AudioSmile Advantage Description

[Markus S]

The biggest change is ownership and administration.
Naturally, Audiosmile hopes to benefit commercially from the increased product and company exposure associated with a forum presence, and we won't deny that this formed one of the major drivers in the decision to acquire ZeroGan.

It's working already! Well, I'm afraid I haven't ordered an AudioSmile system yet, but I was inspired to look at your website. In particular, the description of the Advantage seems somewhat contradictory at first glance:

The Advantage transforms the Kensai into a 3-way active floorstander,

...

The Kensai + Advantage is active, which means it has multiple amplifiers inside, one for the Advantage and one for the Kensai. The speaker can be connected directly to a pre-amp or media streaming device with volume control. This is not just for user simplicity, the crossover filters are placed before the amps for greater control of the design and less distortion. The amps are cream of the crop in traditional linear design, powered by a linear PSU. Delivering an ultra-transparent 120watts for the bass and 60watts for the Kensai.

...

• The Kensai can focus effortlessly on mid & treble
• Your amplifier can focus effortlessly on mid & treble
• Bass drivers are driven directly by powerful dedicated amps

Active is generally taken to mean line level crossover plus a dedicated power amp for each driver. Yet your amp sports only two channels, so the passive crossover on the Kensai stays in place?

Also, how can my (existing) amplifier focus effortlessly on mid & treble? Do you allow speaker level connection à la REL, letting the existing integrated or power amp work into a resistor while taking a voltage signal from that to drive the internal amp?

You may, perhaps, wish to clarify the product description.

 

[RobHolt]

It's working already! Well, I'm afraid I haven't ordered an AudioSmile system yet, but I was inspired to look at your website. In particular, the description of the Advantage seems somewhat contradictory at first glance:




Active is generally taken to mean line level crossover plus a dedicated power amp for each driver. Yet your amp sports only two channels, so the passive crossover on the Kensai stays in place?

Also, how can my (existing) amplifier focus effortlessly on mid & treble? Do you allow speaker level connection à la REL, letting the existing integrated or power amp work into a resistor while taking a voltage signal from that to drive the internal amp?

You may, perhaps, wish to clarify the product description.

Good spot Markus (want a job as proof reader?).
The operation of the Advantage has changed following dealer and some user feedback and the wording will be updated asap.

regards,

 

[Tenson]

Hi Markus,

I was in the process of updating the product description when suddenly I couldn't connect to the server to upload any-more. The business who run the server have recently been liquidated so I guess they are struggling to maintain it.

If you read audiosmile.com it is up to date and on the new server with the forum, but audiosmile.co.uk is on the old server and I only got a connection to upload right this second.

The Advantage has an active crossover between itself and the Kensai, and the Kensai mid/bass to tweeter is passive.

 

[Markus S]

I'm afraid audiosmile.com is better but not quite there yet. You still claim

The Advantage transforms the Kensai into a 3-way active floorstander,

which implies 3 channels of amplification. Also, I think you need to provide a rationale for keeping the passive xo. Why is passive between midrange and tweeter okay, but not between woofer and midrange?

I applaud your decision to offer on-board amplification, but commercially, it's an uphill battle to explain your design to potential customers.

With my proof-reading hat on, in this sentence

This is not simply a subwoofer to extend bass, as the Advantage completely frees the Kensai, from the torture of producing low frequencies.

both commas need to go, I feel. I'd replace the first comma with a full stop or semicolon and lose the "as" as well.

This is not simply a subwoofer to extend bass; the Advantage completely frees the Kensai from the torture of producing low frequencies.

which, come to think of it, may not be in your best interest to state as it implies that the Kensai on its own sounds tortured ... Advertising copy is so hard to write, and putting advertising copy under close scrutiny tends to make it all unravel in your hands.

(Please delete if inappropriate)

 

[RobHolt]

Markus,

I'd go with:

....stress of reproducing low frequencies at high SPLs.

On the reason for not eliminating the passive crossover between the bass/mid and tweeter, it simply didn't produce any audible benefit using active filters and amplification at that point.
The drivers used are well behaved and only require a simple crossover with no other response shaping networks in play.
Amplifier electrical damping is mostly a non-issue on that crossover. Finally, life is made easier for a Kensai user wishing to upgrade.

 

[Tenson]

I'm not sure how to best describe the Kensai + Advantage system accurately and in a short sentence. 3-way semi-active is a possiblilty but to me this suggests the Kensai is still powered by an external amp. In this system the Kensai does have an active filter, but it is only the high-pass since that is tricky to do passively.

I thought calling it a 3-way active was okay, and then explaining later that it has an amp for the Advantage and amp for the Kensai.

Low frequencies will stress any speaker at any SPL in comparison to not producing them. Perhaps torture is too strong a word though.

 

[nando]

simon your theory is correct, naim or lynn could get an exact crossover network from rollover between 2.5.k and 2.8 k, therefore the mid passive bass was faster then the bass unit roll, does that make sense?

 

[Tenson]

Not really, but I know the speaker works well. This thread is more just to move Markus' comments out of the original thread as it was off topic.