Active Speakers Better? No, per Michael Borresen

I went through a few months of soul searching on going active after a midrange driver’s ferrofluid on an old beloved 25yo speaker turned to gooey molasses and started to seize. After running out of driver replacements (had a stock-pile being these were very delicate things) but these drivers were no longer replaceable or repairable, so time to reevaluate everything. I was fully committed (with cost efficient solutions) to the extra amplifiers, cables, and an electronic crossover - Danville Signal dspNexus (and requisite software to make it work), along w/ Orchard Audio BOSC/Starkrimson mono’s and Newform Research’s flagship Last Dance speaker.. which is just the perfect candidate for this given it can be spec’d with an external crossover and has a fundamentally great driver design, but needs electronic time alignment as the line source sits proud of the phalanx of Purifi mid-woofers by a good couple inches.. ie not physically time-aligned, quite the opposite.

Anyways.. only $13k for everything. You could spend far more by staying passive and not have the near the same power or potential.

No doubt, on paper.. active is more efficient, and theoretically you can be more surgical in creating an editable phase linear crossover. Non-destructive R&D. The softwares and devices to create these software networks has become good enough that with a long weekend, most audiophiles with some computer savvy can figure out how to go about it.. but the reality is, it may not sound good to your ears for weeks, months... or longer, if you want better than that. There is so much more to making a good sounding speaker (system actually) than just getting the math right. Our ears (& brain.. ear-interface) are far more sensitive to input than can be evaluated by looking at a plot on a computer screen.. as right as it may appear according to whatever audio-cookbook you may be reading . Our brains are so good at perceiving harmonic falsehoods (odd order distortions and clocking errors) that things which engineers decide are truths get thwarted by reviewers and potential buyers all the time. I’ve heard enough active systems over the years at shows, which sound dynamic.. wide bandwidth.. low distortion, etc, but they are almost always just missing a certain magic you don’t get from a well component-matched system.

I’m an all digital guy.. my entire library is 1’s and 0’s.. don’t own a turntable, but honestly I’ve yet to hear a DAC that sounds as good as a high end vinyl playback system when it comes to becoming emotional involved with the music. Its close in some cases.. but not yet.

It also occurred to me.. what if I had this digital Swiss Army knife? Theoretically I could create any house sound signature with these digital tools and prodigiously powerful array of GaNFET amplification ..driving epically-wide-bandwidth transducers. There wouldn’t be much a point to change any hardware for a long while.. my job description as a system builder/home audio alchemist would now be re-rewritten as ’crossover programmer.’ To some this might seem fun, and no doubt my ears would always be challenged to decipher the nodal changes made to a crossover diagram, however I already stare at a computer screen long enough for my day job, and also I’d be restraining myself from the joy of selecting, unboxing.. just the tactile satisfaction of configuring real objects into a real working collection of symphonic devices to produce a result.. an expectation, whether failed or achieved.. would be lost. The gamble is lost.. and there is no winning. Yes, I suppose you can win at the math.. at object-oriented-programming on a computer screen, but is this the same hobby?

Not to beat a dead horse after my lengthy post, but read this active speaker review and you’ll have an idea if you want to go this route. This is a highly regarded all-in-one ’easy’ solution for going active. No doubt there are people who will want this, and the audio world is a better place for it, but it’s a different process. (Stereophile’s review of the also highly regarded Dutch & Dutch 8c is another you might want to read). Both are probably excellent choices for clean sounding minimalist systems.. but if you’re a traditional audiophile, in these cases you may very well start to wonder what other hardware is inside that box. Do you immediately trust someone when you meet them? Well, then you're a good soul.. and these speakers will be all you'll ever need. No right or wrong answer.. only choices.

Imo, subs are a different situation… 20-30ft LF wavelengths and room interaction.. so a sub needs dsp to deal with modal issues. A properly designed speaker has controlled dispersion above 80hz.

And sure.. you can have a sub as separates if you want. The company that made my sub actually does this in their standard home theatre installations.. everything is separate, but this is far above my pay grade.

Upper octave and lower octave room interactions seem quite different. One is a direct reflection that more or less preserves its waveform, so will be perceived as a smeared or reflected sound from the source (and not sure how you effectively dsp this because you're talking about reflections of detailed recognizable things.. vocals, instruments, etc), whereas with the latter the wave is often longer than the room, and are for the most part are truncated waveforms that manifest as unrecognizable resonances. These anomalies can be more imperceptibly fixed with dsp.

All that said.. even if you could effectively dsp upper octave room interactions.. who wants to listen in an anechoic chamber? That is a very dead.. boring listening space.

Dsp'ing transducers on the other hand makes some sense.. nullifying their unwanted resonances with the inside of the speaker cabinet and also leveling the direct output between drivers to give a flat output. Nonetheless, I am still suspicious of sticking sensitive DAC/DSP electronics into a noisy, vibrating space.. and also of speaker manufactures who also claim to be amp experts, and dsp experts. I don't think the company that makes the Holo DAC line wants to put their best work into a cauldron of strong magnetic fields.. a space that is literally shaking. I know it can be done, I'm just not sure if putting it inside, or attaching it to the speaker is a good idea.

I am still learning all this.. this is the way I understand it right now. I do own some small class AB active monitors designed by Simon Aston (Audiosmile/uk), btw. They serve a specific purpose, and I like them, but I don't nitpick their performance.

Some irony here is, the new (passive) speakers I chose (forgoing re-working my entire system and going the active route, but with separates) are designed by a music producer/studio engineer who primarily designs and manufacturers active speaker systems for his studios and clients.. this is how he makes his living. He's also designed very large line-array theatre installations for live performances. He's not a traditional audiophile speaker designer, however he still feels compelled to design and sell (albeit in very low volume) high-end passives. I'll have to ask him why next time. I still have this active digital crossover system in the back of my mind (but with separates), but just need some extra space to set up a second large system. I would like to see how good I can make it work.