Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

@mijostyn I'm not marketing at all I don't care what anyone thinks of any of my systems (I have 4 Dolby Atmos systems in my home) I'm retired after 35 years in sound recording and mixing but I do care about what experienced people in the audiophile world think. I don't know that world so much. I do know physics and have studied all aspects of sound my entire life. This OP started by me pointing out what I thought everyone else already knew but they didn't, powered speakers are the "best practice" in building hi fidelity speakers, who cares how much they cost. Every speaker and amp manufacture who is gouging people for hundreds of thousands of dollars (my self included) for expensive systems knows that sound systems being designed synergistically are best. That is not a generalized opinion it is logical, the converse is what most everyone buys now believing that sound systems should not be designed synergistically. When someone asked how does this amp sound with this speaker now you know by reading this thread that the answer is maybe good maybe bad but it would be much better if the amp didn't have to push through the dozens of objective electronic design problems that happen when speakers and amps aren't made for each other. 

One simple example other than the obvious crossover problems after the amp in the signal path is how efficient the amp can be when it is directly connect to 1 driver the needed power drops by about ½ and the throw and pull of the driver is perfectly dampened by the amplifier meaning the voice coil lasts a lot longer. It is impossible for normal voice coils to be perfectly dampened because of the unknown loads created by the crossover, connectors, speaker lines, in common in designed speaker amp combinations today. 

If you say well I like tube amps, ok fine have a company design you a tube amp and a speaker in separate cabinets that are made for each other, fine. You probably can't get a company to do that today but if audiophiles would demand best practices it would happen sooner than you think. The amps are there the crossovers are there and the speakers are there make entire systems that are made for every other component. I have the PS Audio BHK components and I think they work together ok but when they finally made a speaker they didn't make an amp for it they would rather make more money and sell them separately.

@fair , Abbey Road used the Neuman's when remastering Pink Floyd for immersive audio. I posted a pic earlier in this thread. You mentioned that there is confusion about cheap active speakers and I agree. Those PW600 are an example of an "inexpensive" active speaker that aren't "cheap". If I were doing a build around a Yamaha HT processor the HS8 would be a match that would be my aspiration. Just thinking about it makes me want to try it. Kitchen duty I have a single Paradigm Active Shift A2 connected to a Klipsch Gate streamer. Thanks for replying.

@donavabdear

Your statement extolling the virtues of active technology is only a half truth, especially the bit about the amp matching malarkey. When you take the crossover out, all you are left with is a simpler load usually a 4 or 8ohm woofer. Any amp can drive that. The amp matching you refer to is more of an issue with passive speakers not active. And in that case the matching must be done by the end user because only the end user has the right to decide what sounds best to his ears. In conclusion, you’re wrong.

@kenjit no crossover between the amp and speaker is a big deal, you didn't say what frequency you were talking about 20hz or 20khz it makes a big difference in impedance. Also you didn't mention that  the cross over was made designed at speaker level not line level like other electronic circuits, you also didn't mention how complicated that crossover was, perhaps you didn't know that today there are some very complicated crossovers for speakers, when was the last time you looked at a speaker ad in TAS and it didn't mention is wow wow wow crossover technology. Wait maybe you forgot to mention the other parts of the speaker, you did mention low frequency, there are other frequencies also thousands of other frequencies if we were to design a speaker with an amp with perfect driver matching it would have an amp for each driver but then you would have 20k amps and a bit of a phase problem. When companies design speakers they add components after the original design to fine tune the overall tone of the speaker this is now done like it was 100 years ago with individual components set in the circuit after the amplifier before the signal gets to the speaker. If this could be done at line level the tuning can be done with a programable chip, yes DSP. Huge amps can sound great in undesigned amp / speaker systems but designed amp / speaker system is a much better way to strive for the best sound. Hope that is clear. Do you realize you are arguing for getting lucky when putting together the two most important parts of a sound system. BTW it is impossible for a undesigned amplifier to be as efficient as a designed speaker if you have more than one driver. 

@mijostyn another note you can use non class D amps in powered speakers my little Elac Navis powered speakers use BASH amps (hybrid) for the low and mid frequencies and an A/B for the high frequency, (300W total). These speakers sound great for my computer along with a JL sub under my desk for $4k you can have a very nice little powered system, plus a small DAC.