DSP In Dynamo Subs & 11A/13A/15A Speakers

[ttocs]

The question popped into my head as to if the DSP is active always or only with certain settings active in ML subs and speakers.

With regards to the 11A, 13A, and 15A,
Does the stat panel ALWAYS receive a analog signal?
If ARC is turned off, is the signal going to the woofers analog or does it still pass through the DSP?

Same type of questions about the Dynamo subs.
If ARC is turned off, is the signal reaching the woofer analog?
I suspect that DSP is still involved with the subs because the controls for Phase, Crossover, etc are still active and are electronic. But, what if the DSP is defeated when the settings are configured a particular way?

I'm a curious fellow.

 

[JonFo]

No direct knowledge, but an educated guess would answer your questions as follows:

Stat panels ALWAYS get an analog signal from the input posts. That signal traverses the high-pass analog crossover, then through the step-up transformer before hitting the panel stators.

ARC on or off, the signal to the woofers is first sampled from the input posts, converted to a low-level analog signal, then goes through an A/D process into the DSP, where the low-pass crossover function is performed. Once the XO filters the signal, it is optionally further EQ'd by the results of the ARC run, or that step is bypassed (ARC off); the DSP also adjusts delays. Then, it goes through a D/A step and is fed to the woofer amp(s).

Subs are likely the same; as you note, phase and ARC are part of the signal path, even if an XO is not (LFE in). So DSP is in the path at all times. These days, with 24/48 (or 24/96) signal paths, it is transparent, especially at low frequencies.

 

[ttocs]

No direct knowledge, but an educated guess would answer your questions as follows:

Thanks JonFo!
Your answers seem logical and along the lines of how I was thinking it worked.

Thanks for your higher level of education in guessing!

There's so much DSP in our systems these days that I got to thinking about how many conversions there might be between source and driver.

 

[JonFo]

There's so much DSP in our systems these days that I got to thinking about how many conversions there might be between source and driver.

Yeah, in my rig all audio is digital to start with, so here is the chain,

digital audio -> Preamp (all processing is in the digital domain) -> Preamp D/A (typically @24/48 -> DriveRack XO input (A/D @24/96) ->Drive rack processing -> XO output (D/A @24/96) -> Amps (all analog) ->Speakers (no DSP, no analog XO either)

So in my case, only two passes: DADA, even though it's an ultra-complex system

My long-term goal is a Trinnov processor, so it's just D in and A out, with the Trinnov doing all the speaker crossovers.