Bookshelf Speakers with the decent bass

curious to know what actives you have auditoned zd

"04-12-15: Maplegrovemusic
zd , what attributes do you look for in a bookshelf ? Hyped treble or overblown bass ?"

I don't listen to bookshelves.

zd , then for speakers in general , what attributes do you enjoy

"04-12-15: Chrshanl37
curious to know what actives you have auditoned zd
Chrshanl37 (Threads | Answers | This Thread)"

There's not that many high end powered speakers. Regardless, all of the ones I have listened to are overpriced for the SQ that they deliver. I have yet to hear actives that can compete realisticly with well matched separates costing the same or less. To be fair, I most likely have different taste's than most. For example, I like Ayre for solid state. There's no active speaker that has an amp like that inside of it. But what I find amazing about all of this, is how everyone is so careful to get just the right amp, preamp and speaker combo, but for an active, whatever comes in the box is good enough. Everyone just goes brain dead. All common sense goes out the window.

Anyway, to answer your question, I've either owned or demoed the following. All of the Meridians. Audio Engine, All the ones that they sell in the music stores (JBL, KRK, Tannoy, Adam, Alesis etc.), PMC, ATC, Genelec, AktiMate. There's probably more, but that's all I can remember for now.

I should also mention that I'm referring only to fully powered speakers. Some speakers just have powered bass sections (Vandersteen, Genesis, etc). They can sound fine.

To sum up, regardless of the type of speaker you buy, active, passive, or partial, the selection process doesn't change. Buying an active speaker guarantees you absolutely nothing with regards to sound quality. And why should it?