Opinions and recommendations on active loudspeakers

Some interesting posts here.....the first two active speaker companies the I know of were Genelec (which I represented years and years ago) and ATC (which we now import to the US as lone mountain).  Both companies have a long history of "how its done" and both started primarily in studio market, where passives were very much in control of the market in the late 70s and early 80s.  ATC was an owner operator so they stuck close to home, they got support early on from Pink Floyd and others in the UK.  Genelec raised money and went international very early and had a significant break out hit, the 1031.  For small active 2 way, this thing rocked.  So much better than the passives of the day.  The 1031 was used for more movies in the 80s than any other I think!  Genelec made a great sounding ribbon tweeter speaker early on too, the S30, lovely speaker but it sort of faded way for unknown reasons.  .

I think the number one reason active is considered better than passives by many (speaker) designers is the ability to control phase.  Building a speaker that's linear in phase response is a wondrous thing to behold.  The other side benefits of active are easier to guess: super short cables, the right power to each driver, easy to calibrate a system for flat response with amp/driver level, easier to do a electronic crossover than a passive one and you use higher slopes with active so you can get some additional performance out of that.  

A lot of folks don't know that passive crossovers have a tough time with changing driver values as they heat up, changing crossover behavior.  That's why in pro, you cannot have a speaker "sound different in the morning" than the night before.   

Brad
Lone Mountain Audio  

Legacy Caliber HD or XD with Wavelet delivers great sound, musicality and audiophile grade playback IMHO in a smaller footprint. You can also add subs as I have done. See my virtual system for details and PM me if you want more detail.

@lonemountain    "ability to control phase" ??

Ok canibefrank when you pull just those words out I see my mistake and creating confusion.   Thanks for asking for clarity! 

I meant you have the "ability to control phase" at the crossover points of the system.  There are two adjustment points within the ATC active 3 way amp pack to "control" this phase parameter (at the crossover) so the acoustical sum is now in phase.  You cannot do that with a passive crossover.   This is a huge advantage of any true active system.

Active is an electronic crossover feeding multiple amplifiers that represent each driver in the system.  Active like ATC does it is an electronic 2 or 3 way crossover feeding 2 or 3 Class A/B amplifiers that are fully analog- no DSP used at all.   

This does not apply to a "powered" system (a power amp in front of a passive crossover).  Important distinction, I see some confusion in posts on various forums mixing up "active" and "powered".
 
Brad
LoneMountain

Active speakers will break your heart when the plate amp fails. Then you'll prolly have to throw it away unless you know how to repair it.