Interesting review of Steinway Lyngdorf in Absolute Sound

[Jerome W]

[trponhunter]

I was a steinway dealer for a while, because l believed in the basic idea. I have since been working with wisdom audio - and the idea is similar. The speakers themselves are a bit different, as is the room correction, but the overall result is probably more similar than different. Of course, I think the wisdom implementation offers performance that is even better than the lyngdorf system.

Properly implemented dsp can be very powerful as a replacement for the passive crossovers in typical speakers as well as allowing for correction of the room - especially when coupled to line source speakers. As Robert says in the review, when hearing it all done correctly for the first time - it can really be revolutionary.

[VT Skier]

I owned Lyngdorf products for years and came to decide that they weren't right for me. As much as people say DSP is "transparent" to the signal, I didn't find that to be true in my system. I owned the DPA-1, the SDA-2175 and the BW-1s, and I used them with Dynaudio C1s.

If you have a very bad room, or you must put the speakers in a poor position (flat against a wall, on different walls or at different distances to the listener, with a rack between them, etc.), the Lyngdorf system does very good things. But I found in my untreated room, where I can provide plenty of space around my speakers, I much preferred an untreated signal. And I experimented with a variety of speaker positions, took numerous readings with the microphones, got advice from Lyngdorf directly, lived with the changes for months at a time, etc.

I think, as always, software is lagging behind hardware with these systems, and while the chips may be capable of great things the application causes the loss of some of the uncolored, natural sound that great unprocessed systems provide. The best system I have heard is from Holm, although Audyssey is getting better, but I wouldn't buy Holm yet either.

In my room, the best application for my Lyngdorf system was its ability to integrate the BW-1 woofers (Lyngdorf does not call them subwoofers) with the C1 monitors. I find, for me, it's almost impossible to seamlessly integrate a separate subwoofer into a system -- I'm always able to hear the sub as a separate sound source. The Lyngdorf is excellent at solving that problem.

I moved back to separates (Simaudio 750D, P-8 and W-7) with a floorstanding speaker (Dynaudio Sapphire), and this system sounds much better in my room in almost every way. I miss the soundstage and greater "palpability" (for want of a better word) the BW-1s provided, but that's because the Sapphire doesn't plumb the depths of the lower range. With speakers that do, I don't think I would miss anything about the Lyngdorf system. But my room is relatively uncolored, and untreated, and my speakers have plenty of room to breathe, so your experience may be very different. I have no experience with Wisdom Audio.