Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

Bryton sells non bundled active speaker systems:

https://bryston.com/active-loudspeakers/

Genelecs are super accurate and sound really good for studio music creation or cinema, but for audiophile home music listening they sound bit too clinical and chiseled for my taste. My guess is it's most likely due to the Class D amps that drive them.

I don't mind active or powered speakers, but my last set of actives had failed amps on both speakers. Now I had no speakers or amps working correctly. Great that they were under warranty and such but I'd rather not be out everything for at home relaxing.

kenjit
You asked about how an amp can be designed toward a particular speakers driver. As I'm sure you know impedance changes due to frequency, a very low frequency signal at a loud volume creates a low impedance. Not all amps are designed to be a one size fits all answer. Sub amps have dozens of signal filters to try to match the signal to the amplifier, a compromise of the music, and low frequency amps are the easiest to design because they only have to deal with a very small frequency range. The reason why every sound system needs a sub is because amps can't be all things to all speakers but an amp designed for low impedance loads can do a better job than and amp designed for 10Khz. The perfect speaker would have an amp for every frequency but 15 thousand amps in our living rooms is a little much. Matching a curve is very hard and if music was a sign wave it would be easier but music is very complex and impedance and many other factors in a music signal reproduction show themselves to amps at the same time which makes amplifying those signals a compromise when heard on the speaker. Amps that are at least designed to amplify the best guesses of the complex signals created by recordings in a narrow frequency band are better than brute force amps that are huge and can handle a .5 ohm load created by a synth but can't at the same time reproduce the triangle. This is why no matter how expensive the speaker and amplifier it never sounds like a real instrument. 

Once I was mixing an orchestra at a church and the conductor asked a violinist with a Stradivarius to come and play for me at the mixing console, well she did and tears came to my eyes the sound was so beautiful, I've never heard a recording half that good.

My experience with studio monitors is that they are very neutral and extremely accurate. The downside is that (FOR ME) they sound boring and very fatiguing in the long run. Too pushy. 

Klipsch Fives McLaren Edition (NOT a studio monitor by a longshot)

Audiophile 12 step program part 7 principle.
If your speaker are sponsored by F1 cars, they don't go fast or thunder down straightaways like F1 cars, if you buy F1 speakers it does not mean you are cool like F1 drivers. 

Audiophiles, get out of bed and drop a $10 thousand dollar AC cable in the trash, one step at time. Do we trust big companies with huge marketing budgets, no, these companies only want to make money, we can't blame them we just can't enable them when we know that AC field around the AC cable are not going to change if we insert a 2 meter piece of silver. 

The point is there are lots of active speakers that aren’t studio monitors, if you don’t like co-branding here is another popular active speaker built for home use. If you know where the guy tossed the $10K cable (or 2 meters of silver) post a link , I’ll retrieve it NP.

If you want to bash companies with big marketing budgets can you be specific? Potshot posting is reckless, I hate when someone denigrates an industry because they don't know what else to write in order to feel important.

Thanks all for this interesting thread. Have enjoyed following this discussion. 
 

Curious to know what kind of cables the OP is using in his studio and “home” systems. 

Have never seen a speaker with McLaren on the side of it. Have seen a McLaren with Klipsch painted on it.

@donavabdear I do not have one piece of BIG NAME equipment in my exquisite sounding system nor any China either.

McLaren Racing - Klipsch

If your speaker are sponsored by F1 cars, they don’t go fast or thunder down straightaways like F1 cars, if you buy F1 speakers it does not mean you are cool like F1 drivers.

$2.00 cable from Amazon from his iPad to his powered integrated speakers. 

@kota1 wrote:

Bryton sells non bundled active speaker systems

Indeed, one of the very manufacturers doing this. I wish more would follow.. 

Never bought a single piece of equipment based on some review in a trade rag.

I auditioned each piece of equipment in my system in my listening room. 

Period! If a dealer would not play then I don't pay.

You all can, but I am taking no mans word! 

Genelec’s G Three transduces more unpolluted truth than any other small speaker I’ve auditioned..... My highest recommendation -Herb Reichert

@jerryg123 , if you are in an area with a Guitar Center they have lots of studio monitors and will let you audition NP. The alternative is companies that have 30-60 day return policies.

@kota1 Thanks I have no real interest in Powered Monitors. over the last 25 years have dealt with local dealers that allow me to audition a piece in my system before I spend a dime. Like buying a car I get the dealer to let me take it home for the weekend. Did it with my Alfa and my Hellcat. 

You just need to know who these dealers are and develop a relationship with them.

My point is what works in Herbs rig is not going to work in my rig. Never buy gear based on trade rags or what is posted here. 

BTW I am in Guitar Center every couple of weeks. I fancy myself as a guitar hack. 

When you get back to Guitar Center see if they have Genelecs, Yamaha HS Series or JBL 306 series you can demo,

I think many of theses posts attribute qualities to "active" that are not due to the active vs passive nature of the system. Truth is a proper active system is MORE holographic and MORE detailed than an ordinary passive system, in the same room using the same drivers and sources. You can easily hear a difference using different pucks, speaker cables, power cables and all the same exotic gear you use with passive system. I have demoed this many times at shows or private demos. It all makes a difference and its only more obvious in active.

There’s also this undercurrent "what if my amp [in my speaker] fails? AH, remove the amp and send it in for repair just like your stand alone amp? There is no throwing a speaker away unless it’s a cheap piece of crap that cannot be repaired. Active doesn’t mean unrepairable. I have many active speaker that have been powered ON for 20 years and have not failed- in studios- used and abused 18 hours a day. So this reliability thing is a not real.

The primary sonic advantage of active is 1) improving imaging and 2) resolution of the finest details such as reverb tails, room sound where the recording was made, instrument harmonics and details, all the subtle information that brings [desired] additional information to the playback experience. Most artists think more awareness of what it really sounds like is a positive. Most great recording engineers obsess over this just as audiophiles do. The specific harmonic structure of a guitar or piano or violin is very complex and any distortion that covers up details is noted and often removed. Sometimes, a specific flavor is imparted in certain recordings by choosing specific microphones or mic preamps, just like audiophiles choose different speakers and amps for flavor. But the overwhelming target of the recording process is more resolution, so the myriad of differences become more obvious in the final result. Skilled listeners such as recording engineers like George Massenburg cannot stop hearing these details and have en endless pursuit of greater and great resolution: ie. better sound.

If the recording sounds bad, active will not fix that. If your front end has flaws, active will not fix that either. If your room sounds off or weird, it will still sound weird with active. All the same rules apply to your system and sources where everything makes a difference. There is no magic in active. Cheap active will not be as good as excellent passive just as cheap Class D sucks but very good (and expensive) Class D is pretty darn good. Excellent active will be better than excellent passive, every time, as long as it properly executed.

All this discussion of active "taking away options" is marketing by amp companies or those who don’t have a role in an all active loudspeaker universe. It’s critical to understand what active really is: "powered" is not active; "powered" is a passive crossover speaker with a full range amp inside the speaker box. This will sound the same as passive system except using shorter speaker cables.

In understanding active, it’s hard to argue that adding parts between amp and speaker (inductors, capacitors, filters and cable) could possibly improve definition. This is counter to everything else we know in audio, where less is almost always more. Insisting on passive "is the only way" is like insisting 30 feet of speaker cable is always better than 6. [30 feet of Cardas could be better than 6 feet of lamp cord, but 30 feet of Cardas cable will never sound better than 6 feet of the same Cardas cable] This is the point of active, it’s removing filters and things that color the sound before it ever hits the speaker, ie. a bunch of parts, circuit boards, caps and resistors and the speaker cable itself. Active is moving the amp closer to the driver, removing everything we can between the two. active is removing the lack of control of the driver, such as phase linearity relative to the other drivers in the system, which in active form restores control over elements of the speaker we previously could not. This "shorter path" and "straight wire" approach works not from an engineering perspective, but a sonic perspective as well.

Brad

Why does an onboard amp in an active speaker pair better than separate amplification ? Are the drivers different than a passive speaker? Are the crossovers different than in a passive speaker? It seems the only thing active does is eliminate the need for an external amp. 

@ronboco 

Why does an onboard amp in an active speaker pair better than separate amplification ? Are the drivers different than a passive speaker? Are the crossovers different than in a passive speaker? It seems the only thing active does is eliminate the need for an external amp. 

An example would be the speaker designer could match the appropriate amp to the appropriate speaker driver to achieve their design goals optimally. Also, the designer can place the "crossover" at the point in the audio chain, again, to achieve their goals.

An extreme mismatch example would be for an active two way where the amp driving the top end was a class d plate amp and the low frequency driver driven by a class A 10 watt amp. 

@ghasley 

Thanks for the info. So it’s like bi or tri amping I guess? 

Better powered speakers do indeed utilize specific amps for specific drivers with the crossover before the amps rather than after. With that said, I'm not a fan of powered monitors.

Heads up (on powered speakers): there is currently a Black Friday sale on Sonos speakers at 20% off. Example: Sonos Arc sound bar is now $719

lonemountain and ghasley great examples. Here's what we need to consider, we all know designing amps for specific speakers and visa versa is probably the best leap forward in sound quality. 

But:
We need to understand psychoacoustics and the huge placebo effect that we experience in the audiophile community.
We need to understand known quantities like the near elimination of speaker cables that are inherent in active speakers are real. We know that preamps are between the source and the amp so they are filters wether we think so or not, filters are distortion. We need to be able to justify active speakers and vibration dampening in the amplifier, we know there is active incoherent logic that is so obvious in that illustration.

Great post, Brad. 

jerryg123 your post reminds me of a continual conversation with a friend who worked at a vintage guitar store. This guy knows practically every guitar setup for every band you can imagine, he sells rare guitars to very rich musicians all the time. I would always argue with him saying how do you justify selling a 100k guitar to someone then run it through some raunchy guitar amp and still live with yourself. He would say it’s rock n roll man. I knew what he meant but that answer doesn’t square with buying a 100k vintage guitar for its amazing sound. That’s where super cool 2 channel systems in our world are the same they are not accurate but they sound super cool.

@donavabdear

We need to understand psychoacoustics and the huge placebo effect that we experience in the audiophile community.

This represents YOUR perception which is fine, do you have anything published about this "placebo" effect? As for psychoacoustics do you have any creds?

Technobabble begets techno babble, claims can be linked to research. What links can you share to back this up?

with a friend who worked at a vintage guitar store. 

I hope this isn't your "research", then again I wouldn't be surprised if you were taken in by the "halo" effect...LOL.

@donavabdear I also have vintage  guitar amps  Vox Essex, Marshall Plexi, and a Fender Twin Reverb, I am still a hack.

Love the tube sound and that will always keep me away from powered speakers for my home system's . 

Cheers. 

kota1
I suspect you know a lot about psychoacoustics and audio placebo effects. I started in acoustics, went to live sound then movie sound in my career all the while studying physics. I can't imaging people spending hundreds of thousands on sound equipment that don't know anything about the psychological effects of sound. Just google it. 

I've seen how musicians listen back to their vocals and obsess about things that aren't there I've apologized to directors about how bad the sound was and they had no Idea what I was talking about one director told me the sound was great he told me he just told a producer  "this is a fabulous recording it's going on the album for the movie". I also set up sound for Milli Vanilli, I didn't know it was all fake the sound system was real. One of the singers twisted his ankle and ran off stage where I was there was panic everywhere and the singer (I don't remember which one) wen't back on stage and just didn't jump around as much. No one could tell they were faking it, but when you see their performances today it is obvious they were. 
 

@ronboco wrote:

Why does an onboard amp in an active speaker pair better than separate amplification ?

In an active config. an onboard amp by itself doesn’t pair better than an outboard ditto. Remember, active can be an outboard solution as well.

Are the drivers different than a passive speaker?

Not necessarily.

Are the crossovers different than in a passive speaker?

Yes, active XO’s are placed prior to amplification on signal level, not on the amp’s output side between that and the drivers taking the full power.

It seems the only thing active does is eliminate the need for an external amp.

No, primarily active eliminates the passive XO between the amp and drivers, and this gives the amp(s) much better control over the drivers sans intervening passive XO components, which in turn has the drivers perform more accurately to what’s fed to them by the dedicated amp sections.

@ghasley wrote:

An example would be the speaker designer could match the appropriate amp to the appropriate speaker driver to achieve their design goals optimally.

While amp matching certainly isn’t irrelevant, its importance - in some respects - has been blown a bit out of proportion, if you ask me. Overall, active config. also allows the designer to downscale amps, while getting away with it, being the output power is more effectively used sans passive XO’s, and they also perform (i.e.: sound) better actively. As a bundled solution that comes in handy with more compact designs.

Not trying to diminish amp matching, as per your next quoted paragraph below, but often it means allowing the designer to potentially downscale while dedicating amp sections to their specific driver dittos.

An extreme mismatch example would be for an active two way where the amp driving the top end was a class d plate amp and the low frequency driver driven by a class A 10 watt amp.

Indeed. It’s what I do myself in my outboard config. active setup; lower wattage class A from the lower to central mids on up, high power class TD taking over down to the upper bass, and high power class A/B from here to 20Hz. Common wisdom, very generally, may dictate class D variants to the lowest octaves, but I’ve found using my class A/B amp (MC² Audio) to serve better from 20 to ~85Hz and having a bigger, more positive effect on the remaining frequency spectrum above in comparison to using my class TD Lab.Gruppen amp here, which is no slouch either, I might add. Interestingly the MC² Audio amp is the better full-performer vs. the Lab.Gruppen (but not the Belles class A, which is the best of the bunch), to my ears, and yet the overall sonic picture has it serving better in the subs region - go figure. 

That’s what an outboard solution allows you, to use external quality amps and experiment with their implementation in the respective frequency spectrums.

@donavabdear

Welcome to the forum, when you have time could you post your "virtual system" in your profile? The placebo effect can extend to anything, not just audio. Many dealers today offer 30-60 day trials so the bad dealers can’t hope to compete in the world of solid return policies. I think the vast majority of dealers are ethical and want to provide value. I have no problem with dropping $$$ on cables or whatever. I have HUGE problems on spending even a dollar on gear without addressing the room. If there is audiophile kryptonite I would say it is acoustic treatments (or lack of) rather than what gear costs.

@donavabdear 

The amps in powered speakers are designed for the speaker at a specific price point.  They aren’t necessarily the best amp for the speaker.  In the same way that a passive speaker with a better amp can sound better than an active version of the same speaker with lesser amps.

I think the one issue not addressed in responses is controlling [driver] phase to create a phase linear system.  Phase control is not possible in the passive or the outboard amp active system (unless you have a very sophisticated line level crossover with phase controls on each band, which I have not seen outside of DSP crossovers).  It always requires careful measurement to be able to accurately adjust phase.  Therefore, phase linearity is one attribute of an active system that is hard to compete with. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against passive, its not shite, it can sound very very good indeed, It's just that active has so many positives that seem so poorly understood in the audiophile community.  It's like there is this feeling of "I'll give you my outboard amp when you pry it from my cold dead fingers!"   It's a little odd when the science on this is not new or controversial and the sonics are obvious to anyone whose has tried like for like. 

The anecdotal evidence I read in this forum doesn't really compare active vs passive, like for like. Its usually comparison one brand to another with other differences that are not explained.  Granted a proper demo is extremely difficult to pull off, maybe impossible.  I've done it because I have the same speakers in active and passive and the same amps built by the same company.  Not everyone hears the difference, like my wife, so tis not black and white.  But it certainly is as significant a difference as one cable vs another., one CD player to another, one DAC to another.   Maybe sometime I'll invite you all to Las Vegas to hear this comparison.  Or maybe we'll do this demo at AXPONA next time and have a party doing it!. 

Brad

I have the exact same speaker in both versions, the Paradigm Reference Studio 20 v2 and the Paradigm Active 20 v2. I hooked up the Studio 20’s in a biamp configuration to a Carver 505 5 channel amp (two channels driving L and two channels driving R) . I used quality speaker cables, set them up and they really sounded good, wide open soundstage from wall to wall.

When compared to the actives it feels you can drive the actives at lower volumes to achieve the same effect of being enveloped in sound. The bass extended down to 54hz in the passive, 36 hz in the active. The bass just doesn’t extend lower, it has a tight authority that really sings when you crank it. No mush, no softness, just a tight bass that drives along with the song with seemingly no effort. The tweeters seem to sing a little more effortlessly as well. If you didn’t hear them side by side you would be happy with the passive. After hearing the active the passive seems like drinking cold coffee compared to a steaming hot cup.

passive 20 specs

active 20 specs

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

Congrats on your 23 speakers.

In my admittedly limited experience,  I haven’t run across any active powered speakers with internal tube amplifiers; it would seem to make little sense to create such things.  
 

I don’t think I would enjoy the OP’s system as much as he seems to, and he probably wouldn’t enjoy mine very much.  We’re using different criteria for what sounds best for reproducing recorded music at home. 

kota1
On my 2 channel and home theater system I us the Paradigm 9hs. I was so disappointed with their bass output, I have PS Audio BHK 300 Mono amps that are part tube and part mosfet. I had to add 2 subs to make the speakers sound better. Ironic but the 9Hs have a fairly big low frequency amp built into the cabinets and to me the low frequency is sickly, the high and mid frequencies are wonderful so now I'm more than happy with my 2ch system, it was very difficult to time align the extra subs because of the electronics in the 9hs.

I'll post a picture of my stereo room and my film mixing studio tomorrow.

Happy Thanksgiving.

["A political refugee from Souther California"]? It's easy to vote in California. Our vehicle emissions, women's rights and firearm regulations are slightly different here. Were you a liberal in Orange County or conservative in Topanga? Whatever, as a native Californian I'm thrilled that your decision to leave has made you happy. 

Wednesday the 23d it was a sunny 71, water is 63 with a glassy chest high swell at Swami's this morning. I rode the big Yater in my spring suit while the first snow blankets the Sierra. 

My audio mentor monitored his collection of modified microphones and preamps until his passing with those old green Koss 4AA's, repugnant of most studio setups. In demand for almost sixty years and three Grammies. For playback he liked his Duntech Senators, MFA and Wavestream electronics, Cardas and Canare cable in bulk most everything modified.  

Where would we be if everyone listened to one individuals notion of correct? After today's ProTools, plug in's and post production fidelity isn't exactly the goal it once was.

Today I'll think of you as I peel the cowboy sized potatoes for Thanksgiving dinner. Keep warm.

kota1

Sorry for the dumb question but how do I set up my "virtual system" on Audiogon? I have some pictures of my room also. 

NP, it is in the drop down menu when you log into the site. Here is a link and at the top you will see Create System. When you click on a members name if they have a system posted you can open it from inside the "details" in their profile. Looking forward to checking out your rig, thx:

@m-db love your post and attitude ;-) Buy ya breakfast some day on the beach adjacent to the break…. I get down that way now and then…..not enough….

Jim

m-db
California is beautiful and I love it, I grew up in the Sierra Nevada mountains then ended up in LA doing sound. Idaho is very conservative and nearly everyone here is from California.

Having an audio mentor is so powerful, I had to make every mistake imaginable and learn what not to do myself. I’ve got to work on some big movies ie. Titanic, Pearl Harbor, and do many years of TV like CSI, Scorpion etc. I’ve been to the Oscars and Emmys multiple times and won.

listenig to odd monitors or headphones that aren’t the pinnacle of quality doesn’t matter in recording, your brain knows what a great voice like Anthony Hopkins sounds like on your system your mind will always compensate. There is no getting around using the best microphones possible though, monitors don’t matter but microphones do. I’m sure I’ve spent millions on sound equipment through the years but most of my equipment money went tor microphones.

Jim, I left Encinitas yesterday afternoon. I'm banking on a stellar San Francisco Friday at Ocean Beach. I'm too old for that paddle out so I'll be there with the Nikon. With some forecasted juice and a slight offshore those sand bars can really spill.

You take care and have a nice holiday. 

m

Next, there will be an argument for DSP controlled, actively powered, multi-amplifier digital HiFi console stereos... Let me out here please...

Thanks @lonemountain , great posts.

kota1

Ok my room is in, hope you like it. I love sound but I'm not the most experienced audiophile. Working on it.

Thanks
Have a great Thanksgiving!

OP:

This is your first post on AudiogoN. The subtext is:

• You know more.
• Audiophiles know less.

Quite an interesting way to introduce yourself to the community. Very Hollywood.  LOL.

@steakster

a true audiophile knows it better

from day 1

he feels the need to express it

otherwise, what’s the point?

:)

@m-db

I messaged you

@donavabdear , what a nice blend of work and comfort. I see we are both using Paradigms. I took my cue on setup right from the Dolby specs, nothing original there, just measured it out and dialed in the angles. One adjustment that worked for me is getting the tweeter of my CC in line with my L-R speakers. I set it up on Isoacoustic stands so it would reach to that height. I imagine when you are chilling the last thing you want to think about is audio equipment. Really top line gear you have all around, congrats!