Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

brianlucey
I started in acoustics and physics then moved into movie sound about 35 years ago. I've been to many big studios but not for music but for movies. and I'm putting in my studio now for movies not music. Dolby Atmos was meant for movies not music. I have worded at music studios but didn't enjoy it as much as sound for movies. Sorry if that is beneath you.

Oscar for Titanic Oscar nomination for Pearl Harbor

Emmy for The Watcher

Emmy for CSI

Lots of Golden Reel dialog awards CSI Miami and others

brianlucey
Also 30 years of live mixing and mixing orchestras, also sound for plays, also sound for radio shows, also sound for commercial buildings, also setting up sound systems for concerts, also working on recording studio sound systems, also consulting for production sound recording manufactures, also consulting on movie post production sound systems. Also designing mathematic raytracing programs for JBL, also doing basic acoustic research for Crown. 

You don’t seem to understand, in detail, what that Trinnov does. Even in L&R Mode, it is applying corrections at the speaker level.

https://www.trinnov.com/en/blog/posts/trinnov-optimizer-features-according-to-l-r-excursion-curve/

FULLY ACTIVE SYSTEMS WITH DA AMP CABLES SPEAKER DSP IN ONE TEND TO BE A COST ISSUE COMPROMISE.

May I ask how many fully active speakers you have developed over your career? You appear to be stepping far out of your area of expertise. Even your MMThree are a cost compromise. For the implementation of DSP, D/A, amplification and power supply, in many situations, we would be hard pressed to make it cost more. For these sub components of the design we could add frivolous components that would increase the cost, but they would not improve the sound and hence would not generate a resale premium to our target professional markets. These sub components are not the limiting factor in the SQ of our products. That will still be the driver components and cabinet / acoustics for the long foreseeable future.

One observation I will make about brianlucey and donovabdear is that the markets they serve have much different requirements where consistency and subsequently accuracy is concerned. For music, mixing or even mastering with substandard SQ or highly musical setups yields good results as the target playback devices are diverse and lacking standards and you don’t have the criticality of dialogue. For movies, the opposite is true. There is high consistency in playback in theaters, and even home systems due to automated room correction. Not only is there high consistency, but there is an expectation of consistency and a need due to dialogue. Brian’s musical amplifier and speaker combination may not cut is in donovadbear’s world. Our market intelligence suggests ATMOS and related formats driving music towards more accurate systems over time.

@thespeakerdude

Colleagues would argue, correctly I must accept, that amplifiers, speakers, and the room form a system.

I agree (this is the 20% of a system providing 80% of the benefit IMO). The OP is NOT which is better, passive or active, it is about confusion. As @brianlucey stated one of the benefits of active is cost and convenience, Those are HUGE benefits when you have a budget and limited space. I have about a dozen active speakers in my HT that are all internally biamped with a total of 24 channels of A/B amplification (specs are posted in my profile). I would need a dozen two channel amplifiers or five 5 channel amplifiers to power this system in the same fashion, you are talking $$$$$. Next I would need $$$ of long runs of quality speaker cable and another one or two racks to store the amps. I have already compared the Paradigm Studio (passive) 20, biamped, with the active version. They both sounded great but my preference was the active.

So, to make a "system" of the amp, the speaker, and the room in the most CONVENIENT and COST EFFECTIVE fashion I think we are ALL in agreement here, active speakers PLUS a processor using good DSP is a good strategy.

So, if you want a convenient, cost effective, great sounding system use active speakers. That isn’t confusing at all, right?

@donavabdear , thanks for posting your C/V, very nice creds, congrats on all the awards. Would love to hear your thoughts sometime about mixing atmos for movies and how to setup an atmos HT in a convenient and cost effective fashion.. That might be a great topic for a future thread