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Looking for speakers that can reach a ultra sonic frequency range (50 kHz to 100kHz) for DSD music system playback


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This might be odd but I am looking for a decent speaker that can reach ultrasonic frequencies. I do believe for a DSD playback system, a very wide frequency response is necessary. (i.e. highest 50 kHz to 100 kHz) 

 

However, I find only few commercial speakers have a wide frequency response. Did a rough check online. These speakers models are on my watch list.

 

  • Adam speaker: Classic MK3 column, frequency response: 30 Hz - 50 kHz

 

  • Discontinued Wilson-Benesch Trinity: -6 dB at 40 Hz and 100 kHz -3 dB at 45 Hz and 80 kHz

 

  • I also see Tannoy tannoy super tweeter can reach 54kHz, usable output (-18dB) to 100kHz. (However, I doubt this super tweeter will match well with Tannoy's speaker since Tannoy's Prestige GR series average frequency response is around 34 Hz - 40 kHz. Hence there is a gap between 40 - 55 kHz even with the help of its super-tweeter. Not sure this gap will cause any negative impact on the SQ.

 

Any idea for other products having such features?

 

Any help on this odd question would be appreciated.:)

 

 

 

Software: Roon, Tidal, HQplayer 

HQplayer PC: i9 7980XE, Titan Xp, RTX 3090; i9 9900K, Titan V

DAC: Holo Audio MAY L2, T+A DAC8 DSD, exasound e12, iFi micro iDSD BL

USB tweaks: Intona, Uptone (ISO) regen, LPS-1, LPS-1.2, Sbooster Vbus2, Curious cables, SUPRA Certified HiSpeed USB cable

NAA: Logic CL100 powered by Uptone JS-2

AMP: Spectral DMC 30SV, Spectral DMA 300RS

Speaker: Magico S3 MKII

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Try converting some DSD64, DSD128,... files to PCM and study the output spectrogram from spek.exe, from spek.cc.  You will see the ultra-sonic noise created by the delta-sigma converter.  I do not think that noise is intended for speakers, or the preceeding hardware, to reproduce.

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1 hour ago, d_elm said:

Try converting some DSD64, DSD128,... files to PCM and study the output spectrogram from spek.exe, from spek.cc.  You will see the ultra-sonic noise created by the delta-sigma converter.  I do not think that noise is intended for speakers, or the preceeding hardware, to reproduce.

 

Thanks for the reply, but I tend to playback DSD natively, not trying to converting them to PCM. 

 

If ultra-sonic noise is not relevant for the speaker, Why can I hear the difference among DSD64, DSD128, DSD256, DSD512 upsampled from the same 44.1 PCM files through a headphone's bandwith from 5 - 50.000 Hz?

 

Another example, some DAC's has different frequency response regarding PCM and DSD.

 

PCM 44.1 kHz: 2 Hz - 20 kHz

PCM 48 kHz: 2 Hz - 22 kHz

PCM 96 kHz: 2 Hz - 40 kHz

PCM 192 kHz: 2 Hz - 80 kHz

PCM 384 kHz: 2 Hz - 100 kHz

 

and 

 

DSD 2,8 MHz: 2 Hz - 44 kHz

DSD 5,6 MHz: 2 Hz - 60 kHz

DSD 11,2 MHz: 2 Hz - 80 kHz

DSD 22,6 MHz: 2 Hz - 100 kHz

 

I also find by adjusting the frequency bandwidth of the analogue reconstruction filter of the dac, can have big impact on SQ.

 

Like T+A DAC8 DSD, clean-mode offer up to 60 kHz while wide-mode up to 120 kHz. These two modes offer very different and audible listening impression. With wide-mode, the treble is much better extended, and sound is more spacious.

 

So in my listening experience, those noise does have impact on SQ.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Software: Roon, Tidal, HQplayer 

HQplayer PC: i9 7980XE, Titan Xp, RTX 3090; i9 9900K, Titan V

DAC: Holo Audio MAY L2, T+A DAC8 DSD, exasound e12, iFi micro iDSD BL

USB tweaks: Intona, Uptone (ISO) regen, LPS-1, LPS-1.2, Sbooster Vbus2, Curious cables, SUPRA Certified HiSpeed USB cable

NAA: Logic CL100 powered by Uptone JS-2

AMP: Spectral DMC 30SV, Spectral DMA 300RS

Speaker: Magico S3 MKII

Rack: HRS SXR signature

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43 minutes ago, d_elm said:

 Filter implementation, or no filter, is the big deal.

 

 

Thanks again for the detailed reply.

 

So now I understand the audible difference of reconstruction filter (60 kHz vs 120 kHz) of my DAC is because of the filter implementation.

 

What about the hypersonic effect? Because I always consider a good DSD playback can somehow reflect these controversial effect.

 

 

Software: Roon, Tidal, HQplayer 

HQplayer PC: i9 7980XE, Titan Xp, RTX 3090; i9 9900K, Titan V

DAC: Holo Audio MAY L2, T+A DAC8 DSD, exasound e12, iFi micro iDSD BL

USB tweaks: Intona, Uptone (ISO) regen, LPS-1, LPS-1.2, Sbooster Vbus2, Curious cables, SUPRA Certified HiSpeed USB cable

NAA: Logic CL100 powered by Uptone JS-2

AMP: Spectral DMC 30SV, Spectral DMA 300RS

Speaker: Magico S3 MKII

Rack: HRS SXR signature

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This is what the noise-floor of DSD64 looks like:

 

DSD_PCM.jpg

 

Why would you want to reproduce such high-level noise if you can't even hear it?

"Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes

 

HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256)

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16 minutes ago, semente said:

This is what the noise-floor of DSD64 looks like:

 

DSD_PCM.jpg

 

Why would you want to reproduce such high-level noise if you can't even hear it?

 

Thanks, I see what you mean. 

 

But why does some of the speakers or headphones have frequency response over 20kHz ? What's the point of those super tweeter existed on the market if human can hear only at frequencies above approximately 20 kHz? 

 

Does the wide bandwidth have any influence on the audible frequency range? Or if our ears cannot hear it, but our body can perceive it? 

 

Sorry if my questions are being odd.

Software: Roon, Tidal, HQplayer 

HQplayer PC: i9 7980XE, Titan Xp, RTX 3090; i9 9900K, Titan V

DAC: Holo Audio MAY L2, T+A DAC8 DSD, exasound e12, iFi micro iDSD BL

USB tweaks: Intona, Uptone (ISO) regen, LPS-1, LPS-1.2, Sbooster Vbus2, Curious cables, SUPRA Certified HiSpeed USB cable

NAA: Logic CL100 powered by Uptone JS-2

AMP: Spectral DMC 30SV, Spectral DMA 300RS

Speaker: Magico S3 MKII

Rack: HRS SXR signature

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17 minutes ago, semente said:

 

Marketing mostly.

 

 

R
 
 

Thanks for the useful links. I will have a look. Much appreciated. :)

 

Any comment on the statement of the link below?

https://www.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

Software: Roon, Tidal, HQplayer 

HQplayer PC: i9 7980XE, Titan Xp, RTX 3090; i9 9900K, Titan V

DAC: Holo Audio MAY L2, T+A DAC8 DSD, exasound e12, iFi micro iDSD BL

USB tweaks: Intona, Uptone (ISO) regen, LPS-1, LPS-1.2, Sbooster Vbus2, Curious cables, SUPRA Certified HiSpeed USB cable

NAA: Logic CL100 powered by Uptone JS-2

AMP: Spectral DMC 30SV, Spectral DMA 300RS

Speaker: Magico S3 MKII

Rack: HRS SXR signature

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Just now, louisxiawei said:

Thanks for the useful links. I will have a look. Much appreciated. :)

 

Any comment on the statement of the link below?

https://www.xiph.org/~xiphmont/demo/neil-young.html

 

I think it ignores the fact that real filtering isn't perfect and that PCM resolution diminishes by 1bit for every -6dB.

"Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes

 

HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256)

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48 minutes ago, mansr said:

That would be a mistake. Without a low-pass filter, you'll be feeding all that noise into the amp and speakers, and no good can come of this. Firstly, the noise can (and does) cause audible intermodulation distortion. Secondly, you'll be wasting amp power driving the speakers with noise they can't reproduce and that shouldn't be there in the first place.

I was thinking about A/D and did not finish the thought about D/A.

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18 minutes ago, d_elm said:

I was thinking about A/D and did not finish the thought about D/A.

I see. For A/D you're right, with high enough sample rate, you don't need an antialiasing filter since there's nothing for it to remove in the first place. This is true for both PCM and DSD, though in practice only sigma-delta converters use such high rates.

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Did you know air absorbs about 3.3 dB per meter at 100,000 hz?

And always keep in mind: Cognitive biases, like seeing optical illusions are a sign of a normally functioning brain. We all have them, it’s nothing to be ashamed about, but it is something that affects our objective evaluation of reality. 

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2 hours ago, esldude said:

Did you know air absorbs about 3.3 dB per meter at 100,000 hz?

No idea at all.

 

Mind if you can tell a little bit more especially in playback practice? 

Software: Roon, Tidal, HQplayer 

HQplayer PC: i9 7980XE, Titan Xp, RTX 3090; i9 9900K, Titan V

DAC: Holo Audio MAY L2, T+A DAC8 DSD, exasound e12, iFi micro iDSD BL

USB tweaks: Intona, Uptone (ISO) regen, LPS-1, LPS-1.2, Sbooster Vbus2, Curious cables, SUPRA Certified HiSpeed USB cable

NAA: Logic CL100 powered by Uptone JS-2

AMP: Spectral DMC 30SV, Spectral DMA 300RS

Speaker: Magico S3 MKII

Rack: HRS SXR signature

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Back to the speakers, I think all TAD's go to 100khz, but so do there price tag. Cheapest start around $25000 if I recall correct.

Computer setup - Roon/Qobuz - PS Audio P5 Regenerator - HIFI Rose 250A Streamer - Emotiva XPA-2 Harbeth P3ESR XD - Rel  R-528 Sub

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11 hours ago, ShawnC said:

Back to the speakers, I think all TAD's go to 100khz, but so do there price tag. Cheapest start around $25000 if I recall correct.

WOW, thanks for the recommendation. 

 

Did a little check some of their products. They are expensive indeed . (Exceed my budget, which is around $15000). Plus not all of TAD has reached 100khz. The micro Evolution One book shelf's frequency response is 36 Hz to 60kHz.:)

 

I believe it is a Japanese speaker company. Only see on dealer in UK and no dealer in China (these two countries are where I live from time to time), guess I don't have much chance to give them an audition.

 

I'm looking for a pair of active speakers, which can help me get riddle of the hassle of matching a decent power amp with passive ones. Adam Classic MK3 seems to be the one to go, unfortunately, Adam Tensor is discontinued. 

 

Any other options? Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

 

Software: Roon, Tidal, HQplayer 

HQplayer PC: i9 7980XE, Titan Xp, RTX 3090; i9 9900K, Titan V

DAC: Holo Audio MAY L2, T+A DAC8 DSD, exasound e12, iFi micro iDSD BL

USB tweaks: Intona, Uptone (ISO) regen, LPS-1, LPS-1.2, Sbooster Vbus2, Curious cables, SUPRA Certified HiSpeed USB cable

NAA: Logic CL100 powered by Uptone JS-2

AMP: Spectral DMC 30SV, Spectral DMA 300RS

Speaker: Magico S3 MKII

Rack: HRS SXR signature

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10 hours ago, esldude said:

 

Now sometimes the reason tweeters work to 40 or so khz if not just for marketing is so they are well behaved at 20 khz and below.  Same for headphone drivers.  So a quest to put together this extended bandwidth upon the belief it matters is actually a big waste of resources.  There are many things you could do to make more difference. 

Thank you so much for detailed and knowledgeable reply. Much appreciated.

 

Please allow me to ask a few more newbie questions.

 

Take T+A product for instance:

 

Its DAC: if play DSD512 (DSD 22,6 MHz) can have the frequency response of 2 Hz - 100 kHz, 

 

I believe if DSD512+ (DSD 24,6 MHz) is played, it will reach higher.

 

Hereinafter is the one screen shot of T+A DAC's manual, saying that

 

WIDE = mode up to 120 kHz can have the best sound quality, but only with high-quality amplifier which are able to proccess signal frequencies up to 300 kHz without generating distortion.

 

590700d57cd9d_analoguefilter.thumb.jpg.dbd60daec8a885632dcbfa21c4ee15a8.jpg

 

In practice, I do can hear the difference between clean mode and wide mode. The treble is much better extended, and sound is more spacious.

 

Do you think this is due to the filter implementation or the frequency bandwidth or both? 

 

If response above 20kHz is meaningless or waste of resource for the end-point playback device like speaker and headphones, what's the point of these amplifier claiming  no-distortion 300 kHz capability?

 

 

Software: Roon, Tidal, HQplayer 

HQplayer PC: i9 7980XE, Titan Xp, RTX 3090; i9 9900K, Titan V

DAC: Holo Audio MAY L2, T+A DAC8 DSD, exasound e12, iFi micro iDSD BL

USB tweaks: Intona, Uptone (ISO) regen, LPS-1, LPS-1.2, Sbooster Vbus2, Curious cables, SUPRA Certified HiSpeed USB cable

NAA: Logic CL100 powered by Uptone JS-2

AMP: Spectral DMC 30SV, Spectral DMA 300RS

Speaker: Magico S3 MKII

Rack: HRS SXR signature

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25 minutes ago, louisxiawei said:

Thank you so much for detailed and knowledgeable reply. Much appreciated.

 

Please allow me to ask a few more newbie questions.

 

Take T+A product for instance:

 

Its DAC: if play DSD512 (DSD 22,6 MHz) can have the frequency response of 2 Hz - 100 kHz, 

 

I believe if DSD512+ (DSD 24,6 MHz) is played, it will reach higher.

 

Hereinafter is the one screen shot of T+A DAC's manual, saying that

 

WIDE = mode up to 120 kHz can have the best sound quality, but only with high-quality amplifier which are able to proccess signal frequencies up to 300 kHz without generating distortion.

 

590700d57cd9d_analoguefilter.thumb.jpg.dbd60daec8a885632dcbfa21c4ee15a8.jpg

 

In practice, I do can hear the difference between clean mode and wide mode. The treble is much better extended, and sound is more spacious.

 

Do you think this is due to the filter implementation or the frequency bandwidth or both? 

 

If response above 20kHz is meaningless or waste of resource for the end-point playback device like speaker and headphones, what's the point of these amplifier claiming  no-distortion 300 kHz capability?

 

 

 

I'll respectfully ask this.  Can you hear it unsighted when you don't know which way the setting is? It takes so very little to help our minds decide they are hearing a difference. 

 

So don't take it personal, but before I would worry about filter implementation, I would like to see it confirmed that someone can hear a difference in 60 khz and 120 khz bandwidth. 

 

If you are looking for amps with clean 300 khz capability, I would suggest Spectral.  Their gear is a megahertz or more of clean bandwidth.  The gear also sounds particularly nice.

 

 

And always keep in mind: Cognitive biases, like seeing optical illusions are a sign of a normally functioning brain. We all have them, it’s nothing to be ashamed about, but it is something that affects our objective evaluation of reality. 

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33 minutes ago, louisxiawei said:

WOW, thanks for the recommendation. 

 

Did a little check some of their products. They are expensive indeed . (Exceed my budget, which is around $15000). Plus not all of TAD has reached 100khz. The micro Evolution One book shelf's frequency response is 36 Hz to 60kHz.:)

 

I believe it is a Japanese speaker company. Only see on dealer in UK and no dealer in China (these two countries are where I live from time to time), guess I don't have much chance to give them an audition.

 

I'm looking for a pair of active speakers, which can help me get riddle of the hassle of matching a decent power amp with passive ones. Adam Classic MK3 seems to be the one to go, unfortunately, Adam Tensor is discontinued. 

 

Any other options? Thanks in advance.

 

 

 

 

 

Most manufacturers are breaking up a sweat trying to get a decent performance in the audible range.

Why would you care for speakers that extend to ultrasonic frequencies if you can't listen to them?

The far and few models than do that may not be audibly good speakers, and anyway even super-tweeters will probably be in trouble once they go beyond 40KHz.

 

If you wan't to play around, get a used pair of super-tweeters and spend the big chunk of your budget some decent music-playing boxes (which is what really matters):

 

http://www.townshendaudio.com/supertweeters/

 

http://www.murata.co.jp/ninfo/articles/nr0192.html

 

http://www.tannoy.com/lifestyle/products/HiFi/SuperTweeter-2/ST-300Mg-SuperTweeter/

"Science draws the wave, poetry fills it with water" Teixeira de Pascoaes

 

HQPlayer Desktop / Mac mini → Intona 7054 → RME ADI-2 DAC FS (DSD256)

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17 minutes ago, esldude said:

 

I'll respectfully ask this.  Can you hear it unsighted when you don't know which way the setting is? It takes so very little to help our minds decide they are hearing a difference. 

 

So don't take it personal, but before I would worry about filter implementation, I would like to see it confirmed that someone can hear a difference in 60 khz and 120 khz bandwidth. 

 

 

 

Honestly speaking, I think I can, I'm confident to do a blind test even, and I'm not evening using the best 300 kHz amplifier. The difference is obvious and I'm positive that I'm not those type of "palcebo effect" HIFI people. Any "seem to be better" sound will be regarded as no difference for me. :)

 

I have a few more friends also uses T+A DAC8 DSD, I asked them the opinion of regarding 60kHz and wide-mode 120 kHz differences.

 

Some of them find the difference is small and these people are using 20k Hz playback device while some of them share the similar experience to me, most of them using flagship headphone like HD800 or abyss 1266.

 

In my case, I am using a tube amplifier using Siemens C3G and Mullard 6080WA (which has a frequency response around 10 Hz to 60 k Hz) , the playback equipment is not even a speaker but a headphone (beyerdyanmic T1 2nd). 

 

That's why I'm quite curious to know if using a better capability amplifier or speaker with wide bandwidth to fully unleash the potential SQ performance.

 

Quote

If you are looking for amps with clean 300 khz capability, I would suggest Spectral.  Their gear is a megahertz or more of clean bandwidth.  The gear also sounds particularly nice.

Thanks for the recommendation. I will have a look.

 

Software: Roon, Tidal, HQplayer 

HQplayer PC: i9 7980XE, Titan Xp, RTX 3090; i9 9900K, Titan V

DAC: Holo Audio MAY L2, T+A DAC8 DSD, exasound e12, iFi micro iDSD BL

USB tweaks: Intona, Uptone (ISO) regen, LPS-1, LPS-1.2, Sbooster Vbus2, Curious cables, SUPRA Certified HiSpeed USB cable

NAA: Logic CL100 powered by Uptone JS-2

AMP: Spectral DMC 30SV, Spectral DMA 300RS

Speaker: Magico S3 MKII

Rack: HRS SXR signature

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45 minutes ago, semente said:

 

Thanks for the links.

 

I doubt the tweeter from Tannoy will work. As I previous mentioned,  Tannoy's Prestige GR series average frequency response is around 34 Hz - 40 kHz. Hence there is a lacking frequency gap between 40 - 55 kHz even with the help of its super-tweeter. Not sure this gap will cause any negative impact on the SQ or not.

 

I guess I just need to do some practical experiment myself. Thanks again.:)

Software: Roon, Tidal, HQplayer 

HQplayer PC: i9 7980XE, Titan Xp, RTX 3090; i9 9900K, Titan V

DAC: Holo Audio MAY L2, T+A DAC8 DSD, exasound e12, iFi micro iDSD BL

USB tweaks: Intona, Uptone (ISO) regen, LPS-1, LPS-1.2, Sbooster Vbus2, Curious cables, SUPRA Certified HiSpeed USB cable

NAA: Logic CL100 powered by Uptone JS-2

AMP: Spectral DMC 30SV, Spectral DMA 300RS

Speaker: Magico S3 MKII

Rack: HRS SXR signature

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1 hour ago, louisxiawei said:

In practice, I do can hear the difference between clean mode and wide mode. The treble is much better extended, and sound is more spacious.

It's possible that what you're hearing is intermodulation distortion injecting DSD modulator noise into the audible range. I've noticed this effect with iFi DACs, and I measured it to be sure of the cause. Such distortion can occur at any point in the signal path where the high-frequency noise is present (this is why DACs are supposed to filter it out). The T+A DAC may be clean, but your amp probably isn't.

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14 minutes ago, mansr said:

It's possible that what you're hearing is intermodulation distortion injecting DSD modulator noise into the audible range. I've noticed this effect with iFi DACs, and I measured it to be sure of the cause. Such distortion can occur at any point in the signal path where the high-frequency noise is present (this is why DACs are supposed to filter it out). The T+A DAC may be clean, but your amp probably isn't.

I see. Thanks.

 

Guess I will come back to post some of the impression again once I purchase the T+A P3000 pre-amplifier. 

 

Stay tuned. :)

Software: Roon, Tidal, HQplayer 

HQplayer PC: i9 7980XE, Titan Xp, RTX 3090; i9 9900K, Titan V

DAC: Holo Audio MAY L2, T+A DAC8 DSD, exasound e12, iFi micro iDSD BL

USB tweaks: Intona, Uptone (ISO) regen, LPS-1, LPS-1.2, Sbooster Vbus2, Curious cables, SUPRA Certified HiSpeed USB cable

NAA: Logic CL100 powered by Uptone JS-2

AMP: Spectral DMC 30SV, Spectral DMA 300RS

Speaker: Magico S3 MKII

Rack: HRS SXR signature

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