Opinions and recommendations on active loudspeakers

New to this forum also. After many years and tens of thousands of dollars on speakers and equipment, the one thing I learnt was that the room has the most impact on SQ. My hifi system has always been setup in the main living area of our home so all the family and friends can enjoy music. Acoustic treatment in living room spaces are very difficult to implement. About a year ago I came across a review of the Kii Threes and in reading up on active speakers came across the Dutch & Dutch 8c. A very accomodating retailer of both allowed me to demo them in my home at the same time. A long story short, I ended up selling my multi component, expensive cabling and huge speakers and purchasing the Kii Three. The D&D 8c and Kii Three were very similar, D&D slightly warmer and more low end, but I found I could tailor the Kii Three using the built in EQ & contour settings to suit my room and music listening enjoyment. The Kii Three won out mainly due to that my family and I preferred the look of them, they suited our decor and most importantly the Kii Control which D&D don’t currently have. Both the Kii Three and D&D 8c are very good at removing most of the room interactions and sound absolutely amazing. If your music listening takes place mainly in the main living area, you want to get the best SQ out of the room and you need ease of use for other family, either of these are worth considering. 

I had some LS50 wireless speakers awhile back and it allowed me to focus my efforts on treating my room with a bunch of gik 244 panels and monster traps.  The imaging and bass are next level now and I am a firm believer in treating your listening room.  I've actually become very sensitive to the way different rooms sound.  I'm currently using Dynaudio Xeo 6's and love them.

With that in mind, the gentleman that I bought my Monster Bass Traps from has an amazing studio with an awesome, awesome setup.  Tubes and some huge Tyler Acoustics that have been fully upgraded. He's selling off his setup and going with those Dutch and Dutch 8c monitors instead.  He confirmed that they just sound amazing and have far less room interactions.  

Back to the original post though, I hope that Active Speakers take over.  I absolutely love the idea of them and have enjoyed the Kef LS50 wireless' for many many hours, same is true now of these Dynadio XEO 6's.  I'm guessing that my next 2 purchases will be active speakers as well.  Maybe the new Edifier S3000 Pro and the new Dynaudio Xeo 20.

Those JBL wireless speakers about the size of a can of redbull is probably as close to hi end as the upcoming generation is going to get. I've had 7 pair of full range highly regarded speakers pass through my listening room in the last 5 years all passive and component matching was a legitimate issue. I had the salon 2's for about a year and sold them because I couldn't afford to go down the amplifier upgrade path. With active speakers especially complex, high end speakers at least component matching has been taken care of and we know going in exactly how much the system will cost once complete that placement and room treatments are the only variables left. Being an audiophile on a budget I need to know final cost going in and buying passive speakers is a gamble!

Don't underestimate the upcoming generation. Probably much smarter than we and will not be fooled as easily by the "tweaking" audio industry. 

@steve59 


what jbl wireless speakers are high end?