Active Speakers Better? No, per Michael Borresen

@lonemountain

Some people want it to sound like it’s supposed to, the way Fleetwood Mac decided or Tom Petty or Lenny Kravitz. ATC enables you to get that, and you cannot get that with passives.

I set up my home theater with the intention of replicating to the degree that is practical what the mixing engineer of a movie or album heard on the soundstage. I exchanged emails with the owner of the Dub Stage and Galaxy Studios. Both were very helpful in advising me on how to treat my room. Wilfred Van Balen from Galaxy Studios and founder of Auro 3D emphasized treating the ceiling and suggested bass traps. I am using a combo of absorption panels and Geofusers from Auralex which are diffusors that can be backfilled with rockwool or polyfil to double as bass traps. Both studios use active monitors and while I am sure they sound much better than my home theater, active speakers gave me the ability to bi-amp each speaker AND have that power go to the driver, not just excess heat. With 13 speakers that is roughly 26 channels of amplification. Even if I had that many amplifiers in a biamp configuration it still wouldn’t be as efficient. If you listen to acoustic music at low to medium levels, no worries. If you listen to concerts and action movies at reference level like I do, totally different animal. Look at these specs:

http://www.cain.cainslair.com/Paradigm%20Reference%20Active%20Series%20Specifications.htm

Hey Kota1 

Nice post on your system.  Yes Galaxy has been one of the top players in "good sounding" studios in the EU for a long time.  Check out the latest from MIraval, the revival of an old room.  Also British Grove in the UK is spectacular. 

Reference level, I'm not sure what that boils down to for you in SPL, but I know Dolby likes systems to have reference ATMOS rooms somewhere around 118dB capability.  Not easy without distortion but we have several rooms that function at that level: Blackbird in Nashville and Ben Walfisch's Mix Lab room in Santa Monica.  I cannot listen to anything that loud, it hurts! 

We have quite a number of guys using our stuff in film composing/scoring world, such as Alan Meyerson at Remote Control for Hans Zimmer, or Shawn Murphy.  They are both A level players in that community. 

All the gear used by these guys is all active, typically ATC SCM100A for scoring or SCM150A or SC 300 A for Atmos mixing.

I wouldn't mind at all posting what I have at home, but i have not tried to figure out how to do that on Audiogon.  To be fair, my system changes all the time as I bring samples home from my office or take samples back to sell off.  I have a ATMOS rig at home and at work, both similar, based around ATC HTS 40s, and HTS 11 for sides (7.2.4) and HTS 7 for overheads.  I use two ATC C1s for subs at work and 2 Subwoofer Pros 12s at home. 

Brad         

@lonemountain , that would be awesome, you run in some high profile circles and I would appreciate checking it out. There is a "Virtual Systems" area here, you just go to the page and their is a link to Create System to start your system, you can list components, add comments and add pics. If you are able to upload measurements that would be a plus.

I notice you use 7 channel bed layer, have you tried adding wide channels at 60 degrees before for 9 channels? I find it much better for music in immersive audio.

Fully active digital xover triamped/biamped speakers using pure digital input amps would simply kill any speaker alive.....he he......that statement will get you going.

The Peachtree GaN 1 is a 200 watt a channel stereo amp that has coax input only. It converts PCM directly to PWM.....there are no linear amplifier stages or feedback......this is the same as Tact, Lyndorf and Technics.....but according to the guy that makes these inexpensive modules.....he thinks they sound better than Technics.......check out the thread on the amp here on Audiogon.

The module in the GaN 1 is a 4 channel amp (50 watts each) that combines two pairs in differential mode to make 200 watts. If you bought two of these $2000 amps and rewired each one so you had a three channel amp.....two 50 watters and one 200 watter per channel......you could then tri-amp using a minidsp digital xover or other pure digital xover. You could then hardwire the outputs of the amps directly to the voice coil wire of drivers mounted on a super damped and braced open baffle....or box....if you like box sound. Now you have a triamped speaker that uses no DAC, no preamp, no linear amps, no passive xover.  By using software in the digital domain you can time align the drivers, make the frequency flat as a board at your listening position and set the xover at any slope and frequency you want.  This would simply blow your frickin mind. The volume would be controlled in the digital domain in the server/streamer using lossless digital volume control. What I suggest has never been done before but is available now. You could do it yourself......but most here are not DIYers. I am sure there are manufacturers of speakers that will be implementing exactly what I suggest inside a loudspeaker......The output board weighs less than 2 lbs......the revolution is now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Those fearing passive networks and driver integration issues seem to be a logical choice for a full-range driver system. Since it's active. 1 amp selected to best match transducers 1 driver no network. Maybe that's where you active lovers need to be in the end. And keep in mind many actives still use a passive part to keep drivers from blowing during amp turn-on or amp damage. And is the cabinet really the best place for an amp and an active crossover to reside? I have to fix so so many subwoofers that have an amp and active all-in-one box they don't have longevity. Is your costly active just a short-term friend that gets binned in a few years when amps fail?