Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

@kota1 Also I wanted to send you this about the new Genelec speakers, I was not a fan of Genelec for 30 years I thought they were very harsh and poor low end. these new speakers are totally rethought. They make some amazing claims like "The new flagship of The Ones range, the 8361A offers the most advanced acoustic performance of any studio monitor on the planet." I have the model just below this one but they are made the same. Last night when I was panning the front speakers I literally had to reach my hand out and touch the center speaker to make sure it was off the imaging was nothing like I’ve ever heard before, I thought there was something wrong with my speaker patching. The first note of music is still getting me I don’t really know why, I think the transient response is so fast it plays with your brain, but that could be imaging also the high and midrange is point source with plenty of power the low frequency comes out of these strange outlets on each side of the speaker, this is the first time I’ve really seen High and mid frequency drivers work so well together.

When you look down the grocery store isle and the first thing that comes to your mind is wow that is a beautiful woman then you notice that it’s your wife, that’s a really good and honest reaction. This is happening to me all the time when it comes to this system, I know it doesn’t have strange and boutique parts but all the parts are designed to go together from the start of the signal to the end so they seem to work synergistically in a surprising way. Design from start to finish is so paramount that’s why I hope powered speakers are discovered by audiophiles, in a few years of acceptance they will take off in very beautiful ways.

@donavabdear , it is amazing what near perfectly flat speaker response on-axis will do for imaging. Don't let the room screw it up and you are golden. This is the flaw and the trap people fall into thinking they can use room correction / DSP to fix the speakers. The accurate imaging with speakers is almost always near field with a perfectly flat speaker response.

Big disconnect w.r.t.. knowledge, specifications, and setup to achieve imaging. So many "ideas" about how to place speakers, toe-in, etc. without those people having a good understanding of what is under the hood and what is happening. (Not saying you).

@thespeakerdude Very well said, my center speaker is horizontal not vertical but it doesn’t matter because the speakers are point source the way things are in real life. Speaker imaging is more important than I thought, I thought it was phasing especially near field reflections, perhaps I’m wrong about that. With microphones it is always a compromise choosing between directionality and off axis coloration. Omnis have perfect off axis response but poor rejection to unwanted sound. I always use the widest polar pattern possible to keep off axis coloration to a minimum and to not pull in unwanted sound. Amazing how speaker and microphones mirror each other. 

I am looking at the Ones and can only imagine what that 134 pound sub must be like 😎 Obviously overkill for a HT but like how they couple it with the monitors for a full range solution.

@donavabdear , I have a complete digital workstation and have complete control over everything. It will tell me the exact timing errors of every group. Everything is on a simple wireless network. Only important equipment is hardwired. It seem to be way less complicated than what you are doing judging by your description. I did not need anyone's help to do anything. I have a system in the shop, one in the garage and another in the workout room. They all run on the network and I control them all from a phone.

@kota1 , I hate to sink your ship but that thing you showed us is an indiscriminate vibration machine.  That is a terrible way to design a subwoofer enclosure. That enclosure is going to resonate it's back side off. The Newtonian forces generated by that driver have considerable leverage over the enclosure. The end result is that enclosure will shake, vibrate and that vibration is distortion. Subwoofer drivers need to be as close to the floor as possible with the bulk of the enclosure's mass behind the driver to neutralize those forces as much as possible. Even then, if the driver is not counterbalanced by an identical driver pointed in the opposite direction the enclosure will shake to some degree depending on it's mass. Look at my current subs on my system page. The 12" drivers are low to the floor and the enclosures are made of Corian and weight almost 200 lb. They still shake which has prompted me to build a new set using opposing drivers and an even stiffer method of construction.