Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

vibration dampening systems

Vibration dampening systems. Now I understand.

Someday the powered speaker will be be the audiophile speakers of the future as they are now in concert systems

I’m not sure I’d bet my money on that. The home audiophile manufacturers are making way too much money on selling separates these days, especially at today’s home audio gear prices. I can’t put up any type of argument for Genelec in a recording studio environment, as most studios regard them top of the line, but I think most concert speakers with self-contained amplifiers are probably designed now more for convenience in a concert setting environment (quick setup and tear down), more than anything else. Achieving maximum SPL’s with the smallest and lightest (in weight) cabinet is also the goal for concert sound. Heck, anyone at this moment can go out and buy a set of PreSonus CDL12-34, Meyer Sound Panthers, Clair Bros. C12-i-90, or so many others, if they’d like self-powered concert speakers in their home.

in my thinking, the question is -- will a very good speaker with a very good amp be inferior to a pretty good powered speaker.

While the powered speaker will have an excellent match between the speaker and its amp, will the advantage of having that matchup outweigh the "better" quality of the very good separates?

The audiophile marketplace seems still to prefer the separates, but at this point, it is up to the buyer’s listening preferences.

We have a member here that contended that his powered speakers were better than any "cost-no-object" separates. While his claim did not change my thinking, I was glad for him that he was so happy with his rig. However, I vowed to doubt any further opinions he would post.

Now if Wilson Audio were to ask Nelson Pass to design amps for a powered speaker system, I would be happy to consider such a system might be "better" than separates. But this hasn’t happened (yet?), And current powered speaker offerings are not convincing (to me).

This is a topic that deserves consideration.

I do suspect the home audio enthusiast is paying too much.

You can buy a pair of top model RCF active horn loaded speakers which contain very high quality components and a lot of technology for about a quarter of the price of apparently  similar JBL speakers like the M2 which are marketed for home audio.The RCFs may even sound better.They have been receiving excellent reviews.

Arguably the highest quality audio systems in the world right now are Level 5 Audionote, and they design every speaker, external xover, transformers, and dampening feet to match. 

And its true that audiophiles like to tinker with matching gear - because even a modest amount of matching gears at the audiophile level will vastly outperform Genelecs and lower end integrated stuff like that. So, its worth it.

also the amplifiers that they use in power speakers are cheap junk.