Your thoughts on active loudspeakers

Georgehifi
"Active xover for the bass yes for me. But not for the mids/highs, they always sound "etched" and loose their "musical ease", become in your face."

HI George
Sure don't agree with this statement at all.  That description would fit only a high distortion system, not an active one!  There is nothing in active (as a process) that would cause what you are saying to happen.  Active REMOVES distortion generating devices in the signal path.  Every A/B I've ever done proves again and again that same exact speaker, same exact amplifiers, active means imaging is better, fine details more clear, resolution is higher.     

Brad

So many here on AG have no clue about active crossovers and the benefits. Actives can improve the entire spectrum, midrange is so much clearer and detailed. It sure does remove distortion like IM, the most irritating, just plain gone. I've mostly given up trying to help because many THINK they know best. Time is a wasting!

@seadogs1 --

I have been looking at several active loudspeakers, Heavenly soundworks, Buchardt, and, and KEF LS50 wireless II. Any thoughts on these or are there others you think are better? Thanks!!!

Bundled active speakers such as ATC come recommended. Most don’t seem to realize though that ’active’ isn’t only an all-in-one solution, but simply means the cross-over functions on signal level prior to amplification, and as such can be a separate component choice as well where you get to choose your own digital/electronic cross-over, amps and the whole shebang. This entails setting up the filter values by yourself (unless pre-set like from Sanders Sound), and can take some time getting right. You may know your sonic preferences and have sharp hearing acuity, but knowing which filter values and their combinations(!) that lead to a desired sonic outcome - with the aid of knowing specs and likely involving measurements - isn’t something one simply does overnight. This can take weeks, months even, but a manageable outcome can often be had within shortly; it’s the fine tuning that’s "a bitch," but the more work you put into it and experience is gained, the more rewarding the process (and outcome) becomes.

@lonemountain --

... Every A/B I’ve ever done proves again and again that same exact speaker, same exact amplifiers, active means imaging is better, fine details more clear, resolution is higher.

My assessment as well. More transparent, stable, fluid, less smear, and indeed somewhat better resolved. Heavy DSP processing/correction I find impacts the top end in particular, making it too distinct and at times coarse, which is why the less-is-more approach into PEQ is my preferred scenario. Fiddling with acoustics, speaker placement and overall design decisions is paramount here to ease the processing part, and this involves the low end as well. Done right such an active set-up - tailored to a specific acoustic environment and from a given listening position - simply steamrolls over most any passive dittos I’ve heard.

@fiesta75 --

So many here on AG have no clue about active crossovers and the benefits. Actives can improve the entire spectrum, midrange is so much clearer and detailed. It sure does remove distortion like IM, the most irritating, just plain gone. I’ve mostly given up trying to help because many THINK they know best. Time is a wasting!

There’s a very conservative/stifled/prejudiced attitude towards active configuration in audiophiles communities in general, yes. I would gather most speak from limited experience, and certainly active-as-separates is something very few have heard let alone had their hands on.

Once juggling with filter values actively feels more natural and "learned" - in the listening position from your laptop/tablet and on the fly - it becomes an indispensable tool where corrections can be made to accommodate a variety of situations. I can’t imagine ever going back passive again.

Georgehifi
"Active xover for the bass yes for me. But not for the mids/highs, they always sound "etched" and loose their "musical ease", become in your face."

HI George
Sure don’t agree with this statement at all. That description would fit only a high distortion system, not an active one!

Sorry not for me, to me the that’s opposite of what you just said. 
I’ve had many of the top analog active xovers (except the Pass FW B-4) here. And the top (it’s said) digital xovers here being a friend of mine who owns the company just up the road, who invented the Fairlight Synth all those years ago here in Au.
As with analog active xover in the mids and highs, you’ll have at least a dozen more opamps pots, switches powersupplies interconnects etc etc in the signal path, and to me the that’s opposite of what you just said, there’s more distortions, they also strip the natural decay from the music going through all that ****.

And the it’s reason I say in the mids/highs it sounds "etched" "sterile" and looses it’s "musical ease" to become in your face, it seems to strip the mids/highs harmonic structure (decay) leaving mostly just the bare fundamental, when going active xover in the analog domain and even MORE SO when it’s done in the digital domain.

And this can be picked up quite easily on my Martin Logan (Neolith paneled) Monolith ESL’s down to 150hz and from 12khz up Plasma tweeters not that it matters go out to 200khz

Cheers George

@georgehifi --

As with analog active xover in the mids and highs, you’ll have at least a dozen more opamps pots, switches powersupplies interconnects etc etc in the signal path, and to me the that’s opposite of what you just said, there’s more distortions, they also strip the natural decay from the music going through all that ****.

That's not taking into account the impact of a passive cross-overs between the amp(s) and speakers in all their more or less complex varieties and differences in quality, how they take away from a given amp's potential and its control over the drivers, and how this scenario compares to an active solution with its own set of (to my mind lesser) compromises. 

Oftentimes that's the discussion on active configuration in a nutshell; it's in a hurry to highlight, not least theoretically, the deficiencies of active without considering passive a rather substantial compromise itself. Passive is most widely used, yes, but that only makes it a reference in light of what's more widely implemented and habitually assessed.