Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

kota1
I suspect you know a lot about psychoacoustics and audio placebo effects. I started in acoustics, went to live sound then movie sound in my career all the while studying physics. I can't imaging people spending hundreds of thousands on sound equipment that don't know anything about the psychological effects of sound. Just google it. 

I've seen how musicians listen back to their vocals and obsess about things that aren't there I've apologized to directors about how bad the sound was and they had no Idea what I was talking about one director told me the sound was great he told me he just told a producer  "this is a fabulous recording it's going on the album for the movie". I also set up sound for Milli Vanilli, I didn't know it was all fake the sound system was real. One of the singers twisted his ankle and ran off stage where I was there was panic everywhere and the singer (I don't remember which one) wen't back on stage and just didn't jump around as much. No one could tell they were faking it, but when you see their performances today it is obvious they were. 
 

@ronboco wrote:

Why does an onboard amp in an active speaker pair better than separate amplification ?

In an active config. an onboard amp by itself doesn’t pair better than an outboard ditto. Remember, active can be an outboard solution as well.

Are the drivers different than a passive speaker?

Not necessarily.

Are the crossovers different than in a passive speaker?

Yes, active XO’s are placed prior to amplification on signal level, not on the amp’s output side between that and the drivers taking the full power.

It seems the only thing active does is eliminate the need for an external amp.

No, primarily active eliminates the passive XO between the amp and drivers, and this gives the amp(s) much better control over the drivers sans intervening passive XO components, which in turn has the drivers perform more accurately to what’s fed to them by the dedicated amp sections.

@ghasley wrote:

An example would be the speaker designer could match the appropriate amp to the appropriate speaker driver to achieve their design goals optimally.

While amp matching certainly isn’t irrelevant, its importance - in some respects - has been blown a bit out of proportion, if you ask me. Overall, active config. also allows the designer to downscale amps, while getting away with it, being the output power is more effectively used sans passive XO’s, and they also perform (i.e.: sound) better actively. As a bundled solution that comes in handy with more compact designs.

Not trying to diminish amp matching, as per your next quoted paragraph below, but often it means allowing the designer to potentially downscale while dedicating amp sections to their specific driver dittos.

An extreme mismatch example would be for an active two way where the amp driving the top end was a class d plate amp and the low frequency driver driven by a class A 10 watt amp.

Indeed. It’s what I do myself in my outboard config. active setup; lower wattage class A from the lower to central mids on up, high power class TD taking over down to the upper bass, and high power class A/B from here to 20Hz. Common wisdom, very generally, may dictate class D variants to the lowest octaves, but I’ve found using my class A/B amp (MC² Audio) to serve better from 20 to ~85Hz and having a bigger, more positive effect on the remaining frequency spectrum above in comparison to using my class TD Lab.Gruppen amp here, which is no slouch either, I might add. Interestingly the MC² Audio amp is the better full-performer vs. the Lab.Gruppen (but not the Belles class A, which is the best of the bunch), to my ears, and yet the overall sonic picture has it serving better in the subs region - go figure. 

That’s what an outboard solution allows you, to use external quality amps and experiment with their implementation in the respective frequency spectrums.

@donavabdear

Welcome to the forum, when you have time could you post your "virtual system" in your profile? The placebo effect can extend to anything, not just audio. Many dealers today offer 30-60 day trials so the bad dealers can’t hope to compete in the world of solid return policies. I think the vast majority of dealers are ethical and want to provide value. I have no problem with dropping $$$ on cables or whatever. I have HUGE problems on spending even a dollar on gear without addressing the room. If there is audiophile kryptonite I would say it is acoustic treatments (or lack of) rather than what gear costs.

@donavabdear 

The amps in powered speakers are designed for the speaker at a specific price point.  They aren’t necessarily the best amp for the speaker.  In the same way that a passive speaker with a better amp can sound better than an active version of the same speaker with lesser amps.

I think the one issue not addressed in responses is controlling [driver] phase to create a phase linear system.  Phase control is not possible in the passive or the outboard amp active system (unless you have a very sophisticated line level crossover with phase controls on each band, which I have not seen outside of DSP crossovers).  It always requires careful measurement to be able to accurately adjust phase.  Therefore, phase linearity is one attribute of an active system that is hard to compete with. 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against passive, its not shite, it can sound very very good indeed, It's just that active has so many positives that seem so poorly understood in the audiophile community.  It's like there is this feeling of "I'll give you my outboard amp when you pry it from my cold dead fingers!"   It's a little odd when the science on this is not new or controversial and the sonics are obvious to anyone whose has tried like for like. 

The anecdotal evidence I read in this forum doesn't really compare active vs passive, like for like. Its usually comparison one brand to another with other differences that are not explained.  Granted a proper demo is extremely difficult to pull off, maybe impossible.  I've done it because I have the same speakers in active and passive and the same amps built by the same company.  Not everyone hears the difference, like my wife, so tis not black and white.  But it certainly is as significant a difference as one cable vs another., one CD player to another, one DAC to another.   Maybe sometime I'll invite you all to Las Vegas to hear this comparison.  Or maybe we'll do this demo at AXPONA next time and have a party doing it!. 

Brad