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@lonemountain

This is the confusion of speaker demos- you aren’t demoing speakers, you are demoing the room.

That summarizes it perfectly, and it ain’t just demos, its systems. I like going through the virtual systems area as much to see how members treat their rooms as for their equipment. My active speakers have contour knobs for bass and treble on the back along with a high pass filter. It comes in handy if I have a speaker closer to a room boundary than ideal or if I want to get better integration with my sub and in room bass response.

@kota1 , the reason that the active Paradigms go lower is because the bass is EQed up. You can do that with the passive speaker and digital EQ. No magic here.

By the way, what are you sending to the loudspeaker? An analog low level line? RCA or XLR? Can you give it a digital cable, SPDIF or AES?

Is the crossover analog or digital?

@mijostyn , I am using the XLR inputs for home theater. There is a toggle switch for RCA on the back and I have tried some two channel preamps so I can switch between HT and 2 CH preamps if I want. I can’t give it a digital cable.

The Active 20 measurements are HERE

As for the crossover info see the specs here:

http://www.cain.cainslair.com/Paradigm%20Reference%20Active%20Series%20Specifications.htm

From the Active 40 review :

Audiophiles just don’t readily accept the idea of their speakers being self-powered. But active loudspeakers have some distinct advantages over their passive counterparts. In fact, when I asked the designers at Paradigm which technology was better, active or passive (since the company makes both types of speakers), I couldn’t even finish my sentence before the word "active" was rushed back at me. There was just no second thought about it.

Review:

https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/revequip/paradigm_active40.htm

@mijostyn , Paradigm no longer makes the Reference Active line of speakers. If they come up on EBAY they still sell for roughly the same price as they did when they were new. Their new PW active speakers and ShiftA2 are bargains IMO. 

@kota1 , they are straight analog. Measurements is someone else's room does you no good. The measurements have to be taken in your room. Analog crossovers are distinctly inferior to digital ones. The ultimate approach is to have digital crossovers in connection to a room control system that measures the speakers in your room and then sends each driver the right part of the signal. You could also completely digitize an active speaker and I do believe some of the better studio monitors do exactly this. I can make your system sound way better by using outboard amps and digital processing/crossovers. Your speakers may sound better than similar passive speakers with certain components, I could not say. But, you can not beat the power of modern digital processors. The potential is there to any uncorrected system sound better.