Well, there I was, thinking. Scary things tend to result from this. Anyway, I made a diagram of my idea. This is just a rough idea, and you would have to worry about -Possible A>D conversion for the input -Quality of the amps on the reciever -Quality of the DAC on the reciever -Varying sensitivities on the drivers But, if you ,instead of using SPDIF, find a way to get the soundcard to output the separate channels, and have a quality multi-channel card, probably the Revo 7.1 or one of those M-audio Delta things with several channel I/O, then use six discrete amps or three stereo amps, and adjust them to balance out the spectrum, it might be a promising idea.
Wait, so the goal is to upmix your 2ch source into that... looks like 6.1 setup? Hmm... looks a little too complicated. I like to just turn on ProLogicII
what your doing is removing the cross over from the speakers. now couple of things here... dont do it this way. get an external crossover that you can either make yourself or adjust yourself because every speaker will have a different range as to where it splits the freq. you dont want to take an analogue source make it digital then back to analogue again and lastly using a 7.1 amp wouldn't be a good idea either. should really be - signal coming out of a preamp into an active crossover then into 3 pairs of stereo amps. its also not a new idea. naim, linn to mention just two have been doing it since the 80's im afraid. http://www.naim-audio.com/products/intro_crossover.html oh and if you want to push it to the next level think about using mono blocks. thats 6 amps for 2 speakers. no cross channel talk at all and all the benefits of active crossovers
Well, since I've already got a thread up - How do you feel about mass market (the higher end stuff, like Infinity) speakers in comparison to speakers from small companies at the same price point? I'll cut to the chase - I can get a pair of Infinity Beta 50 speakers ($1,000/pr new) for like $450 from a friend, or Beta 40s ($800/pr new) for like $350 and was wondering how they would stack up against $500 DIY speakers or $500 speakers from a smaller company.
Best way to know is for you to have a listen. You can get good results from DIY speakers, but with all the R&D that higher end manufacturers put into attempting to reproduce the sound perfectly it makes sense to buy them.
I never get this, people always think the hifi industry is out there to sting you and rip you off. Sure there are some companies who are (bose etc) but most are not. The margins in selling hifi gear is rather low compared to some industries. The smaller companies are usually the worst of out of the lot. They do it because they enjoy making/selling the equipment not because they enjoy the money (usually). Sure you can build something cheaper when its produced in small amounts by the suppliers. Because you dont charge yourself for making it, renting your workshop, etc. and someone else has designed it and tested it for you.
