Do Active Speakers Belong In A High End System?

An active speaker can sound truly awful.

An active speaker can sound truly state of the art.

Like all components, it depends on the design, execution, and subtleties of the voicing of the product.

ATC self powered speakers can sound fabulous. I'm sure others can also.

The plus side: eliminates trying to find the perfect amp, cables, eliminates the nasty passive crossover that eats power, dynamics, detail, and has phase issues.

The minus side, it eliminates the tuning possibilities of matching up an amp that fits your sonic aesthetic.

You have to ask yourself: are you the type that loves to tune your system with cables and amps? Do you typically only keep a component for a few years and then get itchy ears and feet to replace it or tune it differently? i If you are, then you may get frustrated with self powered speakers.

If you are the type that hates that pain of dealing with amps and speaker cables in order to find a good match? Then you sound like a good candidate.

If your budget allows you to go up to ATCs I would start (and for me, finish) right there. Truth in the sound of music, good enough for many of the best pro installations in the world, chosen by many who make the music and recognize it when they hear a closer rendition played back.

I love my speaker/amp/cable combinations. But if it all burned I would have a hard time choosing between ATC and what I have.

Bob Reynolds has it right when he says "You hear it all the time on this forum to "trust your ears", yet audiophiles, in general, are locked into old traditions that preclude active designs. So they never get a chance to trust their ears."

Most absolutely do not trust their ears, and would rather trust their intuition about what baloney story they get sucked into. They would also rather trust the ears of reviewers. Hence, mediocre sounding and relatively high distortion speakers can sell just as well as great speakers, even in the stratospheric price ranges.

I hear several hours of live music 300+ days a year, and what passes for good sound in the modern high end industry astounds me. Excuses range from "we all have different ears" to "this is so accurate it shows flaws in recordings".

Sorry, serious distortion is serious distortion no matter how you cut it.

I use passive speakers. But I will say that I have found that a higher percentage of self-powered speakers sound better than conventional speakers. Maybe you have to know more to make a self-powered work without blowing up while anyone can throw drivers, capacitors, and coils in a box and call themselves a speaker designer. Well, they don't present themselves as just designers usually. They present themselves as knowing much more than anyone else, true experts who have done what nobody else has.

"Never been to a concert that had soundstaging." Really?

I'll be the first one to say that most audiophiles don't listen to live music, they talk the talk but don't walk the walk. So most audiophile "contrivances" and "novelties in sound" have nothing to do with what music sounds like.

But the staging thing: I have heard this over and over, "ral music has no stage". That's ridiculous. Have you been to a jazz ensemble in an unamplified setup? Do it and close your eyes, you know where they are. How about a good seat at a chamber concert? I could hit any of the players with a dart while blindfolded.

I was at a 20th century chamber music event that had 4 pieces, one a trumpet, one a French horn. At one point the score called for the instruments to walk along the outside aisles to the midpoint of the venue. I closed my eyes and folled each instrument, knowing where they were within a foot or 2.

I had this discussion with an audiophile recently, I played for him while walking back and forth in the room while he had his eyes closed. I then asked him to point out exactly where I had been. He did so with exact precision.

Huge venues with giant monitors, like rock events, or big stars in a really big auditorium where you are 150 feet away, sure no image. But if you have not heard any of my examples above you should get out and hear some events that are "unplugged". You are in for a treat. Most PA systems are horrible. Get out and hear some real instruments and voices not ruined by the distortions of microphones and cables.

Czarivey, good for you, not losing sight of live music that so many do. Hey, that is not evil, liking the equipment more than music and more than live music, specifically. What galls me is that those same folks who have not been out in years and never really went out to concerts at all will pontificate about what system is best, and pointing out flaws without knowing what music sounds like.

I had a loyal audio friend listen to Paul Desmond on a piece where he is playing in the upper registers with his oh so pure sound. He said "that cartridge is not very good, is that supposed to be a sax, it sounds half like a clarinet". Well, in those registers he had so little reed sound (Desmond) that indeed he did sometimes sound like he was playing a clarinet. This guy had never heard the variety in sax sounds to note that there is a big variety, some sounding like Desmond, some sounding the opposite with a reedy, buzzy, brightish sound. Turns out he had not been to a live concert in "many years", as he said.

I thought "Of course you have not been out for years, this is high end audio after all, you KNOW your system sounds better"! Why go???