Active Speakers Don't Sound Better

@o_holter wrote:

my experiments have been very simple. No special filtering or DSP. Mainly with desktop or small monitors. I just unplug the speaker without the amp from the speaker with the amp. This is a speaker-level connection. Then I plug the speaker without amp to my main amp. Often, it sounds better. I make no claim that this happens with more costly speakers. But it makes me think that ’affordable’ active speakers will often sound better with a better amp. The amp really matters. Of course this is the case with passive speakers too. And I think that the quality of the amp is more important than if it is placed in a speaker cabinet or outside it.

Thanks for clarifying. You bring up a great point, and I fully agree; the quality of the amp is more important than whether it, or rather they are placed internally or externally to a speaker. In either case active config. will better harness the potential of a given amp and make for a more efficient use of its power and overall quality, instead of seeing those wattages more or less drained and wasted in passive crossovers, which further leads to a compromised amp to driver interfacing and all that entails.

My experiments can be ’shot down’ since in a sense they are grossly unfair. The amps I’ve used for comparing are much more costly than the speakers. You cant get the sound from the Atma-sphere MA-1 or the Krell FPB600 from inside a compact active speaker. Not that I know of. So my only point, in describing the experiments, is to draw attention to the quality of the amp in the active speakers - I think this is often overlooked.

The important takeaway is the core issue you’re trying to address with your example here. Yes, those amps are very different animals compared to whatever amps are placed inside a cheap active speaker, but you could take much cheaper external amps and still get a basic idea of the importance of their quality here, and the difference they would make.

An argument for active speakers is that the amp and speakers can be more closely matched and tuned to each other. Yet I have not been gripped by this, with the low cost active speakers I have tried. Instead, the big amps just made the speaker sound better. Interestingly, this main effect was the same even with two quite different amps (tube, solid state). My guess is that ’matching’ in affordable active speakers is only approximate, "good enough", so and so many watts drive them to required volume. The amp and the matching are hopefully much better with mid to top level active speakers - I have not tried.

Matching amps to drivers actively has been hotly debated around here (not least involving business developers of active speakers), with my main point being that the most important aspects with active config. are a) getting rid of the passive crossover between the amp and drivers, b) having frequency band independently functioning amp-to-driver sections, c) freely seeking out the external quality amps and additional gear one prefers, and d) having basically a carte blanche repertoire of speakers, irrespective of size or principle to go by - if one so chooses.

Impedance matching, current or voltage drive, tailoring damping factor, power matching, etc. can have their degrees of influence, but the problem is working with compromised amp sections (as well as DSP/DAC’s) within a tight budget that have to be mounted inside speakers, and so what’s attempted to be gained initially is hampered by overall component quality and design/construction eventually. Not to mention that active speakers are oftentimes physically hampered size-wise to cater to interior decoration demands and the misplaced, general notion that active speakers have to be plug-and-play, convenient solutions that fit nicely on the shelves and pleases the spouse - when active as a system could be much more than that and is really only limited by the one implementing it.

Listening to a pair of outboard actively configured ATC SCM300ASL Pro’s - which represent a more old school, analogue-only, meat and potatoes, no frills, excellent component quality and class A/B topology approach - is being confronted with a pair of world class speakers that to my ears puts to shame many high-end, passively configured speakers of higher cost, and that’s not even including the astronomically priced amps that are typically needed with such heavy-load speakers to bring them to life.

I do not own (nor intend to at this point) any active speakers other than a small pair in my office. I have heard the Dutch and Dutch 8C ($15,000 per pair), and KEF LS60 (price now lowered to $5,000 from $7,000). The KEFs were very nice, but not sure they were to my tastes.

The Dutch and Dutch 8Cs were a different animal, and I very much liked their SQ the first time I heard them at a show; and I believe the DSP was configured well. I have an acquaintance who owns a pair (as well as a pair of new Volti Luceras), and in that properly set up environment I thought they were brilliant.

That said, when he switched to the Volti Luceras (Pass Labs and Aric Audio gear) my jaw dropped to the floor. They are the first horn loaded/hybrid speaker that I've heard where I thought "I must have these speakers".

So yes I think that active speakers can sound brilliant, I think that many people would be attracted to an "all in one" system (the Dutch and Dutch 8Cs also stream) to simplify your system, and I also think that with very very good electronics high end speakers will sound even better

Once you upgrade and tweak the passive ATC crossover the active version doesn't sound better anymore.

@fynnegan That is not true. Ive done it and you cannot get to where the actives are with passive. All that speaker wire and copper (in the LF inductor especially) between amp and drive unit! Or are you a proponent of the idea that speaker wire is sonically invisible? If you can hear different kinds of speaker wire then the speaker wire you don’t see in the passive crossover (it can be hundreds of feet) is okay and doesn’t matter? No amp on earth makes that go away.

Imaging is significantly better with actives because phase is more linear, with a simple phase control on each amp (one per driver) in the ATC active crossover/amp pack. Ive tested this at a show with room visitors, SCM40 passive with an ATC P2 amp (300W/ch) vs an SCM40A active with the same exact circuit design, parts and power supplies in the internal amp pack. Were they similar? Yes. Did everyone in the room all day hear the difference? Honestly not everyone! Both systems share the same basic sonic footprint for sure. The definition, the transients, the "air" mnd room sound in the recording, the ambience/reverb in the recording, instrument "tails" (the decay) the image, all superior. A mastering engineer would hear all this instantly (and if they couldn’t, it would be extremely difficult to make a living mastering). My neighbor next door might not hear any of it.

Some listeners are unable to hear these small differences- this not a weakness, just affirms your listening acuity can get better with practice. Mastering engineers listen to music all day long every day in the same room on the same system. After a few years they hear amazing stuff that I don’t hear. But please, do not make a claim that passive ATC’s tweaked are better than active ATC’s when things are functioning properly- in 24 years working with ATC I’ve never ever heard this with many attempts!

Now I believe you could make a better active than the SCM40A. ATC believes this also and has a better sounding "discrete" amp pack they use in the in the SE 50 and SE100, both using better/larger drive units and larger amps than in the SCM 40A. So tweaking active is possible. We have several who post here use outboard actives, using their amp of choice.  Not surprisingly they support the active is better idea.  It's really all about phase, which is not controllable on a passive crossover.  The crossover designer has to just pick a value and it won't be precisely right for any driver in the system.  Drivers from all manufacturers vary a little bit and adjustable phase is necessary to align them all together in the initial system calibration.  

Brad

ATC uses analogue crossovers, as do Focal and few others. Other school of thought is use of digital crossover implemented in DSP, which gives more flexibility. But DSP has inherent limitation in precision of DAC they use. Common setup even for speakers with digital input assumes that volume control precedes crossover logic. When volume control is implemented digitally, audio stream looses resolution (1 bit for every 3dB of power below maximum), That can have negative impact on sound. Analogue crossover adds dither due to natural noise of the circuit. This is why active speakers better have volume control AFTER digital crossover or be fully analogue. This difference may explain why some active speakers sound better than others.