, with the 4x10hd providing the (external) XOs, you need to remove the passive XOs inside the cabinets? 11 minutes ago, sleach said: Frontend: I'm thinking of using a minidsp flex digital or shd studio for the crossover and dsp, okto research for the dac. Or, audiolense or camilla in a pc then okto dac. That should be quite a step up from the 4x10hd! 11 minutes ago, sleach said: Amplification: i have a pair of march p501 that could be great for the bass. Thinking of hypex nc52 for treble, or the class a amps selected by Martion himself. p501s should be great for the bass; having moved from Class AB to Class A myself ... I would suggest Class A for the tweeters would sound much better than Class D. (The only exception to this might be the new low power, low distortion Class D amps which Allan is planning on bringing out.) 1
sleach Posted February 20, 2024 Author Posted February 20, 2024 8 minutes ago, andyr said: you need to remove the passive XOs inside the cabinets? Thanks, there are no passive crossovers in these speakers, they were originally sold as "active monitors" with crossover in a dbx driverack. Someone later has swapped the dbx for minidsp. 10 minutes ago, andyr said: The only exception to this might be the new low power, low distortion Class D amps which Allan is planning on bringing out I didn’t know about that, but it sounds like exactly the sort of thing I'd be after! Any more info about this?
andyr Posted February 20, 2024 Posted February 20, 2024 16 minutes ago, sleach said: Thanks, there are no passive crossovers in these speakers, they were originally sold as "active monitors" with crossover in a dbx driverack. Aah, OK. 16 minutes ago, sleach said: I didn’t know about that, but it sounds like exactly the sort of thing I'd be after! Any more info about this? You will need to contact Allan March. ( @March Audio ) 1
sleach Posted February 20, 2024 Author Posted February 20, 2024 8 minutes ago, andyr said: You will need to contact Allan March Ive just contacted him via the forum on his site, I'll report back what he says 1
Steff Posted February 20, 2024 Posted February 20, 2024 FWIW, as I understand it the relatively low number of "taps" on the miniDSP means that your control is not very fine-grained (about 47hz per tap iirc) while your computer can probably run closer to 1hz per tap. @Keith_W can speak more to that Perhaps there's no need for extra amplification once you have implemented DSP via audiolens or camilla? 10w class a for the tweeter seems more than ample... 1
sleach Posted February 21, 2024 Author Posted February 21, 2024 1 hour ago, Steff said: the miniDSP means that your control is not very fine-grained (about 47hz per tap iirc) while your computer can probably run closer to 1hz per tap I had a good chat with @frednorkthe other day about the possibilities of audiolens so that is definitely something I'll be investigating. I've also sent a query to Basil Martion himself to see if he has any recommendations 2
sleach Posted February 24, 2024 Author Posted February 24, 2024 On 21/02/2024 at 10:09 AM, andyr said: You will need to contact Allan March Ive heard from Alan, he says "Yes it's in progress, but we're are concentrating on finishing off our new flagship power amp pre amp. Both to be ready for the Sydney hifi show in April. As such the low power amp won't be ready for a few months. It will be around 15 watts but importantly extremely low noise and distortion aimed at very high sensitivity speakers."
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