Why are we so passive?

Veroman
has anyone mentioned price? owning a nice amp and being able to upgrade spkrs w/o having to replace amp is a waste of $$."

Not sure, the statement seems like it is cancelling itself out..

But anyway, Active Tube speaker systems is fine, you put the amps on the rack, not in the speakers, again the reason some are very confused it seems.. You could turn any speaker you wish to be an active speaker if you wanted, you would have to get in them, disconnect the Passive crossovers completely and run direct to the drivers, and then of course have an electronic crossover capable of all the settings you would need in front of the amps.. Again this would not be a conventional or simple way, and is not necessarily the most cost effective, however can be done...

maybe i am unclear on precise definition of term 'active speaker' in regards to OP. i asumed active was describing speaker with amp built in. if so, i meant to say that if one wanted to upgrade speakers one would have to purchase an entirely differnt built in amp as well which would increase overall cost. is it just me who has this confusion as i see that some are defining the term differently. i see marketing that uses 'active speaker'to mean speaker 'with built in power supply'. ala 'active subwoofer'. i think this term may be used in different contexts to mean different things?.

Are you confusing the issue? Active speakers have amplifiers and active subwoofers do, too.

Kal

I guess the point is there are SELF Powered speakers, commonly called Active, but are Not necessarily Active speakers in the true sense.. And then there are True Active Speakers…Which in most cases would be best done with external amps and external electronic crossovers, which again any speaker system essentially could be converted to be an Active system, The Generic word Active does not define " Internal power amps " as many seem to believe, Active means Electronic Filters and separate power channels for each driver.

So back to the first question, Why not build more "Self Powered" speakers is really what people seem to want… mainly cause the cost and quality is going to be worse in most cases than running a separate 2 channel or pair of Mono block amps on your rack… True Actives "Internally powered & filtered or externally powered " are a whole different ballgame is all people need to realize I guess.
I have a question are Meridian Speakers an active system? Or are they just passive crossovers with internal mono amps running all drivers?

Active speakers make the most sense on all technical levels. The audio community doesn't seek the best engineering principles to acheive this, they rely on sex appeal with a sense of pride and complication.

This link with Bob Stuart talking about active designs should really open peoples eyes in engineering terms.

http://www.cinenow.com/uk/news-2117.html

I'm afraid Meridian and B&O are some of the very few companies developing these systems which IMHO will be mainstream in consumer grade electronics in 10 years. Active designs in my opinion aren't supported as they should be because the typical music 'lover' is really a 'tweak' lover and therefore doesn't want to commit to a music system that he doesn't get to engineer himself (at least in his head) and play around with numerous variables (cables/pre's/amp's etc...). But that's just my opinion, what do I know?