Dick Burwen's 20,000 Watt Home Hi-Fi System
Coming soon
AUDIO SPLENDORTM
Software tone controls and ambiance generation in 1 to 8 channels
How do I use it?
Using 23 sliders on the screen of a laptop PC you balance to your taste the tone and ambiance of any 1 to 8
channel program source played through all your speakers. Then you save the settings in a library. The next
time you click on that program name it automatically recalls your entire system setup to produce the same
sound.
You provide a specified PC and FireWire connected analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converter box for
processing the audio. Any number of networked PC laptops can act as wireless remote controllers.
What else does it do?
AUDIO SPLENDOR can store individual speaker equalization that adds as much as an octave to low
frequency response. It can store source compensation, for example to flatten phono response or match CD.
You can boost low frequencies up to 80 dB with accuracy and steps of only 0.1 dB. When you select the
number of input channels it automatically configures the mix of direct signal and ambiance to all your
speakers - and you can change it all any way you like.
Who needs it?
Everyone who cares about sound needs it. But, at $14,000 for software and another $4,000 to $6,000 for
equipment you supply, AUDIO SPLENDOR is justified only for really serious systems. AUDIO SPLENDOR is
not just for turning an explosion into an earthquake. For the perfectionist who wants to accurately match the
original acoustic sound it provides the high resolution in 0.1 db steps needed for small adjustments in tonal
balance that make a significant improvement in naturalness and imaging. In professional use it is the
essential tool for making 5-channel SACDs or DVDs from older two-channel program material by adding
subtle ambiance in all the channels.
burwenaudio is Dick Burwen
For 60 years I have been trying to produce the most entertaining sound in my own hi-fi systems. My "20,000
Watt Home Hi-Fi System" was pictured on the cover of AUDIO, April 1976. You can print or read my article
"20,000 Watt Home Hi-Fi Gets Digital EQ"* from Audio, April 1995 describing the two-channel predecessor of
AUDIO SPLENDOR. Altogether I have spent two man-years developing AUDIO SPLENDOR and a companion
ambiance generation application, OPTIMUM AMBIANCETM, for my own sound system. This program places
subtle artificial reverberation in each speaker channel that makes brasses brassier and violins sweeter in a
way that no acoustic space can produce. On low-reverberant program material such as my own older jazz
recordings I can completely change the sound. AUDIO SPLENDOR includes push buttons for my best outputs
from OPTIMUM AMBIANCE. I can tell you, even if I never sell a single software license, it was worth all the
effort.
*This file is in Adobe .pdf format If you do not have the Adobe Reader installed, you can download it for free from Adobe.
