Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

Actually speaker design is simple.....there are not that many factors and you can learn them all in a few hours and apply them with a digital xover and digital amps. There are tons of speakers that cross over a tweeter below 1K......yes, indeed. However, the problem is usually power handling.....and with steeper 48db per octave xover slopes it is no longer a problem. Anyone can buy a calibrated mircrophone and measure their speaker in room...including off axis response. A 10 year old with average IQ can take some great drivers and put them on an open baffle and with a good digital xover and digital amps will create a speaker that blows your frickin mind......and I am talking "all done in one day!!!!!!" It is really that simple. The xover in the Mofi speaker is not complex......Andrew probably spent a couple of hours designing it and tweaking it. Of course, he got in different proto versions of the driver and spent time with each one....but the xover design is simple and normal.....He can probably do the calculations for the parts in his head....he has done it so long. He spent no time listening to those xover parts versus more expensive more transparent one.. Of course there are polar patterns but it is easy to undertand and you can measure it very fast. Polar response matching is usually bad when you try to run a woofer too high so it does not have dispersion that matches the tweeter.

Simply hooking up a digital xover to digital amps and then to drivers not only provides ALL the benefits of normal active speakers but it gets rid of the distorting DACS, one dollar op amps on the output of the DACS and normal class D or A/B amps with all their parts and circuitry and feedback. A digital amp has NO....I repeat NO ordinary amplification stages, DACs or feedback......Usually, the shorter the signal path the more pure the result. There will be better implementations of digital amplidication down the road....as EVERYTHING changes the sound. The software that changes PCM to PWM is crucial to the sound. The switching frequency, the passive parts on the output, the noise and quality of the power supplies, the jitter on the clock that runs the processor.....etc. into infinity. So, we are not done....nor will we ever be.....that what makes this game fun.

BUT......this is the first time in the history of humanity.....he he...that a digital amp board is being made and can be purchased by any OEM and one can make amps, integrated amps and powered speakers with this technology that gets rid of so many components. So, will a $1500 digital amp beat a $125K MSB Select DAC, with the $145K Boulder preamp and the $250K boulder Mono blocks with $10K worth of analog cables in between?......probably not. But what will it beat? Most audiophiles have maybe 20K in their system.....I bet this 1.5K thing will compete with that......and then if you used multiple amps and a digital xover....and wired directly to speaker voice coil wires.....well, I think it would compete with 100K systems and you can put it all together yourself quickly and cheaply and have a ball tuning it and trying different drivers.......this is indeed a revolution.....like it or not.

So, what benefits do normal active speakers give that using digital amps and digital xovers not do? Remember, you can make a box speaker using this too. Stick a 10 inch driver in a box and put a tweeter above it......have the digital amp directly behind the speaker and hardwired to the drivers........The only advantage I see of powered speakers is that they are completely all in one. So you can put them in different places and move them around easier......for monitoring at location, etc. BUT, these digital amp modules can be put directly inside a speaker to make the same exact thing....but with no DACs, one dollar op amps, feedack and normal feedack amps inside, they will sound even better than the current powered speakers.......so all the companies making powered speakers now using digital xovers with DACs and op amps and normal class D amps can be upgraded SONICALLY by using these inexpensive digital amp boards.....you will see this happening......sooner than you think.

Besides being purer sounding than a normal active system.....digital amplification allows you to tune the speaker any way you like, including get rid of bass nodes and extend the bass.  You are stuck with the drivers, box design and amplifiers and xovers in a normal active speaker.  You want to try a different type of tweeter?.....well, you then have to buy a new set of monitors with that tweeter inside....and, of course, it will still have all the limitations of box design, etc.  You can swap out drivers in minutes and play like never before when making your own speaker.  How many active speakers are dipole?  Dipole speakers give a bigger more open sound.  Regular active speakers and monitors are so yesterday.

The only advantage of a regular electronic xover is you get to play with tube amps and tube preamps and tube DACs.  Some will never like the ultra pure low distortion of a digital amp......they want the extra liguidity and beauty that only tubes do.  So, this is not for everyone.  As in all things.

@ricevs , could you use a 3d printer to make smallish cabinets like a spherical type for speaker builds?

Actually speaker design is simple.....there are not that many factors and you can learn them all in a few hours and apply them with a digital xover and digital amps.

No, not even close, though open baffle, just one type of speaker, which may have good or terrible in room results, is easier, but even for open baffle, there are subtleties to achieve the best design.

There are tons of speakers that cross over a tweeter below 1K......yes, indeed. However, the problem is usually power handling.....and with steeper 48db per octave xover slopes it is no longer a problem.

There are few dynamic tweeters that are crossed over <1K. Horn loaded yes. AMT no. It is not a simple matter of power handling. It is a matter of dispersion, i.e. the tweeter will be too wide at those frequencies, even 27-30mm dynamic, compared to the woofer, and it is a matter of high frequency off axis energy. The larger tweeter may be flat on axis from 1K-20K, but the off axis energy drops more at higher frequencies on the larger tweeter, changing the tonal balance, and you can’t correct that with DSP without breaking on-axis response. For older people it may not matter as much. It seems that you can’t learn everything in a few hours.

Andrew probably spent a couple of hours designing it and tweaking it. Of course, he got in different proto versions of the driver and spent time with each one....but the xover design is simple and normal.....He can probably do the calculations for the parts in his head....he has done it so long. He spent no time listening to those xover parts versus more expensive more transparent one.

He probably did it using his own custom software which he has probably spent decades tuning, however, you can bet from there, he probably made several variants and listened in a few listening spaces to get a feel for how it behaved real world. He didn’t spend time listening to expensive parts for a reason, he already knew what they would sound like.

Simply hooking up a digital xover to digital amps and then to drivers not only provides ALL the benefits of normal active speakers but it gets rid of the distorting DACS, one dollar op amps on the output of the DACS and normal class D or A/B amps with all their parts and circuitry and feedback. A digital amp has NO....I repeat NO ordinary amplification stages, DACs or feedback......Usually, the shorter the signal path the more pure the result.

1. It does not provide all the benefits, not even close. Please see your first paragraph, which I will point out, is incorrect as you appear to have spent more than a few hours and still have much to learn.
2. A $10 DAC chip with those $1.00 op-amps implemented on a PCB has no distortion that you can hear.
3. Feedback done correctly is a good thing. There just has to be enough of it. This is simple math.
4. The Peachtree amplifier is a DAC. A regular DAC requires very stable power rails, low noise clocks, and effective analog filters. Stable power rails, low noise clocks, and effective filters with no frequency effects are not difficult at the power level of a DAC (10’s-100’s of mW). Now replicate that at 200W per channel with no feedback to correct issue.
5. Those package DACs are based on multi-bit modulators, which provides significantly improved performance. The Peachtree will not be.
6. The Peachtree filter is outside the feedback loop. It will have roll-off at high frequency.

Peachtree has not released any specifications, but I would not be surprised if their performance is lower than class leading D such as Purifi and/or Purifi plus an external DAC. Time will tell. I am sure Stereophile or Audioscience Review will publish measurements when they can. You can already buy Purifi modules inexpensively and multi-channel DACs inexpensively. This is a refinement, not a revolution.

Besides being purer sounding than a normal active system.....digital amplification allows you to tune the speaker any way you like, including get rid of bass nodes and extend the bass.

You are only making a claim of purer. Pure is in the results, and we don’t have any to compare. We already are at a state of transparent DAC+amplifier. Anything purer is academic. We can already tune a speaker any way we like, We can also already even with a passive speaker extend bass. Bass nodes has nothing to do with the speaker. That is a room issue. DSP room correction which can be external to the speaker or internal can already be done. Your streaming S/W can do it. There is no advancement being made.

Dipole speakers may give a bigger sound or they may gives you a dark sound. They may help with some room nodes, while creating all kinds of other frequency response issues. They rarely give deep bass without a sub. The sweet spot tends to be small. The off axis energy is usually low, suiting them more for near-field or quasi near-field and can be a pain to room correct for frequency response as it is harder to balance on axis response and room response. There are a reason some love Magnepan and others hate them and that professionals who do mixing and mastering do not use them. Their popularity comes and goes. If your room is not symmetric, forget about open baffle. It will be a mess.

Now, I understand.....thespeakerdude is an objectivist......he believes in measurements only......that is why he thinkis that DACs and op amps and normal amps are transparent.......sorry. even one resistor is not transparent......we live in different worlds.  I listen to "everything" I do......What do you listen to?  measurements?  I give minimal response to objectivists (won't respond again to thespeakerdude on this thread) because they have no real knowledge (ie....real knowledge in audio is from listening tests) and it is just a waste of time.....it just goes on and on and they have to have the last word.  He probably thinks all passive components have no sound.....ie: he is against any form of tweaking.  You see.....as soon as you "define" something you have to then "defend" it.  This is what the ego does.  All religions have LOVE as their essence.......but when you get to the formal stuff....well, then it gets pretty rigid and judgemental (not loving or inclusive).  When you get that everything makes a difference sonically......then you are more open to possiblilities....and the possibilities are infinite.  This is the joy of audio.....that you can keep playing and learning and growing.  This is what the human soul has come here to do......to learn how to be more open, inclusive and loving.  Putting things in a box.....is well....so yesterday.  We are one....we are love and we are eternal infinte joy.