Your thoughts on active loudspeakers

Georgehifi
"Active xover for the bass yes for me. But not for the mids/highs, they always sound "etched" and loose their "musical ease", become in your face."

HI George
Sure don’t agree with this statement at all. That description would fit only a high distortion system, not an active one!

Sorry not for me, to me the that’s opposite of what you just said. 
I’ve had many of the top analog active xovers (except the Pass FW B-4) here. And the top (it’s said) digital xovers here being a friend of mine who owns the company just up the road, who invented the Fairlight Synth all those years ago here in Au.
As with analog active xover in the mids and highs, you’ll have at least a dozen more opamps pots, switches powersupplies interconnects etc etc in the signal path, and to me the that’s opposite of what you just said, there’s more distortions, they also strip the natural decay from the music going through all that ****.

And the it’s reason I say in the mids/highs it sounds "etched" "sterile" and looses it’s "musical ease" to become in your face, it seems to strip the mids/highs harmonic structure (decay) leaving mostly just the bare fundamental, when going active xover in the analog domain and even MORE SO when it’s done in the digital domain.

And this can be picked up quite easily on my Martin Logan (Neolith paneled) Monolith ESL’s down to 150hz and from 12khz up Plasma tweeters not that it matters go out to 200khz

Cheers George

@georgehifi --

As with analog active xover in the mids and highs, you’ll have at least a dozen more opamps pots, switches powersupplies interconnects etc etc in the signal path, and to me the that’s opposite of what you just said, there’s more distortions, they also strip the natural decay from the music going through all that ****.

That's not taking into account the impact of a passive cross-overs between the amp(s) and speakers in all their more or less complex varieties and differences in quality, how they take away from a given amp's potential and its control over the drivers, and how this scenario compares to an active solution with its own set of (to my mind lesser) compromises. 

Oftentimes that's the discussion on active configuration in a nutshell; it's in a hurry to highlight, not least theoretically, the deficiencies of active without considering passive a rather substantial compromise itself. Passive is most widely used, yes, but that only makes it a reference in light of what's more widely implemented and habitually assessed. 

Mesanovic RTM10 ($7499 / pair) might be worth a listen. Spinorama (CEA 2034) measurements look really good.


https://www.mesanovicmicrophones.com/rtm10

Personally I think discussions about active vs. passive speakers are always biased in that they ignore one aspect or another of design.  I strongly suggest you go by your own ears and listening location.

You might also want to look into and listen to Legacy.

Also, you may want to examine pro powered speakers as well.

Best

Erik

I think the number one reason commercially available actives lack consumer appeal is the lack of "amp upgradeability". Phusis is talking about the future when you can set your active system yourself, choose your crossover points and amplifiers. I know that with active the preamps, cables, sources, etc  all become much more audible and fun to change out.  The degree of change from these front end changes with a high performance active are more noticeable due to the increased resolution that reveals these audible changes.  I am convinced the audiophile in an active world will be turning their focus to the front end, swapping these parts and pieces and have just as much fun in doing so as they did with amps. From a scientific perspective the obsession with amps driving this hunk of lossy wire and passive parts, that reduce control and efficiency, isolated from the drivers, will be looked back upon as so "I can believe we used to do that".
Brad