I Was Considering Active, Then I Watched This ...

ATC, Dynaudio, Dutch & Dutch 8c, Kii Audio, Focal, Genelec, PMC, Meridian, Grimm, Avantgarde, Devialet, KEF...

The difference between dinosaur audiophiles like Guttenberg and tomorrows audiophiles is that Guttenberg would take a more expensive passive ls50 setup that has more gear than a better sounding active ls50 wireless for less $ just because he put it together.  90% of people out there can and do make strong cases why the LS50W’s are better than the passive ls50’s.  

Its funny that he thinks a company that pours theIr heart and soul out to build speakers, like ATC, is then going to skimp on the amplification or that there won’t be oversight in that area.  I think that most of the time, the people actually engineering and building the speaker can pair the amplification better than you can.  Also, opposite of what Steve said, the speaker designer can put out a finished product that achieves the sound they were actually trying to achieve.

I believe that active speakers with dsp are the future.  True audiophiles are first and foremost after exceptional sound.  People who make gear a priority over sound are not tomorrows audiophiles.  Once this technology is a little more ironed out, I don’t think there will be a question as to which way things will go.


Oh, and even though MBL (my favorite that I’ve heard) doesn’t do active (yet) they make all of the front end components too. So there ya go Steve, some of the if not the most incredible speaker manufacturer actually does know about amps and dacs too.  

And about amps failing... I do agree that the original ls50w’s had a horrible app and electronics (ie amp, dac...) that weren’t the most reliable.  The dynaudio xeos that I had felt like they’d last for a long time.

How many of us are using old amps that we bought used?  I bet quite a few.

People are selling 30 year old Classe or Bryston amps...  I’ve owned at least 15 different amps, all bought used, all of them anywhere between 5-15 years old whenI bought them.  I’ve not had one fail on me.

And dacs are to the point now where improvements from here are going to be minimal.  The Schiit gungir multibit I use is 4-5 years old I believe.  
So give me a dsp speaker or even analogue and give me well built, solid, reliable electronics...



I’d take any class amplifier with any amount of dsp with electronics inside the speaker IF it sounds better... wouldn’t you?

+1 Genelec

A person whose livelihood relies on reviewing systems/components done the traditional way certainly has a conflict of interest. Many are willing to adjust the sound of their system with a different amp, preamp, cable, etc. Doing all of that in the digital domain, plus controlling phase and driver out of band behavior before the signal gets to the amplifier makes perfect sense. You want a little more midbass, dial it in, without messing up phase. The biggest plus is getting rid of the crappy passive crossover, which is without a doubt the worst component in any system.

Wow. I think everyone has missed Steve’s points.