Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused


17 of 23 speakers in my studio and home theater systems are internally powered. My studio system is all Genelec and sounds very accurate. I know the best new concert and studio speakers are internally powered there are great technical reasons to design a speaker and an amp synergistically, this concept is much more important to sound quality than the vibration systems we often buy. How can an audiophile justify a vibration system of any sort with this in mind.

donavabdear

Showing 50 responses by kota1

@brianlucey , well I can’t argue with your results and I really appreciate your response. You took the time to curate each piece of gear you use to create a chain, like many members here. I would hope your setup would be a good example of the proper way to do atmos,that is why I asked for pics, Like you said, certainty lies in principles and process. if you don’t feel the need to post them I understand. As for the other studios I posted the point is not that they are better or worse. it is that they all use the same "principles and process" of the Dolby specs for Atmos.

I disagree that the OP's assertion is rude. If you go through this thread there absolutely is confusion about active/powered speakers, YMMV. 

This topic of active speakers and confusion is not new, maybe that's why I wasn't offended by it. This is not the first thread to discuss this "perceived" confusion and it won't be the last I am sure. For example, ten pages of posts on same over at headfi:

 

@thespeakerdude , welcome to the forum +1 on your first post. I didn’t notice this was an active speaker, I looked at the micro-ones and didn’t check these, good catch. I did notice an incongruity that Brian has an all analog system that is integrated by DSP using the Trinnov. That is a head scratcher, and it seems that DIGITAL signal processing is an essential component of an all ANALOG system.

Now, I can’t argue the point because I don’t have any experience with Trinnov but it does seem that it isn’t true analog, is that what you were referring to?

It did have me checking prices on Trinnov processors though as well as Evolution micro-ones, it brings this setup within the grasp of a consumer if they want to go that route. Trinnov piece around $20K and Evolution Micro-Ones around $5K a pair. I have no idea what Allnic amps cost though. So I can't say this would be an all analog Home Theater but I guess it is about as close as you can get to a similar setup.

@steakster , I agree, but confusion is a close second :)

Going back to the OP’s point about confusion:

@mijostyn , great post but I did catch something that reveals that there is some confusion out there, you said. :

They are forced to use Class D amps for this reason and I have yet to hear a Class D amp I would purchase. Even Class AB amps if run hard are going to generate enough heat to make an active speaker very uncomfortable.

Kef LS60 amps-

The LS60 Wireless also has power in abundance, with a highly optimised mixture of bespoke Class AB and Class D amplification delivering a combined 1400 Watts of audiophile-grade power, with amplifiers dedicated to high, medium and low frequencies within each speaker.

Amplifier output power (per speaker)

LF: 500W
MF: 100W
HF: 100W

Amplifier class (per speaker)

LF: Class D
MF: Class D
HF: Class AB

 

@hollykumi , what a great post, I agree that I have moved my focus to the front end because the speaker/amp/room in my system is cohesive. One amazing thing I added recently was the iFi SPDIF iPurifier. About $200 and benefitted everything in terms or reducing jitter and increasing clarity. I'll have to look into the Schit Freya pre, thx.

@thespeakerdude

Colleagues would argue, correctly I must accept, that amplifiers, speakers, and the room form a system.

I agree (this is the 20% of a system providing 80% of the benefit IMO). The OP is NOT which is better, passive or active, it is about confusion. As @brianlucey stated one of the benefits of active is cost and convenience, Those are HUGE benefits when you have a budget and limited space. I have about a dozen active speakers in my HT that are all internally biamped with a total of 24 channels of A/B amplification (specs are posted in my profile). I would need a dozen two channel amplifiers or five 5 channel amplifiers to power this system in the same fashion, you are talking $$$$$. Next I would need $$$ of long runs of quality speaker cable and another one or two racks to store the amps. I have already compared the Paradigm Studio (passive) 20, biamped, with the active version. They both sounded great but my preference was the active.

So, to make a "system" of the amp, the speaker, and the room in the most CONVENIENT and COST EFFECTIVE fashion I think we are ALL in agreement here, active speakers PLUS a processor using good DSP is a good strategy.

So, if you want a convenient, cost effective, great sounding system use active speakers. That isn’t confusing at all, right?

@donavabdear , thanks for posting your C/V, very nice creds, congrats on all the awards. Would love to hear your thoughts sometime about mixing atmos for movies and how to setup an atmos HT in a convenient and cost effective fashion.. That might be a great topic for a future thread

@mijostyn , you get my compliments, you have done a great job with the system you have posted. I think the wall with the LP’s and the turntable is stunning, then you change gears and post your room correction curves from Tact. Those loungers look like once you sit down you will not want to leave those seats, wonderful and very inspirational. Question, how long did it take for you to curate the system you have now? It obviously was a step by step process. The PJ makes it OTT (or icing on the cake as you say), you seems to have the best of analog, digital, and HT at the click of a remote. From your workshop it seems if anything breaks you are on top of that too. Must be nice to custom build stuff to your exact specs.

The ultimate analog system, no amp, no cables (but lots of wires),no speakers, and no hands:

 

For most of us we have to learn to play ourselves to get the same effect, it is taking this hobby to its conclusion, live music in your home, synced with the musician. 

If I had tools and skills I would be all over making room treatments and maple isolation racks. You can flip them on etsy, lots of stuff there, some nice, come meh:

 

 

@fred60 

 

per @lonemountain (Brad)

I agree with you I wish more people understood what they were buying.

At ATC, we build both active and passive of nearly every model from 2 way to big high power three ways. Understanding the advantages of an active system is not well understood out there in the market but should be. Reasons to NOT like it are usually baseless, such as "you can’t service the amps if they are installed inside a speaker" (silly as ATC amp packs bolt on and off and are can be sent to us for service without the entire speaker coming along- its usually easier to send us a amp pack then a standard 3-5Ru rack mount amp). Or other reasons like "plate amps don’t last that long" which is also completely untrue, I have so many active ATC speakers on for 15- 20 years for 18 hours a day its crazy. If they all broke I would be buried in service. Reliability doesn’t really enter into it as I think most well built gear lasts a lifetime now. Unless you are talking about cheap active, thrown together low cost contract speakers with amps inside that are built for price. That’s a different story but it has nothing to do with being active.

Again, being in the studio business as well as home audio in active and passive I see both. Studios have issues with passives and outboard amps more often than issues with actives because of the constant connections and unconnecting and the additional part and pieces that need adjusting. Connectors are a huge issue in reliability. Users at home have issues with outboard amps ( of various brands) than active set ups (of various brands) from my direct experience

I think its marketing that has convinced everyone they need to buy amplifiers and if they don’t all hell will break loose. Somehow something is being taken away or somehow something is lost when its really the reverse. Wire and caps and inductors are added between amp and speakers that doesn’t need to be there. I think what’s taken away with passives is imaging and a significant amount of your money.

When I see someone saying they like the ability to change the sound of their system, that’s totally fair and okay. That IS the single best reason to stay passive, not performance or reliability.

Some people want it to sound like it’s supposed to, the way Fleetwood Mac decided or Tom Petty or Lenny Kravitz. ATC enables you to get that, and you cannot get that with passives. You can get close, but not "there". Realism is what drives Billy Woodman- or should I say "low distortion", the doorway to realism.

Brad

 

@jayctoy , yes, Andrew Jones has designed an active speaker, this is from his interview with SoundStage. He actually confirms my earlier post, if you want a great sounding system that is cost effective (Andrew states he can’t get the same performance as an active speaker from a passive with the same budget) and convenient (or as Andrew says, simpler), use active speakers:

GB: I’ve always been a big believer in active speakers, but they haven’t been well accepted by audiophiles. How are the Navises being accepted?

(This opening frame of reference about active and audiophiles goes directly back to the OP, here is Andrew Jones on the topic)

AJ: They’ve been shipping for a couple of months, and have received great commentary. I showed them at a few dealer events last year, and these went really well. There were a lot of die-hard audiophiles at these events, and I expected to hear comments like, “I want to be able to choose my components.” Instead, we had people telling us, “I’m at the point where I’m looking to simplify. We have a lot of boxes cluttering up the house. I want good sound quality, but I want it in a simpler format.”

The fear with active and powered speakers is that you’re losing some choice in how you put your system together. But it seems we’re getting past that point. In the past, when we talked about active speakers, people would ask, “What do you know about amplifiers? Why should I trust that you’ll use a good amplifier?”

I came up with a way of addressing this question. When people listen to one of my Debut speakers, they don’t ask, “I wonder what this would sound like if you used this SEAS tweeter or that Vifa woofer.” They just accept the choices I’ve made. In an active speaker, I’ve gone one step further in adding another component. But now I have all the benefits of an active design. So [they] just accept them. With passive speakers plus a single amplifier, I couldn’t have achieved that performance at that price.

Each amplifier is matched to the driver, and only has to operate over a limited frequency range. It’s operating into a simpler impedance, so it’s not going to have high-current demands. Also, the temporal characteristics of music change with frequency. High frequencies require very little average power, but have a lot of peaks. Bass requires much higher average power, but has far fewer peaks. You can match the amplifier to those characteristics as well.

https://www.soundstagesimplifi.com/index.php/feature-articles/80-active-voices-part-one-elacs-andrew-jones

@fred60 , I love your energy but no, I won’t contact ATC customer service for you, please use their website. I am sure a professional rep that can be trusted will do much better than kota1 in a chat room for these types of questions.

I will share something that happened to my actives. I had a driver damaged in my active 20 due to vandalism, someone renting the condo I had them in cut it with a knife. I pulled the driver, sent it to Paradigm, they re-coned it in their factory and I am back in business. The price was extremely fair and much less than the cost of the driver or a new speaker. The speaker is out of production and they had no problem fixing it.

Given your past experience I get your point.

@thespeakerdude @phusis

per Andrew Jones:

Each amplifier is matched to the driver, and only has to operate over a limited frequency range. It’s operating into a simpler impedance, so it’s not going to have high-current demands. Also, the temporal characteristics of music change with frequency. High frequencies require very little average power, but have a lot of peaks. Bass requires much higher average power, but has far fewer peaks. You can match the amplifier to those characteristics as well.

I like giving this control to the speaker designer to match the amp to the driver because it sucks when you misfire. I have a beautiful Parasound Zamp but it never got my JBL 230's to really open it up. Swapped it out for a Carver with more power and tracking down conversion and BOOM wall to wall sound stage. This is not fun for me to burn cash chasing down a match when I can get it pretty much perfect in a bi-amp (or even tri amp) off the shelf, first try, with a good active speaker. YMMV.

@kingharold +10, my hats off to you, you curated the entire chain, even the programming support from DEQX until you got what you wanted.

@lonemountain +10, great post and having owned both reference level passive and active speakers you can definitely hear the difference it makes without a crossover at speaker level, I especially notice it on very dynamic content listening at loud levels. No strain, no compression as you start to crank it, my active speakers kick in and just run full throttle without a complaint. I imagine that's another reason they like them in the studio.

@thespeakerdude , do you work in the industry? I may have missed that, really enjoy your posts, thanks.

@phusis when I said misfired it meant mismatched. The Parasound amp is very, very transparent but it didn’t have enough mojo to let that speaker outperform. The 230 is a passive speaker and I really like it. I didn’t know how much I liked it until I paired with the Carver AV505 from the A Series (on the TAS list of 10 most significant amps of all time). This is a BIG 5 channel amp and I only used two channels. The tracking downconverter is like a carburetor, it can move power to channels as called for. OMG, the soundstage opened from wall to wall, floor to ceiling. I was in shock as they never sounded like that before. That was basically luck on my part. For around the same price of that desktop rig I could have gone with these and got room correction too:

r these:

 

@donavabdear

You resolved the confusion, when not sure to get active or passive, get both. 😀

That is only partly funny because I did the same thing. Active in my HT and desktop, passive in the man cave. They are all fun, and different.

@brianlucey got me thinking about my next build. I never gave Atmos in headphones much thought. I never gave Atmos and analog much thought. His posts made me think. I think I want to build an Atmos/analog tube based headphone rig as my next "system". Jim Fosgate and Black Ice audio collaborated on a SOA headphone amp that they demoed at CEDIA 2022. Will see what happens once it is released. The FOZ says it is his finest creation, how everything he has done before has led him here. I have never done tubes or headphones seriously, hopefully this will be a good introduction to both.

This thread has a great "mix" of perspectives of members that create content, members that create hardware/speakers/cabinets, and in the end we are all "consumers’ using our personal systems. As a fellow member it has made me think and rethink my approach to improving the entire chain (right down to those great recliners I see in @mijostyn setup). At the end of the day none of these posts are wrong or right (except ATC speakers are as "bomb proof" as they come), it is just a reflection of each posters experience. What I see as a common denominator among all of the very thoughtful posters here is attention to detail of the entire CHAIN. To me, that is one of the best takeaways so far. @donavabdear has fleshed out a professional system, a personal system, and one with LIVE music (the piano), that is amazing.

You have the attention to detail of making the actual speaker (@ghdprentice, @lonemountain ​​​​@thespeakerdude and I think @phusis).

Then you have a perspective of @brianlucey who has mastered recordings in stereo at the highest level now getting a fresh start in early days of Atmos. A funny coincidence is I use passive speakers for my top middle/VOG channel on the ceiling (see the pic in my profile) and what do I power them with? A Parasound amp, the same brand he is using for his Atmos surrounds.

All of the speaker makers/ reps have basically confirmed my choices for going with active speakers, thank you.

The fact that a seasoned pro like @donavabdear is using the same brand of speaker (Paradigm) and virtually the same setup (Atmos) in his personal rig as well as active speakers in his professional is another HUGE confirmation of my personal choice/preference.

@brianlucey posts about the quality of Atmos music confirmed my own experience, Atmos done right has a LOT of advantages over stereo.

When you are working with budget you hate to have to start over, the flip side is when highly experienced members confirm your personal choices it gives you confidence to keep going in that same direction. Unlike most members here I did NOT go down the path of a high end two channel rig. I tried to stick as closely as possible to the Dolby standards for Atmos and the THX standards for Audyssey DSX (which I use a lot for upmixing 5.1 content).

The majority of posters here don’t use active, don’t do atmos, and focus on two channel, high end (luxury) rigs. My system is kind of an outlier in that regard so having all of these confirmations as I stated above is nice. Thank you everyone!

 

@brianlucey , all of these decisions about curating a system require components and that goes hand in hand with risk. Yes, many, many threads here evolve from insecurity, I agree. It is great when you can address that insecurity from the feedback and experiences of fellow members before you pull the trigger. For example, I bought a media player that had amazing upconversion ability for dolby vision. Not expensive but not cheap. I was insecure about the purchase and the claims. The product did what it claimed re: video but the audio was sub par, and the software to run the OS was android based and IDK android beyond using my phone. Glad I didn’t purchase a more expensive model, whew.

@fair

Cheap actives tend to use insufficiently sized power supplies, dubious thermal management, and cheap highly-distorting transducers. Correspondingly, they don’t sound all that good, and don’t last for long either.

Ahhh, there is a big difference between "cheap" and inexpensive. DTS-Playfi has an ecosystem of manufacturers making "inexpensive" active speakers. The speakers are not high end, but not crappy/cheap. I have a pair of Def-Techs W9’s in the dining room and a pair of Paradigm Shift A2’s in the office connected to a Play Fi preamp, the PW Link. They sound great and I have an outrageous, inexpensive bargain for you that is NOT cheap garbage and around $600 for an entire system, speakers, amps, dac, ARC room correction, and a streamer. It is all built into the speakers, no boxes, no problem. Basically plug and play:

But the PW system excelled when I used the two PW 600s as a stereo pair. This can be easily set up in DTS Play-Fi, but you have to remove them from surround-sound mode. Configured as a stereo pair, the PW 600s sounded outstanding, easily rivaling separate speakers and electronics costing many times their $1198/pair price.

 

 

@vinylvalet , if you have time can you please post your virtual system so we can check it out? Sounds great. This thread has a few audio experts with studio or manufacturing experience participating like yourself, has been quite an eye (ear) opener so far. Thanks

@donavabdear , before I had room treatments I was stuck. Most of what I could find about acoustic treatments was re: stereo, not Atmos. I had an inspiration to reach out to a studio where they mixed immersive content. I figured these guys are doing the content and if I can setup my room like they do I’ll have a better chance at getting a more accurate reproduction of what they heard in the studio. Can you imagine my surprise when Marti Humphrey from thedubstage replied to my e-mail! I wasn’t a client, a customer, just some guy from Timbuktu and he couldn’t have been nicer. He asked for pics, I sent them and my setup works for Auro 3D and Atmos and I told Marti I like Auro 3D. He copies Wilfried Van Baelen from Galaxy Studios, founder of Auro 3D who checked the pics on my room and they both provided excellent encouragement and feedback. I reached out to Anthony Grimani who also gave me excellent suggestions. So, although I am not a mixer that community you work with is five star, all the way from my experience. When I completed the room treatments as they suggested it sounded nothing like I could have imagined. Now the room correction software I use can do a much better job as room correction is limited in what it can do. Lucky for me I was not only looking to change but got a good roadmap. Thanks.

@donavabdear

I performed the acoustic treatment first, I used Auralex panels following the suggestions using this "recipe". The recipe is Anthony Grimani’s and I tweaked it with help from Wilfried and Marti such as adding bass traps on the ceiling. The Auralex Geofusors can be back filled with rockwool or polyfil to double as bass traps. Notice how the walls do NOT mirror each other. You have absorption directly opposite diffusion on the side walls. 2D diffusors in front half of the room, 3D diffusors in the back half. I have a "cloud" of acoustic lens 3D diffusors hanging below my PJ right where you see those four checkerboard like panels in the diagram below :

Once I had that dialed in I upgraded my processor to a Pro Audyssey license and bought a calibrated mic and preamp used by professional HT installers to calibrate it. Those are the graphs posted in my profile.

I did read your note about revealing high end speakers sounding bad for mixing and that is exactly what Star Wars mixer John Traunwieser said in a recent interview (25 min mark in this video), he says "If you are mixing on a system that is too high fidelity, then it sounds too pretty".

 

As for acoustic treatments, it would probably be easier to just get a room kit if I were going to treat another room. They have kits for studios/2 CH and HT that follow that same "recipe". Great support too, Anthony Grimani responded to my e-mails even though I used Auralex panels, he knows the owner and they are friends:

 

@donavabdear , there are equations for RT60 time that factor in the volume of your room. My RT60 is around .28 which is about right for a HT its size. As for the acoustics, I realized that swapping components around would be a money pit if I didn’t get the room right. I didn’t know if an Atmos setup needed a different approach than a studio or 2 CH (they don’t, but I didn’t know that at the time). After Marti and Wilfried’s feedback I did some research. This is a long video but I needed it. Around the :39 minute mark they discuss the best formula for calculating RT60 time. At :49 he discusses the core acoustic "recipe" I posted previously, and at 1:01:45 he talks about the end result being a "smooth and orderly sound field" and diagrams why this recipe works. I’ll check out your new pic, thanks for posting.

 

@mijostyn ,

All "Active" speakers I am familiar with use crappy dynamic drivers and garbage class D amps

What about the ones you aren’t familiar with?

Dynaudio

Elac

Focal

Kef

JBL

Paradigm

Yamaha

Definitive Technology

McIntosh

PMC

Neumann

and on and on we go. I am afraid you are proving, beyond any doubt, the confusion about active speakers among even dedicated audiophiles like yourself. I would tell you to go audition some Sh-t and hit reset, but that would not be polite.

 

@waytoomuchstuff

So, ALL things being equal (driver quality, amplifier, cabinet integrity, etc.), an active system would cost much less than separates. Or, theoritically, produce a better result at the same price point.

+1, I would add a better result than a passive setup at even a higher price point for all the reasons you stated. This is confirmed by designer Andrew Jones in one of my previous posts in this thread. If you only have two speakers, maybe not such a big deal to splash the extra cash. When you have a HT of 5 or more speakers that splash of cash can become a tsunami that you could have used on better source components, room treatments, preamp, etc.

 

 

@mijostyn , I don’t think I missed your point earlier, you made a rash generalization about all active speakers that I started my reply with in the previous post (in italics) and like you said, it failed.

This reply about no active speaker attaining absolute sound is interesting. What about the active line array speakers they use at live performances???

OK, I agree you can’t the absolute sound from ANY speaker using a recording,

I think you may want to check out the Avante Garde Active, Horn Loaded speaker system. They look CRAZY good and must sound even better. If you like the speakers the new amps they designed for them are just as interesting:

 

@mijostyn the  specs for my active speakers are all linked in my profile (no class D amps). Remember, this is about confusion about actives, not a contest. The OP owns both passive and active systems as do I.

@sixfour3 that is a great post, my hat off is to you, obviously hot rodding the Maggies is a great idea trying active.

@fair , Abbey Road used the Neuman's when remastering Pink Floyd for immersive audio. I posted a pic earlier in this thread. You mentioned that there is confusion about cheap active speakers and I agree. Those PW600 are an example of an "inexpensive" active speaker that aren't "cheap". If I were doing a build around a Yamaha HT processor the HS8 would be a match that would be my aspiration. Just thinking about it makes me want to try it. Kitchen duty I have a single Paradigm Active Shift A2 connected to a Klipsch Gate streamer. Thanks for replying.

@mijostyn , as for multichannel there are fewer recordings being made than in the past, as for Atmos it is snowballing. Atmos is OBJECT based, not CHANNEL based. It is a different category, not channel based at all. All you need to experience it is a set of the right headphones. Stop by the atmos music thread if you want to discuss. 

 

audioman58

How many active speakers have you auditioned in your own space?

No one in this thread has claimed that you can't get a great system with either passive or active. Given the SAME budget you will get better performance from an active setup. 

"I came up with a way of addressing this question. When people listen to one of my Debut speakers, they don’t ask, “I wonder what this would sound like if you used this SEAS tweeter or that Vifa woofer.” They just accept the choices I’ve made. In an active speaker, I’ve gone one step further in adding another component. But now I have all the benefits of an active design. So [they] just accept them. With passive speakers plus a single amplifier, I couldn’t have achieved that performance at that price.

Each amplifier is matched to the driver, and only has to operate over a limited frequency range. It’s operating into a simpler impedance, so it’s not going to have high-current demands. Also, the temporal characteristics of music change with frequency. High frequencies require very little average power, but have a lot of peaks. Bass requires much higher average power, but has far fewer peaks. You can match the amplifier to those characteristics as well."

Andrew Jones

@audioman58 , this also is a matter of taste, you like Bricasti amps, you should use them, you will be happy, NP.

For the $20K of a Bricasti and I could get the JBL M2 active speakers, would you consider those reference level?

If you wanted to use Bricasti amps, NP, just don’t buy the Crown amps they are usually packaged with, get the speaker,the external crossover/DSP and you have an active speaker driven by whatever amp you choose.

Don’t like JBL you can do the same thing with Bryston Actives, buy the speaker, the BAX crossover and BYO amp.

https://bryston.com/model-t-active/

 

 

@holmz it is possible I guess, but for a beer budget of $200 this is tough to beat. Look at all the controls on the back of it as well, you can tune it for your setup and no need to buy speaker cables saving more cash:

 

@rudyb , WOW, congrats, that looks like a great system and love how they built in an upgrade path. Have you tried after market power cords yet?

Together with the built-in amplifiers and digital signal processors, the powerful woofers operate down to 17 Hz. This is not possible for traditional loudspeakers.

They must bring the thunder and have built in DSP to dial all that bass into the room, sweet!

@mijostyn , we are in complete agreement on your last post. I have an all out system in my HT, and "good enough" systems in other rooms all connected via DTS Play-Fi app. I wish more people that bought receivers/preamps with DSP understood that they are limited in what they can do. Even the head panther at ASR eschews acoustic treatments. Why bother dropping big money on components and then choking them in all that reflected sound bouncing uncotrollably around?

@rudyb I have both the active and passive versions of Paradigms Reference 20 speaker. The passive version extends down to around 55hz, the passive to around 36hz, big difference. Active has the advantage here.

@mijostyn , you can’t build a CHANNEL based system with Atmos, 2,5,7, or whatever. Atmos is object based, different format. You don’t NEED an object based setup for music. It is just fun to have both available on your remote. I prefer channel based for acoustic jazz, folk, and strings. Object based for rock, hip hop. house, and EDM. Smooth jazz and go either way as it is both bass heavy and acoustic.

I also prefer active speakers for both formats but especially for Atmos and bass forward music.

 

@mijostyn , Paradigm no longer makes the Reference Active line of speakers. If they come up on EBAY they still sell for roughly the same price as they did when they were new. Their new PW active speakers and ShiftA2 are bargains IMO. 

 

@lonemountain

This is the confusion of speaker demos- you aren’t demoing speakers, you are demoing the room.

That summarizes it perfectly, and it ain’t just demos, its systems. I like going through the virtual systems area as much to see how members treat their rooms as for their equipment. My active speakers have contour knobs for bass and treble on the back along with a high pass filter. It comes in handy if I have a speaker closer to a room boundary than ideal or if I want to get better integration with my sub and in room bass response.

@mijostyn , I am using the XLR inputs for home theater. There is a toggle switch for RCA on the back and I have tried some two channel preamps so I can switch between HT and 2 CH preamps if I want. I can’t give it a digital cable.

The Active 20 measurements are HERE

As for the crossover info see the specs here:

http://www.cain.cainslair.com/Paradigm%20Reference%20Active%20Series%20Specifications.htm

From the Active 40 review :

Audiophiles just don’t readily accept the idea of their speakers being self-powered. But active loudspeakers have some distinct advantages over their passive counterparts. In fact, when I asked the designers at Paradigm which technology was better, active or passive (since the company makes both types of speakers), I couldn’t even finish my sentence before the word "active" was rushed back at me. There was just no second thought about it.

Review:

https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/revequip/paradigm_active40.htm

 

 

@mijostyn 

I like straight analog 😀.

I agree about the benefit of the DSP and it done by my processor, you can also see the attention to detail I have given to acoustic treatments. 

@thespeakerdude , the active 40's have a high pass filter switch on the back so I can cross them over with a sub, NP. I'll try both and see how it goes, thanks.