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 4 responses by oddioboy

And no @kota1 those Paradigm are not mid-fi, though some would consider that vaunted tube amp mentioned in the article very much mid-fi. 

If someone makes a statement about massive distortion of DA and DSP while they are using tube amplifiers I don't put much faith in their opinion (or knowledge) of this topic.

 

If someone also uses said tube amplifiers, talks about massive distortion of DA and DSP and then talks at length about the virtues of Trinnov, which fortunately fixes a lot of the flaws of their amp and speakers, then again I don't place much faith in their ability to talk with expertise on this topic. I may get them to master a record because they have a good ear for what people like but that's not the same thing as what we are talking about.

 

I will also note they talked about the superiority of digital capture but disregard the DAC and DSP in those powered speakers which could very well be at an equal or superior level. 

 

Sorry to pick on one person but it's the clearest case of expertise in one closely related area clearly not being portable. My doctor probably doesn't know the first thing about making an MRI machine either.

 

What are speakers? Frequency response, distortion of various types and dispersion and the interaction of those 3 over volume. Even cabinet resonances and waterfall ultimately can map onto those simple things. No audiophile buzzwords changes that.

 

So the question is, can making an active speaker give control over system variables such that you can improve one of those 3 things in ways no separates ever could?

 

The answer is yes. A rather resounding yes.  If your opinion is that the answer is no then I suggest learning more about how speakers works till you understand the answer must be yes.

 

We will now return the thread to the pointless arguing.

 

 

In the context of what I wrote passive speakers are a no. It is not a different approach, it is a handicapped approach.

 

Thank you for the welcome but I don't intend to engage enough here to where I would feel the need to detail out my system and post pictures. 

I am not here to be an encyclopedia @kota1 and looking at other topics I could post a thousand articles and it would not sway some people. I will give you a nibble. You can work from there. This is but one simplistic technique in active drive: 

 

https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01103598