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In the Forum: Audio For Dummies ™
In the Thread: A DSET is better then an expensive SET
Post Subject: DSET, a DIY venturePosted by drdna on: 9/24/2007
It was not so long ago that the Super Milq was a twinkle in Romy's eye,and now it has come to the point he is a strong proponent of DSET (not to be confused with DH-SET). I am always a big believer in the power of topology. I was thinking about this a bit:
The DSET approach may be better inherently since each SET can be optimized for each speaker, but it is necessarily a DIY job and it is dedicated to a specific speaker/frequency range. If this changes, the amplifier must change, which might be too labor-intensive for some people.
The DSET has advantages. It is more flexible; it allows for moving the crossover filters freely to any point in the circuit. But what is the best point. We have all heard the buzzwords that it is better to use passive devices OR it is better to filter with line level currents OR it is better to not expose the amplifiers to wide frequency range and "congest" them. However, one must also consider this: the crossover circuit by its nature alters the musical information like a horrible sieve, there is bound to be some loss in the desired information as well. (This is the same concept as why SET circuits have different sound than a push-pull or differential circuit, in a different way).
The altered topology of DSET has the potential to have disadvantages. There is increased overall system complexity and this often seems to be a negative. Beyond this, it is difficult to expound, for me, on the specific differences because, well is it meaningful? The way to reflect on this is to listen comparatively to SET and DSET and observe the differences and correlate this to the toplogical changes. The difficulty is that when one has the DSET the urge is NOT to live with the system as is, but to begin to modify and "optimize" each frequency range, so that it becomes impossible to make a real comparison.
To this end, I would suggest to ROMY that he keep all the parameters the same from DSET as with the original SET setup and then live with the system for a period of time to make a true comparison between the two. Only in this way can one hope to assess the topological differences' effect on the sound. It would be nice to do this experiment, since he is in a position to do so.
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