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

Sorry musicaddict with my wife and I’s 10th wedding anniversary coupled with the Christmas holidays, I took a brief hiatus from this thread.
Currently I have no speakers, I had Martin Logan Spire's before Covid forced me to sell not just my 2 channel system but also my house. Now I have purchased a smaller house and am looking to rebuild. Would like to purchase a system in the next 6-9 months and was looking at the Buchardt A700’s active speakers as a all-in-one set-up.

lonemountain wow, very informative Brad, thanks.

crouse99 sorry for your troubles with the Mac. The Buchardt A700’s are more of a modular design from what I understand, most components can be replaced with a simple screwdriver in a couple of minutes. Which I could have done that on my old Mac!

Great thread, Happy New Year to all, can’t be any worse than the last one...

djones51: An active speaker can be an all analog design or a digital input/DSP design and Class D amplifiers, but inputs and amps do NOT make it "active".  The critical issue is simply where the processing takes place, at speaker level [passive] or line level [active]. 

A "powered" speaker is not active and this term does not infer active; active speakers are not "powered".   "Powered" is a passive speaker with an amp [usually] inside, placed before the passive crossover just like any other passive speaker.  A "powered speaker", with processing at speaker level, can be Class D or Class A/B amps or digital inputs or analog inputs.  This powered description is used most often improperly, often by users or dealers (or manufacturers) who don't understand the term either or are attempting to deliberately fool a buyer into thinking that powered and active are the same.   They are a completely different designs and concepts.    

If one focuses on "where the processing is", before [active] or after [passive]  the amplifiers, the "active" label become much easier to discern.     

Brad   

Why are you telling me what I already know? I never mentioned "powered speakers" I was talking about active speakers with digital active crossovers. Active speakers can have digital and analog inputs and not necessarily be class d but class AB, G or H. With a properly designed active the front end components are not really much of a concern. If you want to see a properly designed modern active look at the Genelec Ones , ATC is still in the dark ages.

DJones51, its difficult to judge your posts when you say "front end components are not really much of a concern on a properly designed active".  Increase resolution at the speaker (via active technology) and resolution of the front end won't matter?  
Brad

I was referring to this. An active speaker with DSP I'm not sure what you mean? 
I've had different active speakers using very different sources I never noticed much difference , I noticed a difference between speakers not what fed them. 

With a properly designed active the differences in the front end are far more dramatic than ever before, yielding just as much fun in experimenting with cartridges, tonearms, DACs, etc. So from my experience, active enables even greater insight into the minute details of recordings and all the associated gear

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