Your thoughts on active loudspeakers

Personally I think discussions about active vs. passive speakers are always biased in that they ignore one aspect or another of design.  I strongly suggest you go by your own ears and listening location.

You might also want to look into and listen to Legacy.

Also, you may want to examine pro powered speakers as well.

Best

Erik

I think the number one reason commercially available actives lack consumer appeal is the lack of "amp upgradeability". Phusis is talking about the future when you can set your active system yourself, choose your crossover points and amplifiers. I know that with active the preamps, cables, sources, etc  all become much more audible and fun to change out.  The degree of change from these front end changes with a high performance active are more noticeable due to the increased resolution that reveals these audible changes.  I am convinced the audiophile in an active world will be turning their focus to the front end, swapping these parts and pieces and have just as much fun in doing so as they did with amps. From a scientific perspective the obsession with amps driving this hunk of lossy wire and passive parts, that reduce control and efficiency, isolated from the drivers, will be looked back upon as so "I can believe we used to do that".
Brad

HI Georgehifi
I have no doubt you experienced what you say as I can see you have written a enthusiastic response.  AS one who's been in audio a lifetime, I have been completely convinced by a demo I discovered later was a flawed.  I too have heard some crossovers I do not like, especially the digital kind.  I do believe digital DSP can be neutral, Weiss is a good example but its SO expensive.   I also believe Class D can be good, example is Theta Digital, also quite pricey.    

The science on this is quite clear: the passive arrangement introduces a large array of significant artifacts, all measurable and audible.  Active also has some artifacts, but far fewer and more difficult to measure and hear.  The reduction of audible errors in total is the goal of properly executed active design.  Its a holistic design approach if you will.  Solve the biggest issues first and then work to get the rest down.  Distortion is the enemy, and once inside the driver, whether created by the driver itself or what comes before is impossible to remove.  How about we prevent its creation?  The speaker company I'm associated with pursues this goal though engineering in every move they make.         

DSP is not an inevitable "must have" part of an active design.  Well executed actives are available that are 100% analog, input to speaker output, with high end discrete variants available for those with bigger budgets.   

Brad 
 

I started off making my own 12db/octave actives in 1976 with a TL074 op-amp, poly caps and metal film resistors, no pots. I did use manufactured crossovers to select the slope that I liked best, but after that removed it. The new LM6172IN opamps are killer and do sound better. Still using all fixed components, switches to select xover frequencies. I’ve settled on the slope and crossover frequencies that work the best for me, so no switches or pots. Yes, all analog. Three class A amplifiers.

Active has some good advantages, but the complexity and the inflexibility make them not worth the trouble. That’s why a majority of speakers are and will still be passive.  Cheap class D are not going to cut it.  Full blown active that are any good are just a pain in the a$$ to put up with.