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Is active speaker the future?

I know at least Linn and Meridian are making active speakers and they claim that it sounds much better than passive speakers. Linn and Meridian are well known for source but not well known for amp and speakers. The truly dedicated famous speaker maker like Rockport, Wilson Audio and JM labs only make passive speakers.

CD player is dying and digital source player is changing so fast. Speaker hasn’t had any fundamental change for a long time. Active speaker is not new, but will it be the future of the speaker and will we see light on/off or lcd display on most of the speaker?
yxlei
glai's avatar
glai
446 posts
 
I was very interested in active pro speakers and got a pair of Mackie ($1200 for the pair) . It is not that bad but could not beat an Arcam reciever biamping Harbeth M30. It did play louder with good control but transparency was poor. It was missing a lot of texture and subtle spatial clues. I could not hear the benefit of this approach. It is an uneven match up in terms of cost, ATC 20 would be more on even ground
jtgofish's avatar
jtgofish
515 posts
 
S.G.R.

Active done properly.
kr4's avatar
kr4
3,680 posts
 
Glai wrote: "I could not hear the benefit of this approach. "
It would be hard to attribute any audible differences to the difference between active and passive speakers since the speakers, themselves are so different. A better test would be with a pairs of PMC or ATC speakers where the identical speaker is available in both configurations.

Kal
6550c
393 posts
 
Q: "Meridian are well known for source but not well known for amp and speakers."

That is news to me. With Meridain, I would not call the speakers active, rather the D/A converter and amps are built into the speakers and they are fed a digital line signal. With Meridian, you kind of need to buy their whole system (your current amps and pre will not be needed). Meridain's system is about the best I have ever listened to and it really is world class, imo.

On another note, would you consider electrostats to be active since you need to plug them in?
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