The mistake armchair speaker snobs make too often

The last mistake, and this is a doozy, is that the same critics who insist on only custom, in-house drivers, are paying for even cheaper drivers!

Makes me think of the argument made by some who’re actually involved in the making of bundled, active speakers, and how they stress that all the innards here are intricately matched. As it is though "matching" also comes down to amp downscaling because the rationale says there’s no need to use 3x200W actively for a woofer, midrange and tweeter when you can get by with 200, 100 and 50W respectively, which also conveniently cuts down cost. Sometimes there’s even a combo of Class A/B and D, but is 3x200W necessarily less of a match with 3 similar amp channels and overall topology other than (possible) excess wattages? And what if you had 3 externally configured amps of your own choice instead of built-in, cheaper variants, not to mention DAC’s? "Matching" can be a dubiously applied term, but implementation is indeed king, and active as configured externally/outwardly can be a playground of vast experimentation and great results from any segment, manufacturer, size, cost or whatever one chooses.

ATC btw. seems to be one of the exceptions to any general observation about custom, in-house drivers that are considered el cheapo, because they’re anything but. Very good amps too. And Mundorf AMT’s are certainly great in the HF region with the wider (i.e.: taller) versions also picking up on sensitivity, but actively configured with high eff. horns it’s less of, if any issue (I prefer a point source from the lower mids on up, but that’s just me).

@erik_squires --

My impulse with ATC drivers was to acknowledge their overall excellence first, both sonically and built quality-wise, and thus assuming they’re not cheap. You may be right about them increasing their profit margins doing their own drivers, I wouldn’t know, but rather than an economic rationale as the predominant factor I’d guess the aspects of design execution and production consistency, certainly with the solid engineering capacity at their disposal, is paramount to them. Having heard both the older Seas(?) tweeter-equipped and newer iterations with their own tweeter design, I can attest to the latter being the better offering, and if that means being a profitable move for them on top - well, all power to that.

@erik_squires wrote:

It's easy to find a tweeter < $50 that's super smooth and clean sounding when it only has to handle 10 W or less, but an entirely different thing when you apply power to it. That's where, IMHO, the adults are separated from the boys. 

For this reason alone, though I may not use them, JBL professional products get a knod of respect from me always.

I dare say I have my fair share of experience with a range of pro driver brands, and if JBL pro gets the approving nod from you, you might as well include quite a few other brands down the road. Not asking of you to do so blindly, but compared to other pro manufacturers JBL, as much as I respect them, aren't necessarily sitting on a high horse here - believe me. I had my mind wrapped around them rather exclusively years ago with a big love in particular for their more powerful and horn-hybrids studio range and the likes of the K2 S9500 (those 1400ND woofers, not least the 1400PRO version - the first neodymium magnet woofers to be put into production, if I recall correctly - are dynamite), but in the years to come came to realize others went on to challenge JBL, and in core areas even exceed them. I'm not only thinking brute power handling force and durability here, but as well when speaking compression drivers and what's considered the more "audiophile" aspects, not least of which is lower SPL "attentiveness" and overall finesse. Those brilliant engineers back then like Keele and others put their lasting mark certainly on Altec, Electro-Voice, JBL and more (of which my own pro cinema EV's are a product child), but fortunately we have a range of current designs from other, european brands to carry on the torch. Btw. right now listening to Sinatra's 'My Way,' and you'd think his songs were meant to be reproduced by large format horns and drivers :) 

@kota1 wrote:

My bias/snobbery is that matching an amp and a speaker is a crap shoot and happens to be the most profitable strategy for manufacturers (sell you two products amp + speakers plus an additional set of cables). I think it should go away, all speakers should be designed from the ground up as an active "system", sold as a one box solution, and reduce the risk of a mismatch. ...

There’s also attempts at profitable strategies from at least some of those making active one-box solutions. Not trying to downplay the advantages of going active, but the one predominant takeaway here is removing the passive crossover between the amp and speaker. All the hoopla on "matching the individual driver to an amp channel" has gotten old long ago, and while there are ways to optimize amp-driver coupling from a holistic design point-of-view that can potentially incorporate a broader range of facets, all the while also cutting corners, most of these are pebbles next to the single big rock of getting rid of the passive crossover. Indeed, one box solutions work around compromises as well - quite a few, actually - and to my mind they’re blowing up aspects on the importance of amp-driver integration in an esoteric cloud to cover up the all-too-obvious advantage of going active, which I’ve already mentioned, while effectively also discouraging those who’d like to venture in the direction of an outboard active solution. So, from my chair your highlighting the unfortunate mismatch between passively configured speakers and the amp(s) driving them really comes down to that introduced by the passive crossover itself.

To the DIY crowd, what is your opinion of this much speaker for the money, the JBL 4305P Studio Monitor. Could Joe Sixpack do better if I sent him off to shop for speakers, amp, preamp, and a DAC with the same dough? @phusis @ghdprentice what are your thoughts?

From a same-budget perspective and a select range of sonic parameters I’d say the JBL’s as a package are tough to beat vs a passively configured "adversary." However we wouldn’t be comparing apples to apples, and so many aspects can come to the fore as a deciding factor that can’t be boiled down to bundled active vs. passive on principle alone. Moreover, the JBL’s to some, i.e.: in a particular context, may be considered an acquired taste, if nothing else by virtue of their dynamic capabilities, waveguide-loading and the use of a compression driver which as an active package may come across as a more blunt, direct/open, and (in some regards) honest presentation that truth be told isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. My personal take and not least given enough options would be favoring the bundled, active package vs. a passive ditto - in named context. Optimally though I prefer the outboard active solution.

@kota1 wrote:

Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin owned 3 Paragons EACH to listen to their own Master Tapes. Since a Single Paragon is Stereo, they had to be using a Paragon as a single speaker instead of stereo (effectively 6 speakers systems in 3 cabinets.

If they did indeed use three next-to-each-other and mono-coupled Paragon's, while emulating perhaps a stereo + center source(?), it would certainly make for a very interesting sound scenario. They'd have great capacity and (possibly wide) center lock for sure. 

@kota1 wrote:

It "burns" me when I see a product trashed from an audio "snob" that simply mismatched the speaker to the amp, the cable, or the room.

A bundled, active speaker is a preconfigured package drawing in particular on the advantage of having its amp channels looking directly into their respective driver segments, as well as having minimized cable influence. It's also an easy plug-and-play solution. The room however is still a variable that needs attention as a separate measure, and you’re also left with accepting a choice of amps that mayn’t suit your preference if you actually had different options to go by and compare to each other. Actively amp choice is less critical, but it’s still a factor - both technically and subjectively.

If you go outboard active you can have even better and more powerful amps. Although less power is generally needed actively for the same SPL compared to a passive scenario, not to mention providing power indendancy between the different driver segments where a more power hungry bass section will leave the HF segment unaffected (the same of course goes for a bundled config.), more power can come in handy for even lower distortion and more headroom.

You’ll have longer cables with outboard active, yes, but look at JBL’s prime monitor, the M2’s. They come sans passive crossover (safe perhaps a capacitor over the D2 driver for its protection), and with no built-in amp or electronic/digital crossover needs to be fed externally. JBL recommends the sibling company (owned by Harman) Crown I-Tech 5000HD with DSP, an off-the-shelf item that wasn’t in any way designed around the M2’s, but it has sufficient power (1,250W/8 ohm) and overall quality. Not a smaller version to the top section, no, but two similar 5000HD’s. Why wouldn’t JBL go bundled with their top monitor if it (supposedly) meant the world into über-specialized amp-driver integration with a differentiated amp topology approach? My guess: not only don’t they find it worth it, but on the contrary they may find it the preferred route qualitatively going outboard active with two similar amps for the best coherency, while giving the customer the option of other amp/DSP choices - cable influence be damned. As they say: forest for the trees..

@kota1 wrote:

Bryston has a line of active speakers, an outboard crossover that you can BYOA (bring your own amp). I know Bryston makes great amps but I would prefer a Sunfire 7400 or 7401. You can choose their outboard BAX-1 crossover OR (my preference) use their SP4 HT processor  for the crossovers and DSP.

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

Oh, I know their line of products as some of the few to currently offer an outboard active solution. More brands should follow their example instead of obstinately and dogmatically sticking to passive, and to stop thinking 'active' can only be a bundled approach. 

I often thought the same thing, it must have been a decision of the marketing dept.

If it even is it wouldn't have been without a clear signalling from engineering.