I Was Considering Active, Then I Watched This ...

Hmmmm...
Gutenberg has lots of opinions but small amounts of understanding of current advances in speaker/amp designs, in my opinion...which may not be completely accurate either.  Such is the nature of opinions.

But, my ATC 50's, active, blow the socks off all the separates I have used over the last 50 years.  And that wasn't junk either.  

The smoothness top to bottom, the realism, the dead-black background, the clean sound all sold me and continues to this day.  As an extra, ATC does manufacture its own electronics as well as the drivers.  It makes one hell of an active speaker.  

A few years ago when Steve Gutenburg began his dailies, I even joined his Patron (sp) program to support the effort.  In a month I dropped out.  I was learning very little.  Couldn't justify the time.  

This is a bizarre thread for an "audiophile" forum, or did I wander into the recording studio? Think I will take a pass on sitting with boxes aimed at my head. Seems to be popular around here. All that's missing is active Moabs.

Lest we forget the JBL SE 401 Energizer?  My Dorian S12 pair have the knockout for it. A few other JBL speaker models, too.

In Munich I was surprised how poor the Kii room sounded.  They claimed that with DSP on board they were able to get them sounding room-perfect.  But to my ears it was very dry and analytical.   It did sound more like the studio monitors in the studios I sometimes work in.  But pleasant to listen to?  I don’t think so. 

The eternal debate about active vs. passive speakers is exactly that, an eternal debate.

The truth:

Pros and cons are complicated. Only in the consumer land the raging debate tends to exist only because there just isn’t that much of a difference for us in terms of class of product.

In the end, the quality of the sound we experience is really complicated and the final result is the only way to compare two choices, and for that you need to get very specific.

I can imagine that there’s some future where two speakers sit in my living room, with no cables, no power supply, no amplifiers and are quantum linked directly to a performer’s recorded brainwaves. I’m literally going to buy a hologram of an integrated amplifier before I enjoy that experience. :)


Best,

Erik