Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

@thespeakerdude , THANKS, for the info, very astute!

brianlucey Maybe no one is on your sound journey, maybe you use the greatest equipment in the world and we are all simply lucky to hear your musings on equipment. If you were half half the engineer you think you are you would understand that if a studio uses the greatest, warmest, most orgasmic equipment ever it's not a very good studio, Why because studios are not supposed to sound good they are supposed to mix music that will sound good on the most systems. You mentioned MS-10s bad speakers that are the industry standard, why because they sound not so great. One of the oldest tricks in the book is before the mix is finished you go out with the producer and put the track in your car that's where most people listen to music.

Audiophiles often have much better systems than studios, this is the audiophiles place in the sound world, not the studios.

I have been in sessions with perhaps the greatest mixer ever Al Schmidt at Capital records he used his own monitors that honestly didn't sound very good at all but it didn't matter he knew what to expect from them that's what counts. Your song and dance equipment wise doesn't hold any weight supporting your arrogance. Good luck.

@donavabdear Small minds see the world as dogma or polarity. Both accurate and musical is what mastering studios are about. Both. Mixers can use your speakers. My room would blow your mind. Mixers still use Auratones or NS-10. I’m not a mixer. What’s your name and credit list ? Naive and overconfident trolling from beginners or worse failed pros is what this looks like. My system is both accurate and beautiful. Top tier globally. Every room is one persons opinion. It’s a bias. We use science but music engineering is not a science experiment. It’s a humanity exercise. Connection. Not perfection. Yes I knew beautiful Al. And it’s spelled Capitol. I use Al’s personal dCS Bartok here every day ... for my headphone amp. Sits next to his memoir. Loved Al. Don’t evoke the name of the dead to make your ignorant point. That’s manipulative and wrong. Bricasti M1 SE is true high end. The Allnic A-6000 is better than the best solid state. Evolution Acoustics MM3 Exact and MMMicros are both accurate and beautiful. Acoustic Zen cables are levels above what’s in any self powered monitor. You’re who again ? Nameless troll? Fact is self powered speakers have zero intrinsic benefits. Except cost and convenience. Some are better than others but it’s just another imperfect approach in a world of imperfect compromises. Name and credits list please. What’s your equipment history ? Again sir, it’s about our personal EVOLUTION with monitoring. What you think you know today will change. Or you stopped thinking. Dogma is for fools. Come visit me anytime.  Apple. Capitol Studios. Dolby. They've all been here.  

Fact is @brianlucey, that your MMThree Exact is an active speaker, and you don't seem to understand this. The woofer section is powered, and shapes the frequency response of the amplifier to enable a very low -3db point. Your primary monitoring speaker is an active speaker. That seems to negate your views on active speakers.

For the Trinnov processor, one of its primary functions is to measure and correct the speaker response. It injects test signals and measures from its output through your amplifier, through the speaker, to its measurement microphone. It then corrects frequency errors, and phase errors of the combined system. It does this independently of the room correction function and surround decoding. A similar process is an aspect of a fully active speaker, but the manufacturer can do it more accurately as they don't have environmental interference in their measurement, worry of component drift, i.e. from a tube amplifier, and then can directly control each driver, not just the system as a whole.
 

Perhaps my expectations are too high to expect adults to tone down the insults and chest pumping, and discuss this subject in something other than falsehoods and misconceptions, a subject, you may guess, is near and dear to my heart.

@brianlucey 

The evolution acoustics speakers are not very good. They are just another 'wooden box with drivers'. Same story. Also the fact that it is a multi way speaker is an imperfection. You do not seem to realize that your expensive speakers chop the music up into bass, mids, treble, and then is joined back up. Unfortuately this is not perfect sound. That is unnatural and does not happen in nature. Until we have perfect drivers, that can do 20hz to 20khz without beaming you will not hear perfect sound. If you think you are hearing perfection then your ears arent good enough im afraid. Perfect sound does not come easily. You have been warned. 

Master Kenjit ~ Chief Audiophile and master tuner

brianlucey oops I spelled al Schmitts name wrong and Capitol Records wrong, sorry. Al Schmitt was very kind and he was incredibly humble and unassuming. He wanted to show me all around Capitol and the reverb rooms but I was a little star struck to be honest I didn't want to be a pain. He thought what I did was cool (movie sound) and I thought what he did was cool (music) . His speakers were Tannoy he told me they had a custom crossover made by Doug Sax, they sounded awful very very heavy midrange of course I said nothing. I was there because the artist knew I new how her voice should sound the producer was Don Was. I didn't say a word about the sound I knew she was in good hands. I say all that because you respect Al Schmitt and he used literally the worst sounding speakers I've ever heard in a studio, this goes to show it's not about how expensive or perfect the monitors must be they just have to be consistent then you can make decisions in reference to them. I worked with many actors who got 20M for the show we were working on Tom Cruse, Leonardo DiCaprio, Anthony Hopkins etc. and I had to get their voice right because I had to capture their performance, but many times we had to tell the Director to do another take because something went wrong, believe me Jim Cameron on Titanic didn't want to do any take again for sound but he usually gave in after screaming at me it takes a lot of confidence in your monitoring system to ask for another take at $3000 a minute. Thanks for answering me, you are arrogant but confident and it's nice you invited me to your room. Best

@thespeakerdude you missed my entire point.  Rudely.  I was clearly saying no dogma.  Ever.  I'm not opposed to anything in principle. The OP made a dogmatic assertion.   And a few points to your bad arguments. 1.  MM3 is direct wire from amp to mid drivers. Parallel crossover. Low and high are tapped and yes adjustable.  2. Trinnov is used in 7.1.4 only. To do the geometry, the room and to match the natural curve of the LR.  3.  The idea of correction is false. There is no perfect thus there is no correction.  It's all about the best compromise based in taste.  If you choose not to decide you still have made a choice. It's all taste plus math. 

@kenjit Jesus. Brother can you read?  I'm not claiming perfect.  There is no perfect.  Read the posts again. Lot of musical color in my room.  Also a lot of accuracy.  There is no perfect.  No best room.  No design dogma from me.  That was the OP. 

@donavabdear so no music credits ? No name ? Got it.  You're arguing for your system being of superior design concept.  I'm saying "if you love it that's great!"   The rest of your posts are drivel. 

@brianlucey please do not emphasize on incorrect. The MM3 is an active speaker. There is absolutely no denying that. In this case, only the woofer is an active system, but it proves out it works, and it is superior, even in what are, in your estimation, some of the best speakers available.

You are mistaken about what a Trinnov processor does. My idea of correction is not false. Let me repeat your own words to you,

The Trinnov is the most powerful piece of equipment that anyone could ever put into an Atmos studio because it deals with so many elements so quickly. It deals with the measurements for distance, adjusts the 3D placement, improves phase, group delay and speaker amplitude linearity, plus it upgrades the room issues. Beautiful results quickly, and more than physical measurements and treatments alone could accomplish.

The Trinnov has no concept of the speaker on its own, but the speaker with its connected amplifier and anything else in the signal path. The Trinnov corrects the things you mention, phase and frequency response of the combination of your amplifier and speaker. As I wrote above, that is what an active speaker does, but can do it more accurately. Everything else the Trinnov does is layered on top of the speaker correction. These are your other words,

But if you’ve done all you can with the physical side, then you bring in the Trinnov and it’s really quite remarkable, especially for speakers with a traditional crossover. I could not live without it for my Atmos room.

I am sure you will agree that your main speakers, as they correct the response of the combination of your amplifier and speakers, will not sound the same, on their own, with the Trinnov in and out of the system?

thespeakerdude Just to be clear my OP was meant to mean in the best practice each driver should be designed for each amp and visa versa. If this isn't done the amp may be very expensive but it is shooting darts on matching the particular speaker most effectively. Think of the million dollar systems that aren't designed for each other that is willful confusion a picture of silliness. The amp doesn't have to be in the speaker cabinet but it does have to be designed for the speaker. 

Vibration affecting the fidelity of active speakers with the amps inside the cabinet and those benefits are opposed to each other. That's all I'm saying. 

@thespeakerdude again. Read slowly ... I am not opposed to any concept or any system. No dogma. However in the real world FULLY ACTIVE SYSTEMS WITH DA AMP CABLES SPEAKER DSP IN ONE TEND TO BE A COST ISSUE COMPROMISE.

Trinnov ... I used to make 7.1.4 sound like stereo mm3 with no DSP.

Are we clear?

I set up the trinnov to be AS INVISIBLE AS POSSIBLE ON THE L R 

I feel I must further take issue with labelling any amplifier the best on its own. Amplifiers and speakers form a system. Colleagues would argue, correctly I must accept, that amplifiers, speakers, and the room form a system. No amplifier is the best amplifier for every speaker, and no amplifier is the best amplifier for every speaker and room combination. Tube amplifiers, even your Allnic, are often a poor choice for speakers where the delta from maximum to minimum impedance is large, and the minimum impedance is low. That amplifier could impact a significant and negative character on a speaker that a much lower cost SS amp would not.

brianlucey
I started in acoustics and physics then moved into movie sound about 35 years ago. I've been to many big studios but not for music but for movies. and I'm putting in my studio now for movies not music. Dolby Atmos was meant for movies not music. I have worded at music studios but didn't enjoy it as much as sound for movies. Sorry if that is beneath you.

Oscar for Titanic Oscar nomination for Pearl Harbor

Emmy for The Watcher

Emmy for CSI

Lots of Golden Reel dialog awards CSI Miami and others

brianlucey
Also 30 years of live mixing and mixing orchestras, also sound for plays, also sound for radio shows, also sound for commercial buildings, also setting up sound systems for concerts, also working on recording studio sound systems, also consulting for production sound recording manufactures, also consulting on movie post production sound systems. Also designing mathematic raytracing programs for JBL, also doing basic acoustic research for Crown. 

You don’t seem to understand, in detail, what that Trinnov does. Even in L&R Mode, it is applying corrections at the speaker level.

https://www.trinnov.com/en/blog/posts/trinnov-optimizer-features-according-to-l-r-excursion-curve/

FULLY ACTIVE SYSTEMS WITH DA AMP CABLES SPEAKER DSP IN ONE TEND TO BE A COST ISSUE COMPROMISE.

May I ask how many fully active speakers you have developed over your career? You appear to be stepping far out of your area of expertise. Even your MMThree are a cost compromise. For the implementation of DSP, D/A, amplification and power supply, in many situations, we would be hard pressed to make it cost more. For these sub components of the design we could add frivolous components that would increase the cost, but they would not improve the sound and hence would not generate a resale premium to our target professional markets. These sub components are not the limiting factor in the SQ of our products. That will still be the driver components and cabinet / acoustics for the long foreseeable future.

One observation I will make about brianlucey and donovabdear is that the markets they serve have much different requirements where consistency and subsequently accuracy is concerned. For music, mixing or even mastering with substandard SQ or highly musical setups yields good results as the target playback devices are diverse and lacking standards and you don’t have the criticality of dialogue. For movies, the opposite is true. There is high consistency in playback in theaters, and even home systems due to automated room correction. Not only is there high consistency, but there is an expectation of consistency and a need due to dialogue. Brian’s musical amplifier and speaker combination may not cut is in donovadbear’s world. Our market intelligence suggests ATMOS and related formats driving music towards more accurate systems over time.

@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

kota1, I'm not an expert in Dolby Atmos even though I've got a system, I just bought it to do a movie I was going to produce and pay for myself. I have a technical background, Physics and engineering in college and got to do some wonderful acoustics at the beginning of my career which helped all the way through. Live sound, music recording studio work, orchestras, did help me in production sound for films but my specialty is production sound (recording the actors and efx on set). It was nice when I could get into the post mixing stages because I was usually working on the next show. 

@donavabdear / @brianlucey 

Are you hearing any rumblings in regards to a heavy push on concert pay per view, both delivered in specially equipped theaters and for home?   Our growing world means far too many large markets for performers to perform in live, with tickets at those events exceeding the budgets of most fans.

For concert livestreams check out:

thespeakerdude Atmos object oriented mixing is a good bet for the future, systems will become smaller and more efficient in terms of efficiency and specificity in accurate imaging, it's all over the place now, even theaters can't keep up with properly holding the specs of the sound. Holographic glasses will show the artist in the metaverse and concerts will be wonderful.

Great topic, though the tenor of some is off.

I agree with the OP. Confusion.

I recently sent my Focal SM9's to a new home after enjoying them for many years. They sounded fantastic! A revelation of the music! As a 2 way near field set up they were extraordinary! Is that enough exclamation marks?

Oh well, they're gone now.

Replacing them are JBL 4367. I have posted about my experience with different amps in  "How do I establish a Reference Level?"

There is a new amp in the mix now Look there.

@kota1 , you answered your own question. They only use AB on the low power HF amplifier. With a DEQX I can use class A amps at all three levels. And there is another problem, 3 way. I vastly prefer one way plus a subwoofer. 

@sokogear , I do not think your analogy works. You can not define "winning" for sonic quality. The target is purely subjective. Athletes do not have to be perfect, they just have to beat everyone else. 

I know exactly which recordings can fool people. I have a grand piano in my media room and my daughter plays violin. I can fool anyone into thinking someone is playing the piano, same with the violin if my daughter is home. I have done it to my wife. 

What this thread does is convince me that the majority of us have never heard a system that approaches the Absolute Sound. As sokogear suggests it is a confluence of the equipment used but most importantly it is about the speakers and the room. The rest is just icing on the cake. 

@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.

mijostyn I have a wonderful Steinway Grand piano it is a Spiro/r which means it uses a digital mechanical mechanism that will play the piano every key hits the strings with a resolution of 1000 levels of amplitude, the /r means it records also. I've recorded pianos for many decades even once for Elton John (he was a pain). This piano is the definition of hi fi it's the only perfect recording I know of. Pianos are really hard to record grand pianos sound better from farther away but then you are really depending on the room. I think pianos are the worst recorded instruments in all of music. Do you have a favorite piano recording?

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

kota1 This was one of the most expensive pieces of sound equipment I've ever purchased but wow, the sound is perfect, like you said no speakers no mics no transducers AD converters or anything. Often Steinway has a person do a concert and you can link the piano and see the featured musician play the piano on the TV and it's your piano playing in perfect sync, the ultimate Audiophile system. I've miked pianos hundreds of ways and they all are bad, this is the only way that a piano sounds proper unless you have a very talented piano player friend who will play for you 1000s of songs and videos that Steinway sends month to month. No sound system could produce the same sound as this piano does because it's created in a different physical way, the hammers hitting the strings is nothing like listening on speakers.

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. 

@kota1 , Thanx for the compliment. As a child I was always wanted to know how mechanical devices worked. To the chagrin of my parents, I took just about anything apart, and I do mean anything. I got really pissed when I did not have the right tool to do the job and had to get creative. Eventually, this talent became useful as if something broke I would fix it. Thus I became a tool collector. 

My first record player was a Zenith portable my father got me when I was 4 years old for my birthday. I was sleeping and he put it on the foot of my bed, woke me up and asked if I could guess what it was. I could not. All the record players I had seen where huge things. When he told me I was up and at it. Best present I ever got. Problem was he would not let me touch it. I had to get him or my mother to get it going which of course pissed me of. Eventually, I dragged my mother into my bedroom and showed her step by step how to place records on the spindle and get things going. She finally talked my father into giving me full operating privileges. 

My first stereo was another Zenith portable from there it was an evolutionary process culminating in what you see. At thirteen I constructed my first "audiophile" system from Dynakits. My first turntable was a used Thorens TD 124 with an ADC Pritchard tonearm. The woodworking skills started from here. I needed a cabinet to put all the equipment in so I had my mother rent a router and jigsaw and built one out of plywood and Formica. It was pretty ugly but served it's purpose. 

My woodworking skills were fine tuned by Jules the Italian marine carpenter. My father was into boats, cabin cruisers. I hated boats. They were a prison to me. While he was polishing chrome I tagged onto Jules and became his apprentice. He was incredible. In a boat there is not a straight line. I learned how to make such things as curved cabinets that fit exactly, boat railings out of mahogany that ended in a beautiful scroll at the stern, swooping around the boat to a point at the bow, and how to name the boat in gold leaf. All he had for tools was a big band saw on wheels and a box full of hand tools. With that he could make anything and I do mean anything out of wood. He was the best wood worker I have ever known. If it was not for him I would not have gotten very far. 

I was always going to have a shop in my house. It was just as important as a kitchen and audio room. I have three phase power, a separate dust proofed room for dust collection and pipes running throughout the shop. I have the finest band saw you can buy, a Northfield, what a beautiful machine. You can see it in some of the photos. 

On to the media room. Those recliners are from Stressless a Norwegian company renown for quality. They are custom made in the finest natural leather. I am now 68, so it has taken 64 years to get where I am and I am not finished. I have Atma-Sphere MA 2's coming. The TacT is going to be replaced by a DEQX Pre 8 as soon as it is released and I am working on a new set of subwoofers as I am not totally happy with the last set I built. I hope to upgrade my phono stage to a Channel D Seta L20. I have to figure out a way to get it by my wife. That is as far as I can see into the future. As Robert Duvall said, "You always have to be looking forward," forward to something. This is the secret of being happy when you are old. When you can't look forward you are done.

@donavabdear , What a beautiful thing. Player pianos have been around forever, but that one gets the cake. 

Pianos are like HiFi systems. They will sound different in different rooms. Every one sounds different and their sound is very complex plus they are big. All this makes them hard to record. In studio recordings they use at least two mics and they split them between the channels. What you wind up with is the low keys in one channel and the high keys in the other, as if the piano is as big as the entire band. I HATE that. It totally kills the realism. In the Oscar Peterson box set, Exclusively For My Friends, is an Album called My favorite Instrument, MPS 15 181 ST. It is a collection of solo pieces. From another room it sounds as of the piano is in the room. From the listening position it sounds like the piano is right in front of you. You get the same effect with Maurizio Pollini's Chopin series DGG 2530 550, 659, and 291. The interesting thing is that they are very different sounding pianos/recordings but they produce the same effect except at the listening position Maurizio's piano sounds like it is up on a stage at a distance while Oscar's piano is right in front of you in the room. There are others but these are the ones that really stick in my mind.

@mijostyn - seems like you are into woodworking as much as hifi. The only similarity between my system and yours is the Ekornes chair I have. I had one since 2005 that was just replaced with an identical one last year. Hard to believe there have been no changes is all that time. I still have the old one that I'll give to my son when he can move for less than the value of the chair. Only reason I replaced it was because I cleaned it too aggressively and wore out a small patch of leather near where my head sat and I didn't like the fabric I had custom made to fit over the top part.

I didn't realize you were that into digital. What % of the time do you estimate you listen to vinyl vs. digital, and do you still like vinyl better (assuming you have a decent pressing of the title)?

Lastly, I only disagree with one of your statements....perfection is defined as 100%. You can't move the dial. If you want to say perfection is greater that that, it is still a fixed number, like a weighted GPA taking AP classes into account. It's like that skit saying to turn the amp up to 11, and why does it only go up to 10. However you slice it, perfection is perfection, max is max.

mijostyn Thank you for the piano recording notes, I'll listen to them with nothing else going on, the house quiet, my wife sleeping, my mind at ease, no caffeine and my tubes warmed up. 

How do you feel about my point about my piano making sound from the hammers hitting the strings and speakers using electricity and vibrating cones. This piano has changed my view of what Hi Fi is because it's real and when you hear real in a room that was designed for the instrument it's not like a recording. 

mijostyn Also, I've only done sound all my life and I've come across an interesting thing. People that are really good at it are into other things like your woodwork, many of my friends and the people that I look up to in the industry strangely enough cook, or do something else that is creative and practical. I don't have any other talents I try to play saxophone but I'm simply not as gifted as a real player.

Thank you for telling your story.

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:

kota1 Ya know rooms are weird concerning acoustics, the best studios I've been in have sounded really strange definitely not the dark room with perfect RT-60 dissipation, smooth reverb. One of the very frustrating parts of acoustics to me is that acoustics are probably still more art than technology and computer algorithms, it's frustrating to me because I used to work in that industry using all the tech I could think of.

Here's how to set up a room with regard to acoustics, hire a person with a lot of time and experience in small room acoustics and let him/her walk around clap and  talk about the music you like while walking around for a while then do exactly what he says. it's very likely a computer program will not agree with the acousticians notes. 

Look at it this way my beloved Steinway "B" grand piano is the definition of a phase problem the lid bounces the sound from the hammers hitting the strings, you get the direct sound then the bounced sound later from the lid = phase problem. But no that's how pianos sound, unless you take off the lid. Acoustics is an art not a science. Flat rooms sound awful.

@mijostyn wrote:

@phusis , I am inclined to agree entirely. The best amps I have ever heard have all been Class A at least up to a certain output. These amps can not be put into an active speaker because of the heat they generate. 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.

Indeed. My main issue of sorts is buying into the notion of the degree of which amps of bundled, active speakers are supposedly "engineered" and specifically tailored to a range of drivers and their respective sections in ways that couldn’t as well be accommodated with an outboard solution. Finding outboard amps to properly fit driver sections in an active setup is perfectly realizable, and if anything such amps are more than up for the task (to a degree even that some may call "shooting sparrows with cannons," but different persons/businesses different benchmarks), arguably in some contrast to the core aspect of "tailoring" amps to drivers in bundled solutions and what it’s mainly about here: shaving off what’s believed unnecessary and down to what is merely enough - both because you can (that is, only to a certain extent compared to an outboard config.), for reasons of keeping expenses at bay, and also due to potential thermal issues with all that implies and the amp topology used. What’s left in regards to fitting an amp section with a driver ditto can as well be handled with the careful choice of an outboard approach, with even better amps and what fits a given listener’s preferences and specific acoustics to boot.

"Activeness" can be applied to any system just by the addition of the right processor like the new DEQX units or the Trinnov Amethyst. Then you have the ultimate control over what your system is doing. The DEQX Pre8 has a full two channel 4 way crossover. It will individually control 8 amplifier channels and apply room control to all 8 channels.

Yes. However, few operate with or are aware of active configuration as an outboard solution, and so in that regard certainly quite a few audiophiles are "confused." Or, they may simply not be interested in this approach if it has any bearing to them as a possibility and option. I’m not saying it’s something one enters lightly as a plug-and-play solution, and perhaps the mere thought of that challenge or obstacle even is what keeps many from giving it a try. With my preferences in speakers I would feel restricted with the range of bundled, active speakers out there, not that there aren’t very capable offerings among them like ATC and others.

What’s left in regards to fitting an amp section with a driver ditto can as well be handled with the careful choice of an outboard approach, with even better amps and what fits a given listener’s preferences and specific acoustics to boot.

One issue is that all speakers (that I am aware of) designed to be driven with an off the shelf amplifier have a cross over that cannot be bypassed to directly connect to the driver. Hence any external amplifier is handicapped by the crossover.

Two would be the assumption the interface to the driver is a simple set of wires. Think of servo controlled subwoofers. They require a direct connection to a special amplifier that has additional feedback inputs. No simple external amplifier is going to work and the amplifier needs to be tuned to the speaker for best performance.

Three would be an assumption that a simple voltage driven external amplifier can achieve the best performance out of a driver, even if you were allowed direct connection to it.

Four would be the assumption that all drivers covering a similar function in a speaker are all going to do the same thing at the same time with the same frequency response. Even a one way speaker, can have multiple independent elements.

If your perception of an active speaker is just a passive speaker with a similar style amplifier in the box, with the crossover likely at the signal level instead of with big passive components at the speaker level, then making the assumption that a traditional speaker with an external amplifier can compete is a fair outcome.

The people working on the leading edge of active speakers are not making that assumption.

"Activeness" can be applied to any system just by the addition of the right processor like the new DEQX units or the Trinnov Amethyst. Then you have the ultimate control over what your system is doing.

You have full control over your system, but not over the drivers in the speaker.

Designing an amp specific to the speakers it is driving is a great idea. Remember Acoustats? They made an amplifier, the TransNova 200, that would drive their very difficult speakers. 1981, I believe.

My Acoustic Research LST speakers, now almost 50 years old, are still singing beautifully in my second system (yes, they've needed some repairs over the years). If they had internal amps... not so much, I think.

Isn't it true that pro speakers are internally amped primarily for ease of setup? A speakON and a power cord and you're good. Can you imagine the expense and hassle of miles of speaker cable? Not to mention the mess.

Seems like a good excuse to insert a plug for my dream speakers and their dedicated amplifiers. Yes, Darth Speaker and Mono-Me, but wow. Hear them if you can. 

Peace.

Anyone who buys an active speaker should expect it to die within a decade.

That's why I will never buy another active speaker again.

Simple.

You can wax all day long how actives are better than passives, but who cares.

Unless you are willing to kiss the speaker good-bye after a decade.

I'm not willing to do that.

@fred60 , if an amp goes out on an active speaker please don't chuck it. Unscrew the plate amp from the back, carefully disconnect the connector wires, and take it/send it to the dealer/mfg for repairs.

@lonemountain , how does ATC service amps from active speakers?

Most active speakers have Class D amps inside them.

Class D amps are basically unrepairable.

The dealer will not repair nor will any manufacturer.

Again, that's why I will never buy an active speaker.

If anyone has a different experience, I'd love to hear it.

@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

@thespeakerdude wrote:

One issue is that all speakers (that I am aware of) designed to be driven with an off the shelf amplifier have a cross over that cannot be bypassed to directly connect to the driver. Hence any external amplifier is handicapped by the crossover.

My context above is active configuration. Active isn’t defined per se from being a bundled speaker package with build-in amps, electronic cross-over/DSP and, potentially, DAC’s, but that the filtration occurs prior to amplification on signal level (typically sans intervening passive cross-over parts between the amps and drivers that would act as a protection means here), which can as well be attained with outboard components as it could an inboard ditto. Outboard is only outboard; it needn’t say anything about the configuration. You could have a bundled speaker package with build-in amps and passive cross-over, and yet that’s what’s called a powered speaker - passively configured at that. My 3 outboard power amps are all connected to their respective driver sections without any intervening cross-over parts between them and the drivers, with each amp being fed with a different line level signal from the digital Xilica XO/DSP telling it which frequency span to deliver to its driver section. That’s fully active configuration for you and any other around here, and it means controlling each driver section much more effectively instead of looking into a passive cross-over first.

In your reply to poster @mijostyn:

"Activeness" can be applied to any system just by the addition of the right processor like the new DEQX units or the Trinnov Amethyst. Then you have the ultimate control over what your system is doing.

"You have full control over your system, but not over the drivers in the speaker."

Yes, you do have full control over the drivers - if the context implies the omission of a passive cross-over with dedicated amp channels looking directly into each driver section. Any "next level direct driver control"-claim (my own wording) essentially put forth by the bundled active speaker manufacturers, if it were to distance themselves from a claimed inferior outboard solution, actively configured as well, would seem dubious to me, whereas they would be right to do so with a passively configured speaker by comparison.  

One point of confusion is that most active speakers sold today use a portion of their box inner volume for housing amplifiers. The percentage of thus used up volume may range from 10% to 50%, depending on size of the speaker, number of transducers, amp technology etc.

Thus, an active speaker of a certain external volume may acoustically behave like a passive speaker of a smaller volume.

This may translate into higher level of distortions at a given output level exhibited by an active speaker, compared to a passive speaker of the same external volume.

This may also translate into the active speaker going less deep in -3db frequency than its external volume would suggest.

Rules of thumb for traditionally proportioned speakers:

Active speakers with a woofer less than 6" tend to be unsatisfactory in many respects, despite the fact that they may sound superficially well.

Active studio monitors with 8" woofers tend to sound comparably to passive speakers with 6 1/2" woofers, on the measures of distortions and bass extension.

Active studio monitors with 10" woofers usually sound wonderful, especially if they are three-way.

Active studio monitors with 12" woofers tend to rival the best audiophile passive speakers out there.

@donavabdear Thank you for showing some credits.  It's not "beneath" me yet you are the one here saying things above others like you know the music world, and you just don't.  For example: "Dolby Atmos was meant for movies not music."  That's wrong.  Atmos was INVENTED for movies, yes, and yet Atmos/Spatial on headphones is far superior to stereo in headphones.  Unintentionally they made something unexpected for music.   Big caveat:  the work must be done at the highest level.  The "highest level" is being discovered, daily, maybe by folks on this forum.  Atmos/Spatial is the evolution of stereo in headphones.  But we are in the beginning stage.  Most of what is released is low level mixing, not mastered.  Early days. I use transformer class A eqs x 50 in a great room with dCS Bartok and 3 top headphones.  Beautiful format, in the early days.

As far as Trinnov, it's 100% tunable, and I am an advanced tuner of the system.  It's doing DSP pre DA conversion, which is very subtle on my L/R mains.  It's doing far more on the rest of the room.  You are still arguing some odd point that this DSP makes this an "active system".  Everything has a DAC, and I am not anti-active. 

Again, all systems are a best case compromise, based in taste.  And any dogma is going to be wrong.   It's all about implementation.

@lonemountain 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

This is 100% false and totally misleading. There is nothing solid and fixed about audio except the file itself, the rest is a moving target. ATC is no better than countless other approaches. It’s a choice, a flavor. Artists mix in a mix room on 2-4 speakers and their car. Then they are done. Mastering folks like myself use all sorts of room designs and speakers/Amp/DAC/cable setups.. ATC is not a reference, there is no reference. It’s all a moving target. On any day in the same room, humidity and temperature and our mood and hunger alters even our own perception of a file. Nothing is fixed, and there is no reference. There is only the file that is a fixed thing, and the INTENT captured in the file matters most. To have that intention translate to all systems is the goal of mastering. There are some lovely ATC mastering rooms, but they are not superior, or giving musically superior results.  Just like active vs. passive, there is no right answer, no dogma here.

@phusis , trust me on this one. Adding a processor like the Trinnov or DEQX is in no way shape or form a "plug and play" solution. They try to market them as being simple to set up, but if you are perfectionistic they are not. You have to experiment and learn to get the most out of them. It must have taken me 2-3 years to get my TacT tuned the way I wanted the system to sound. Most of this was learning manage the power of such a sonic tool and get the most out of it. It is far more complex and involving than any "active" speaker I am familiar with. You are right about amps. Any amp can drive any driver, the question is how well. That choice can be made by any knowledgeable person. I do not like my choices being made by other people. 

@sokogear Then we will agree to disagree. Yes, Ekornes is the parent company's name. I bought mine purely on the look and reputation of the brand. Glad to hear yours was bullet proof, if not sokogear proof:-) We are very happy with them so far. Eventually the batteries will die and will have to be replaced but that is the price you pay for not having power cords lying around. 

@donavabdear , I think smart people hate being bored. They always have to be doing something. The piano produces a very complex sound from the percussion of the hammers to the vibration of the strings and soundboard, but it is all sound. It is the job of a HiFi system to reproduce sound, for better or for worse. Because there is so much variability in the way any piano will sound in any room it is hard for us to distinguish real from reproduced if the recording and system are good. Even in extremely distorted form on a terrible system you will still recognize it as being a piano. You can even tell if it is a synthesizer piano or a real one. This in no way reduces the coolness of your digital player piano. 

@brianlucey , and that is the art of mastering. Some are good at it, others not so much. It is why a lot of us prefer the old 2 or 3 mic live classical recordings. IMHO the goal should be to fool the listener into believing they are hearing a live recording. In some cases the artist may desire a surrealistic result like Pink FLoyds The Wall and art certainly has it's place. I hear mastering mistakes all the time like pianos and drums that stretch from one side of the stage to the other. Voices on echo and instruments not or some instruments on echo and others not. That makes them sound as if they are in two different environments at the same time. I do not know if this is bad mixing or the result of listening to the systems you are using. These mistakes seem to be much less frequent on live recordings even though most of these are multi tracks from the sound board.

@mijostyn  they are not "mistakes".  You have an idealism and perfectionism basis to music that's not real life.  Two speakers can't do the live event.  Atmos is better but cant.  It's an unreachable goal.  What's creative and joyful in pop music since Bing Crosby relied on the early Altec "birdcage" mic to have vocal power and a career or Madonna relied on early Eventide vocal tuning ... was the freedom and possibilities of doing things that were NOT REAL LIFE.  Your worldview is limited.  I feel sad you're missing out on so many joyful possibilities.  There is no reproduction. No perfect anything.  It's all art.  Craft.  Personal.  Music is a global and timeless language of connection. Not perfection.