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

I'm holding out for a pair of active speakers with an internal amp, DAC, CD player that is also portable. Hey! My boom box in the garaurage does that.

jperry- and you care about what he says because ...?
You need to listen for yourself.

It’s not the listening part I was questioning it’s the compact nature of the active speaker over that of a passive and what better effects they might have on a lousy room. Something, I thought an active speaker may be a better solution for.

Also, it seems extremely difficult to listen to active speakers anywhere, at least around this neck of the woods. So if I want to listen for myself, it looks like I have to arrange a purchase with an in-home trial. If that’s the case, I really need to narrow down the field as I don’t want to get on the return shipping merry-go-round.

SG states about ¾’s of the way through his rant that "as the speaker ages you get stuck with the out-of-date DSP"

According to Buchardt their active speakers have been designed to be upgradable by switching out the active module which can be easily done in 5 minutes with only a screwdriver. They will be producing a series of videos on how to do this shortly.

Not sure if any of the other active speaker manufacturers offer this option to upgrade, but it sounds like a good future proof feature.

rsure

... the downside of losing everything if something goes wrong is a huge negative, at least for me ...

Same here. That’s one reason I buy separates.
It shouldn’t be rocket science to find an amplifier well-suited to any given speaker. If that’s not the case, then there’s something wrong with the speaker.

This is just his (Steve G.) opinion and he has not tried other active speakers. I have heard the ELAC Navis ARB-51's active speakers and they are great. I think all audiophiles at least should give active speakers a try, why not? It is part of the hobby. Bryston has an interesting approach to active speakers: https://bryston.com/active-loudspeakers/

I’ve had 3 sets of powered speakers/monitors on my desktop system. None were from big-name/big-quality studio monitor specialists such as Genelec, ATC, Hedd, and so on.

I ended up moving away from powered monitors for 2 reasons, both somewhat peculiar to me & my system:

• The smaller factor: Any active speaker can issue self-noise (consequence of the amp running the driver direct, not through a passive crossover). None of the 3 powered pairs I had did this to any real degree, but I’ve read too many user comments about too many brands (including some good/expensive brands) to completely disregard this--particularly in my nearfield application.
• The bigger factor (by far): Most active speakers are the province of professional audio studios. There are a few audiophile examples, but really very few. So in general, as one surveys the field of possible powered monitors, the majority of all candidates are designed for users to rarely if ever simply use them for music enjoyment. To whatever extent powered monitors are "voiced," most of the voicing is aimed at flat, clinical, even forensic sound.

If I had the space and the funds, I would happily try one of the powered ATC models. My passive monitors are ATC SCM12 Pro’s, and they really made me a believer in what ATC can do for music.

I don’t exactly feel the trepidation that Steve Guttenberg speaks about in this video--but in general I do feel that for someone like me, whose primary interest is music appreciation, powered studio monitors are probably not the place I should be looking.