Why are hi-end active monitors not more popular?

Shadorne,

Thanks for the reply and I appreciate the answer. Its all beginning to make some sense and the case for actives at least dictates further exploration.

I must admit I'm afraid to ask you the time for fear of discovering how a watch works. For instance, where is the one guy in the world with the absolute reference gear that measures a true and accurate second? Do you think we can get THAT guy to fix IMD and Jitter? LOL. Peace.

I must admit I'm afraid to ask you the time for fear of discovering how a watch works.

I am an Engineer and also studied heavily Physics at College ...fortunately I took a great job rather than the PHD scholarship in my final year....I might never have escaped academia and probably would never have been able to afford a hi-fi hobby if I had stayed there!

Opening things up, reading text books, and trying to understand how things work in every detail is what Engineers and Physicists tend to do. Of course, understandably, it makes most people YAWN and turn away. So go ahead and YAWN!

Thomas Dolby "She Blinded me with Science" seems to capture the Jekyl and Hyde personality that Engineer's must struggle with all the time; on one hand deeply feeling the emotion (in this case music) yet on the flip side (get pencils and calculator out) it is all just tubes and wires, biology, geometry, machinery...

"Good heavens Miss Sakamoto - you're beautiful!"
I -
I don't believe it!
There she goes again!
She's tidied up, and I can't find anything!
All my tubes and wires
And careful notes
And antiquated notions

But! - it's poetry in motion
And when she turned her eyes to me
As deep as any ocean
As sweet as any harmony
Mmm - but she blinded me with science

Shadorne,

I hope you realize i was just giving you a hard time. i for one appreciate the time people like you take to educate all of us. Just like college, it is absorbed by some, not by others. There is so much snake oil in our hobby that is can be truly aggravating. Thanks for attaching some true science to what it is we are hearing.

As far as actives go, no one on this thread has been able shoot any valid holes in the science of why an active monitor is not a better solution. I have read some answers on this thread that basically refer to tone controls. In other words, if an active monitor of very high quality is inherently more accurate, with less distortion and more lifelike dynamics than a similarly priced seperates setup, then what would I get to change. Others appear to want to adjust the tone to suit their tastes. All of this is fine and well but then why not just get tone controls? Kind of humorous. I like tubes, I like solid state, I like digital and I like analog. But those who are certain their approach is absolute are absolutely wrong.

Ghasley,

I think the following quote explains a lot:

"During a recent trip to an audiophile club meeting in the Pacific Northwest, AVRev.com’s resident speaker setup guru Bob Hodas did a demo with Meyer's [active] X10 system that left many (if not all) of the audiophiles drooling and proclaiming it to produce the best sound they have ever heard. At the end of the night, one of the members who has the money and the system to easily purchase X10s asked, “If I bought a pair, could I use my own amps?” This is inherently the audiophile problem. To say something was the best you ever heard at the ultimate price point and then want to somehow change what makes its successful describes the definition of the sickness known as audiophilia."