Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

@kota1 ​​@donavabdear , I guess you missed my point. Rash generalization are always a point of concern. They always fail.

As far as I am concerned there is no active speaker that can attain the absolute sound. Quite simply I have not seen an 8 foot tall, ESL active loudspeaker. I have not seen an active full range active line source for home use. I have not seen a fully horn loaded active speaker. I have not seen anything but dynamic drivers stuck in a box with an amp and rudimentary digital signal processing. There are many higher performing speaker drivers out there and far more advanced DSP preamps. I am all for digital signal processing. I have been using it for 25 years. There is absolutely no need to shove it into a loudspeaker with what you can assume is a cheap amp. Maybe these things have a use in a studio environment, that is not my area of expertise. My own preference is for very large dipole line sources, specifically ESLs which would disqualify any active speaker I know of. If people want an all in one solution to save space and simplify their situation and they are not that critical I can understand the use of these speakers. 

@mijostyn , I don’t think I missed your point earlier, you made a rash generalization about all active speakers that I started my reply with in the previous post (in italics) and like you said, it failed.

This reply about no active speaker attaining absolute sound is interesting. What about the active line array speakers they use at live performances???

OK, I agree you can’t the absolute sound from ANY speaker using a recording,

I think you may want to check out the Avante Garde Active, Horn Loaded speaker system. They look CRAZY good and must sound even better. If you like the speakers the new amps they designed for them are just as interesting:

@mijostyn - I didn't know that there were true lazy-boy type recliners that are sold as Stressless by Ekornes. I thought they were all minor variations of mine that have separate ottomen. Now I get the batteries or power cord need. I guess they are more for theater type seating in a row where more than one chair with a separate ottoman would look very strange. 

@kota1 Great example, when I hear my active Genelec system it is always striking when the first note hits the transient quickness of even a soft note is odd compared to a normal system. Also in the article they mentioned current amplifiers not "class D" funny. Class D has some obvious advantages over class A but the potential for class D is higher than any other format and I think everyone would admit class D is getting better faster than any other amplifier type. 

@mijostyn I'm talking about best practices in speaker design I don't care about a speaker someone bought at Walmart. As an audiophile you want to buy the system with the best sound quality, when you consider a speaker / amp designed for each other there is no question.

Consider the question, is it better to buy an expensive speaker then power it with an amp that was not made for that speaker no matter what the cost? Clearly the answer is no. Are you saying the answer is yes? 

When Magnepan comes out with a powered speaker, maybe I’ll be interested.  Until then, yawn.

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