Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

@kota1 +1 for Meyer Sound. I have had the great pleasure of taking their factory tour twice with great listening sessions. John Meyer is a genius.
They make their own speaker cones from pulp that they grow in their own forests to control the quality…they make their own magnets…each speaker is assembled by one person and thoroughly tested. All powers by internal proprietary designed amps. 
they only want the purest sound. The new Bluehorn Monitors blew my mind. I could hear the artist take a breath between versus. Only down side…I can’t afford it.

For HT, active speakers seem to make a lot of sense.  invest in a high quality processor vs. amps/receivers.  

But for 2 channel, there is no match.  In my (limited) experience, the active Focal speakers I heard were "clear" but completely lacked 2D or 3D soundstage.  Even my shitty Klipsch Forte IVs with my Krell amp can create the illusion of 3D staging where sounds are not only placed across the left to right stage, but have height and depth.  The depth part is when it gets fun!  

It really hit me the other day when I was listening to some studio Phish.  I've always been a critic of my favorite live band studio recordings, thinking their sound was jumbled and too center weighted.  But on this night, I must have finally found the sweet spot.  The sounds were staged like a set of waves rolling in from wall to wall.  Voice was a few feet in front of me with multiple layers going back 8 feet.  

On the powered focals, all I heard were 2 distinct speakers playing sounds, but no staging.  And my friend with the Focals had the exact same pre-amp and streamer as me.  

@fpomposo 

Regarding vibration control, it is everything, half the holographic, super detailed sound of my system I attribute to my ceramic cones, maple boards, sorbothane pads on the rack, carbon fiber pucks under the speakers, Schumann wave generator etc... and you cant use most of that stuff on a powered speaker system.

I have used Mapleshade Bedrock stands on my active speakers for years, stunning upgrade:

https://www.mapleshadestore.com/speakerstands.php

@gruvjet I have not heard Focals so can’t comment, but your friend lacked the same ROOM you had, so can’t really compare apples to apples.

FYI, did you see this:

edgyhassle 30 years ago at an AES convention I got to talk to John Meyer about this question, he thought there was no way to design the most accurate sound reproduction system without the speaker being designed for the amp and visa versa isn't even worth a conversation.

The problem is culture, greed, and physics. I have a wonderful 2 channel system that somehow sounds wonderful magical and I'm honestly sad that I don't really want to fix it or make improvements, I love to tweak I love to look forward to a new purchase but I don't need to, I'm happy with my stereo. Greed comes in when the niche shops and companies lure rich guys who were nerds in high school to fit into a very expensive community just like supercars (I have one of those too). Physics enters the equation in a very practical sense, I recorded movie sound for many decades and have been in some of the top recording studios in the world. I know the words that describe the level of quality in an audiophile speaker ad are not the same level that the dialogue was recorded on the set of a huge movie or a world class music recording. Audiophile equipment can't make the original product better, until we get to the point when artificial intelligence can fill in the cracks in the quality of the sound, that time hasn't come yet. 
 

Fun is a good reason to be an audiophile but be careful it's not arrogance because you feel you have listening attributes that are metaphysical, if this is the case you are fooling yourself which happens to be an audiophile speciality and an entire branch of study called psychoacoustics.