Why are hi-end active monitors not more popular?

Forget it, no ME I know of uses active speakers.

Some Mastering engineer's have used Actives...Bob Ludwig, George Massenburg, Doug Sax, Gavin Lurssen, Frank Wolf, James Guthrie ...some of these guys have multiple Grammy's....or some kind of tech awards.

For example Brothers in Arms 20th Aniversary Edition won a Grammy for best surround sound and was both mixed and mastered on active speakers.

So although you may not know anyone who uses active speakers for mastering there are some that do. I would agree that many use conventional speakers (passive). just in the same way that most consumers use passive speakers....but it is not fair to imply that nobody uses them for mastering, as some industry heavy weights certainly do or have in the past.

Hi,Ghasley! I just realized,that you started this thread.I,ve just finished my listening test of Genelec 8040 A. Very good monitors. My only concern, is the rear ports on them. As i,ve stated, my room is not ideal.It seems,that monitors with bigger than 6.5 woofers overpowers my room.Anyway... some very good thoughts on pros/cons of professional monitors .The issue of D/A converters in the monitors itself... 24/96 sounds good to me(and I,ll take Dan Lavry opinions on the subject).The notion of the amps used in the monitors, how they sound and translate the recording , is much more important to me.The professional field(and audiophiles alike) has moved toward 24/192 conversion, but one has to ask themselfs,what where we listening ,till yesterday...With the amps/converters in the monitors, you are limited in the upgrade path(there is allways something better)... or is it...I,ve posted my first hand experience with 4(3 of them in my room,with my system) of the active monitors.My thoughts were based purely ,on the price/performance ratio.Converters/room correction(in the monitors) I,ve never had those in my room,but based on the reports, there is advantage in these systems(JBL,Genelec 82XXX,Focal SM-8-11 employ them), but you may need different set up/digital preamp/computer... etc..Big YES
on the computer/as one source ...that is why my preamp(Arcam C-30) will be for sale later today/tomorrow.Digital age is moving forward,and products like Benchmark Dac-1,Tact audio/D/A /preamp,Stello DA-220,Audio Aero, are gonna get even more exposure...Back on the subject,thanks to Audiogon(or via personal sale/deal) , you can get some VERY good monitors/towers/amps deal... but I,ll try and listen to some of the active monitors I mentioned ... you,ll be suprised, how much you can gain/save. By the way,Ghasley, you are selling some very good components,whats up whith that? Check out Gearslutz.com.This is a forum for many mixing/mastering engeneers(moderators are TOTL people in the recording busyness in the world)We can learn a lot from them...Good luck.

Niki, hello yourself. I had 2 systems going and am consolidating to one serious system and am going to set up wifi/imac systems in some other rooms. Thus the quest to examine some simple solutions:imac (itunes data on a NAS) to a dac to an active monitor possibly. I'm tired of the cable voodoo and just want to settle in to listen to some music in my other rooms.

Squeegybug, thank you for your comments and I am sure your experience with actives must have been dissatisfactory for you to feel as you do. I notice you have Zu Druids and Bel Canto amps so you obviously enjoy a different type of reproduction than I do, but to each his own. I owned some Zu Tones and some Zu Druids in tertiary systems some time back and they were fun. Real fun. Zu's cables are also a tremendous value.

BUT ZU'S ARE HARDLY THE BENCHMARK FOR NEUTRAL SOUND REPRODUCTION.

They are fun, they boogie and I may purchase another pair someday but if you are mastering on them then your recordings will likely be a touch hot on the frequency extremes since Zus are rolled off there. I understand the new Zu presence will alleviate the intentional rolloff (check their site) on the tweeter and the built in ACTIVE subwoofer should fill out the bottom.

isn't our hobby about sound? technology for its own sake without sonic improvement is less attractive than old technology with sonic improvement.

and yes, there will be disagreements as to what sounds better or worse. thus, the value of technology may be viewed as subjectively as what constitutes better sound.

by the way does anyone know of active (non hybrid) panel speakers ?

if not what might be the reason none exist ?

A quote from Andrew Lipinski: "Tests indicate that many amplifiers built into the back of a speaker produce up to 15 percent second- and third-harmonic distortion."

Ghasley: I notice you have Zu Druids and Bel Canto amps so you obviously enjoy a different type of reproduction than I do.

... if you are mastering on them then your recordings will likely be a touch hot on the frequency extremes since Zus are rolled off there.

Yes Ghasley, the Druids are fun speakers. However my studio pair are not currently using the standard tweeter networks. And I very occasionally use a pair of small Hsu subs to fill in the last octave, as needed. Bass trapping, diffusion, level calibration, positioning, etc. make real differences in the performance of the Druids (and any speaker) for these applications.

I like the Bel Canto/Zu combination for listening as well as for mix/master work -- a fast clean amp and fast clean speakers suit my needs. As for translation, the Druids are producing better mixes and masters for me than PMC, Paradigm, Dynaudio, Tannoy, Celestion, Infinity Ref, or SLS did.

Speakers with 'detailed' bright tweeters are very common and easy to find. Speed, dynamics, balance, and linear midrange, are not.

Quoting Bob Olhsson: "The right level of monitor resolution for the job is very important... ...you can go crazy with perfecting sound to the point that it gets in the way of the musical performance."

Shadhorne: Some Mastering engineer's have used Actives...Bob Ludwig, George Massenburg, Doug Sax, Gavin Lurssen, Frank Wolf, James Guthrie

For example Brothers in Arms 20th Aniversary Edition won a Grammy for best surround sound and was both mixed and mastered on active speakers.

Yep, you are right, all those except Ludwig are from the ATC client list. And of course Lurssen was connected to Sax through The Mastering Lab, where they both formerly long used Sax' own custom cabs/crossovers with Tannoy drivers, and his own custom amps.

I expect ATC is probably on top of the game as far as powered monitors go, for the $17,000/pair 3-way tri-amped SCM150A those particular four MEs are using.

Shadhorne, I'm curious about George Massenburg doing mastering? Of course he is a respected producer, recording/mixing engineer, and equipment designer (but no, he did not invent the parametric equalizer...). His quote I've seen was "My mastering engineer of choice is Doug Sax."

Also wondering where you heard that Ludwig used active monitors to master BIA/20th? I know he has long used EgglestonWorks and previously Duntech. And of course has done practically the entire Dire Straits/Knopfler catalog.

From a list I made up a while back, of equipment used by some of the most prolific and successful mastering engineers:

- Greg Calbi / Sterling ........ ProAc Response 4

- Bernie Grundman ........ Customized (vintage) Tannoy, Crown DC-300 amp

- Steve Hoffman ........ Escalante Juniper, Whatmough 202, Tannoy Lancaster Gold, Wavac SET and McIntosh MC402 amps

- Scott Hull / Masterdisk / Classic Sound / Hit Factory ........ Duntech Sovereign

- Ted Jensen / Sterling ........ B&W Nautilus 801

- Bob Katz ........ Reference 3A, Lipinski L-707, Pass X250 and Hafler amps

- Ken Love / Mastermix ........ Long CMF-100, Bryston amps

- Joe Lambert / Trutone ........ KEF Reference 4 and Reference 207, Bryston amps

- Emily Lazar / The Lodge ........ Duntech PCL-3 and PCL-5

- Bob Ludwig / Gateway ........ EgglestonWorks Ivy, Duntech Sovereign, Cello amps

- Stephen Marcussen ........ B&W Nautilus 802, Aragon amps

- Glenn Meadows / Masterfonics (now gone) ........ Hidley-Kinoshita custom soffit mount, Cello and FM Acoustics amps

- Bob Olhsson / Georgetown ........ Duntech Sovereign, Nova Evolution

- Denny Purcell (RIP) / Georgetown ........ Nova Applause and Evolution II, Pass Labs X-1000 amps

- Alan Silverman / Arf ........ Dunlavy Athena, Lipinski L-707, Bryston 5B-ST amps

- Paul Stubblebine ........ Alon Wolf custom

- Hank Williams / Mastermix ........ PMC BB-5 and MB-1, Bryston amps

Those are all passive speakers with standalone amplifiers.

Perhaps more of the audio production world will start to move to actives, but there is a lot of history in that business to stay with what has worked in the past, and to emulate successful MEs.

Well anyway, that is probably a detour from the original question of using actives in home audio environments. Just pointing to some other 'critical listening' situations that are pretty much committed to passive monitors over active.

Steve