Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

@ghdprentice Wow that is an amazing headphone setup, I lived 14 hrs a day with my headphones on working on films for 35 years and came to the conclusion that your brain fills in so much of the gaps in just a few hours of listening. I have the Stellia because I wanted closed back but I think I regret that choice also. Please tell me about your DAC and amp setup. Thank you so much.

In the rare instance, should active ATC electronics fail, an ATC dealer will remove the amp pack from the speaker and ship only that to their NV facility. Turn around time is very rapid.

@brianlucey , As I said before, the enjoyment of music, music itself is a totally separate issue from the science of sound reproduction. Sound reproduction is not a matter of taste. Amplitude response is important and if you look at my system page you will notice that we agree on target curves. I intentionally put a " bump" in the low end and the high frequencies are rolled off depending on the dynamic loudness curve in use at the specific volume. I think where you and a lot of sound engineers have trouble is with casting a realistic image. I mentioned specific errors before. These are mixing errors which are unfortunately common with multitrack recordings that have instruments and voices added at separate recording sessions frequently in totally different environments. It in no way sounds like you are listening to a band on a stage or in a room. This can be intentional for artistic reasons but most of the time it is not. I am not and do not pretend to be  recording engineer, but I am an extremely experienced listener as are many of us. Yes, I am perfectionistic. In my head there is only one way to do things, the right way. There can always be several right ways. To make the furnisher I make you have to be perfectionistic or you produce garbage. 

As for my enjoyment of music, that is really none of your business and not the point of this forum. I find it interesting that you are dictating to me how much I do not enjoy music. Can you climb into everyone's head like that? 

@mjoslin13 Again perfectionism is an imaginary ideal. It’s a narcissism of our own imagination. There is no perfection. And in music production there are no mistakes. Teams of people make choices. Positive compromises. Your mind is on display in every post. I don’t have to guess but yes that’s my job daily. Making music sound its best to the most people on every possible system. I know how folks think and listen. It’s not about a live event. That’s another illusion of older aged audiophiles. I’ve heard the best systems. Still sounds like recordings. And creativity in production for decades takes us beyond a live event as a goal. Very small thinking. Very old. I’m sure your system is not perfect. Although I like those John Curl Parasounds for my atmos surrounds. And there is no perfect music. No imperfect music. I’m sorry your life is this small that you need this illusion. A craftsperson seeks the highest standards yet knows perfect is an ever illusive goal. Clearly you have been mistreated along the way and are taking refuge in the illusions of perfect and mistakes. High standards are real. They are not perfect. They are taste plus math. Positive compromise is the essence of all music creation and music reproduction. No dogma. No absolutes. Principles and practice diverge. Sorry. It’s a more uncertain reality than right and wrong.

@vinylvalet yes.  Brad is the ATC rep. In Vegas.  They do a great job at customer service.  A friend for 20 years.  

This thread has a great "mix" of perspectives of members that create content, members that create hardware/speakers/cabinets, and in the end we are all "consumers’ using our personal systems. As a fellow member it has made me think and rethink my approach to improving the entire chain (right down to those great recliners I see in @mijostyn setup). At the end of the day none of these posts are wrong or right (except ATC speakers are as "bomb proof" as they come), it is just a reflection of each posters experience. What I see as a common denominator among all of the very thoughtful posters here is attention to detail of the entire CHAIN. To me, that is one of the best takeaways so far. @donavabdear has fleshed out a professional system, a personal system, and one with LIVE music (the piano), that is amazing.

You have the attention to detail of making the actual speaker (@ghdprentice, @lonemountain ​​​​@thespeakerdude and I think @phusis).

Then you have a perspective of @brianlucey who has mastered recordings in stereo at the highest level now getting a fresh start in early days of Atmos. A funny coincidence is I use passive speakers for my top middle/VOG channel on the ceiling (see the pic in my profile) and what do I power them with? A Parasound amp, the same brand he is using for his Atmos surrounds.

All of the speaker makers/ reps have basically confirmed my choices for going with active speakers, thank you.

The fact that a seasoned pro like @donavabdear is using the same brand of speaker (Paradigm) and virtually the same setup (Atmos) in his personal rig as well as active speakers in his professional is another HUGE confirmation of my personal choice/preference.

@brianlucey posts about the quality of Atmos music confirmed my own experience, Atmos done right has a LOT of advantages over stereo.

When you are working with budget you hate to have to start over, the flip side is when highly experienced members confirm your personal choices it gives you confidence to keep going in that same direction. Unlike most members here I did NOT go down the path of a high end two channel rig. I tried to stick as closely as possible to the Dolby standards for Atmos and the THX standards for Audyssey DSX (which I use a lot for upmixing 5.1 content).

The majority of posters here don’t use active, don’t do atmos, and focus on two channel, high end (luxury) rigs. My system is kind of an outlier in that regard so having all of these confirmations as I stated above is nice. Thank you everyone!