(2015-07-22, 22:25)negge Wrote: I would guess that for every 100 home theaters that use passive speakers and an AVR there's one or two that use active speakers. These would still use a preamp which does the same signal processing job as a normal AVR would do.
Since this thread was started there's been work done on a DSP subsystem and it has even been merged into master recently. This means that features such as this can actually be implemented. With a little bit of luck and motivation it might even be there when the next Kodi release is out!
Thanks for the info!
I've never seen a Hi-fi type amp, receiver or pre-amp that has a compressor / limiter built in unless they were very high end. I guess this feature became common some time after the year 2000?
I don't understand why you believe active speakers would be plugged into a preamp. While you *could* use one, if the signal source is exceptionally weak, causing a noisy signal unrelated to ground loops, its generally better to avoid additional circuitry between source and destination.
Some active speaker back panels:
Yamaha DSR 112 back panel (high end preamp with DSP built in)
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Yamaha DXR 8 back panel (good preamp with DSP built in)
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KRK V8 back panel
.
True, I'm not talking about the bargain basement bins at the local consumer electronics discounter or the trash that's being sold as "active computer speakers."
But certainly, cheap active computer speakers also don't get plugged into separate preamps. Or do you know anybody who buys $79 speakers and then spends multiples of that on a fancy preamp?
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EDIT: Ok, since I was so puzzled about compressor / limiter getting "built into every receiver" / pre-amp / amp, I went to look around on Amazon, which usually has fairly detailed information on their electronics. The entire Yamaha line of receivers lists no compressor / limiter feature. didn't find anything for Onkyo either.
Are you sure we're talking about the same thing?
Limiter: prevents peaks in the signal to go over a certain threshold, according to manufacturer preset (speakers) or your settings.
Compressor: compresses the overall signal range (dynamic) by raising low volume levels and reducing high volume levels, so that all audio stays within a more or less narrow band of volume according to your settings.
Even now, a decent compressor / limiter is not cheap to buy. If anything, I would have expected Yamaha to include it, since they do like to make use of their extensive DSP R&D and resulting silicon. It would probably cost them less to include than other companies.