Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

@brianlucey , As I said before, the enjoyment of music, music itself is a totally separate issue from the science of sound reproduction. Sound reproduction is not a matter of taste. Amplitude response is important and if you look at my system page you will notice that we agree on target curves. I intentionally put a " bump" in the low end and the high frequencies are rolled off depending on the dynamic loudness curve in use at the specific volume. I think where you and a lot of sound engineers have trouble is with casting a realistic image. I mentioned specific errors before. These are mixing errors which are unfortunately common with multitrack recordings that have instruments and voices added at separate recording sessions frequently in totally different environments. It in no way sounds like you are listening to a band on a stage or in a room. This can be intentional for artistic reasons but most of the time it is not. I am not and do not pretend to be  recording engineer, but I am an extremely experienced listener as are many of us. Yes, I am perfectionistic. In my head there is only one way to do things, the right way. There can always be several right ways. To make the furnisher I make you have to be perfectionistic or you produce garbage. 

As for my enjoyment of music, that is really none of your business and not the point of this forum. I find it interesting that you are dictating to me how much I do not enjoy music. Can you climb into everyone's head like that? 

@mjoslin13 Again perfectionism is an imaginary ideal. It’s a narcissism of our own imagination. There is no perfection. And in music production there are no mistakes. Teams of people make choices. Positive compromises. Your mind is on display in every post. I don’t have to guess but yes that’s my job daily. Making music sound its best to the most people on every possible system. I know how folks think and listen. It’s not about a live event. That’s another illusion of older aged audiophiles. I’ve heard the best systems. Still sounds like recordings. And creativity in production for decades takes us beyond a live event as a goal. Very small thinking. Very old. I’m sure your system is not perfect. Although I like those John Curl Parasounds for my atmos surrounds. And there is no perfect music. No imperfect music. I’m sorry your life is this small that you need this illusion. A craftsperson seeks the highest standards yet knows perfect is an ever illusive goal. Clearly you have been mistreated along the way and are taking refuge in the illusions of perfect and mistakes. High standards are real. They are not perfect. They are taste plus math. Positive compromise is the essence of all music creation and music reproduction. No dogma. No absolutes. Principles and practice diverge. Sorry. It’s a more uncertain reality than right and wrong.

@vinylvalet yes.  Brad is the ATC rep. In Vegas.  They do a great job at customer service.  A friend for 20 years.  

This thread has a great "mix" of perspectives of members that create content, members that create hardware/speakers/cabinets, and in the end we are all "consumers’ using our personal systems. As a fellow member it has made me think and rethink my approach to improving the entire chain (right down to those great recliners I see in @mijostyn setup). At the end of the day none of these posts are wrong or right (except ATC speakers are as "bomb proof" as they come), it is just a reflection of each posters experience. What I see as a common denominator among all of the very thoughtful posters here is attention to detail of the entire CHAIN. To me, that is one of the best takeaways so far. @donavabdear has fleshed out a professional system, a personal system, and one with LIVE music (the piano), that is amazing.

You have the attention to detail of making the actual speaker (@ghdprentice, @lonemountain ​​​​@thespeakerdude and I think @phusis).

Then you have a perspective of @brianlucey who has mastered recordings in stereo at the highest level now getting a fresh start in early days of Atmos. A funny coincidence is I use passive speakers for my top middle/VOG channel on the ceiling (see the pic in my profile) and what do I power them with? A Parasound amp, the same brand he is using for his Atmos surrounds.

All of the speaker makers/ reps have basically confirmed my choices for going with active speakers, thank you.

The fact that a seasoned pro like @donavabdear is using the same brand of speaker (Paradigm) and virtually the same setup (Atmos) in his personal rig as well as active speakers in his professional is another HUGE confirmation of my personal choice/preference.

@brianlucey posts about the quality of Atmos music confirmed my own experience, Atmos done right has a LOT of advantages over stereo.

When you are working with budget you hate to have to start over, the flip side is when highly experienced members confirm your personal choices it gives you confidence to keep going in that same direction. Unlike most members here I did NOT go down the path of a high end two channel rig. I tried to stick as closely as possible to the Dolby standards for Atmos and the THX standards for Audyssey DSX (which I use a lot for upmixing 5.1 content).

The majority of posters here don’t use active, don’t do atmos, and focus on two channel, high end (luxury) rigs. My system is kind of an outlier in that regard so having all of these confirmations as I stated above is nice. Thank you everyone!

@mijostyn - didn't know Stressless chairs offered power for anything. I assume either it's for heat or massage. In either case, I'm surprised you would want that noise interfering with the sound from what sounds like an awesome system.

It must be difficult for someone to play exactly what is on your stereo live to do your comparisons. An A/B test must be impossible.

Yet another point of confusion is that the range of sound quality provided by active speakers, at this time, is significantly wider, and the choices offered are significanlty more diverse, than that of still surviving passive speakers.

Lower end passive speakers are all but pushed away by active Bluetooth boomboxes. You can still find small passives at garage sales etc., yet it doesn't appear anyone in industry is investing serious money in further developing or marketing them.

High end passives are still going strong, especially in the used market. Moreover, pinnacles of large highest-quality passives took on qualities of antique art - their resale values just keep growing year to year.

The actives range from what used to be small cheap passives, with small cheap amps crammed into their boxes without much forethought, to ingenuously designed and carefully assembled dedicated high-end models.

Cheap actives tend to use insufficiently sized power supplies, dubious thermal management, and cheap highly-distorting transducers. Correspondingly, they don't sound all that good, and don't last for long either.

High-end actives may use literally same or very similar transducers that the best passives have. Their power supplies, thermal management, and amplification stages are all done right. Those sound great, and can last for a long long time.

And then we have this area in the middle of actives market, which is the most confusing.

There could be seemingly well-made and relatively expensive three way active systems sounding like crap. And there could be inexpensive two-ways that are just ridiculously accurate.

There could be inexpensive active speakers that virtually never fail, while being toured for decades. And shiny new expensive ones, even from reputable brands, which reliably fail within few months.

By the way, "sounding like crap" could be either an opportunistic market grab by a fly-by-night company making a quick buck reselling cheap Chinese gear with 100% markup, or by design.

"By design" is meant to be distorting just below the threshold of being noticeable. Then even a smallest additional distortion of unpleasant nature - typically caused by a recording or mixing mistake - will jump out at the sound engineer. Which is what's desired in this tool.

So, a buyer of an active speaker ought to be aware of just as many nuances, in the speakers alone, as an audiophile needs to know about the ADC, DAC, DSP, amplifiers, and passive speakers.

I mentioned ADC, DAC, and DSP because some of the active speakers use them internally. A limited number of them use high-quality components, careful design, and well-written software. Most others are ... well, if you can't say anything good, don't say anything :)