Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

The new digital amp boards from Elegant Audio Solutions (like the old TACT and Lyngdorf but more modern and using GaNs on the output).....allow inexpensive active multiamping using an external digital xover such as the inexpensive Minidsp units. For an OEM the boards also have DSP functions built in.....but even the board with just digital inputs can be used with amazing results. Peachtree has the GaN 1 amp now and there will be soon an amp with 400 watts a channel. You could use two of these $1500 digital amps (one per channel) and the $600 Minidsp Flex digital and you can biamp any drivers......full eq. room correction, time alignment (delay), whatever......Of course, you can use more amps and tri and quad amp. I am sure there will be 8 channel amps out within a year or so.....integrated amps as well. A digital amp allows you to use NO DACs, NO ADCs.....no preamps.....and no normal amps, no analog cables......and of course, no distorting passive xover parts. This is a revolution. Why buy speakers when you can make your own open baffle speakers in one weekend that will sound better than anything you have ever heard.

http://tweakaudio.com/EVS-2/The_Audio_Revolution_has_begun.html

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@kota1 ​​@mijostyn ’s main speakers are floor to ceiling line sources. He does not need to worry much about floor and ceiling for them and side wall reflections are likely to be a bit lower. Still have floor/ceiling and side walls for bass as the subs are omnidirectional at those frequencies.

@donavabdear since no one final masters in a perfectly flat room and mixing highly nearfield is the only thing that comes close why would you want to playback flat?

This brings us back to the original topic. You do want the direct sound perfectly flat if you can. Active speakers do that better than anything. That gives you a great starting point. From there do your room acoustics and subs to get close to your target non flat in room curve. Finally DSP to soften anything really off. Room correction has to make the on axis non flat to correct the room. Modern processors try to understand what is direct /reflect so they don’t over correct but it is not easy.

@ricevs we have had direct digital amps for quite some time. It sounds simple but is not. A DAC does not need feedback. Amplifiers generally do. Direct digital and DAC/AMP each have their advantages and disadvantages. Direct digital amps are single bit so far. DACs are multibit. The math in a multibit implementation allows more tolerance for the engineers to do their stuff. Does it matter? No, both can be transparent. Same with silicon and GaN. Silicon can already be transparent. GaN could make for nicer but meaningless specs. For us we like the reduced packaging/heat sink requirements GaN may offer.

@ricevs , that is an excellent post, I had 0 clue about those solutions, thanks!

This really should be a case by case scenario discussion. Definitely not a black and white topic. Especially with the advent of some very nice active component “systems” now available, and being designed by several different companies - boutique and commercial. 
 

I love the sonic changes produced by different amps in terms of their compatibility with my components upstream. But I’d also really love to try some Buchardt A500 or A700’s, KEF LS 60’s (when I could afford the luxury of additional systems) or anything that might turn up in the near future with interesting offerings and superb design. 
 

Genelec’s are interesting to me, as they tend to cross that threshold into the tonal aspect of home audio of listening. Not just a cold/analytical studio monitor. But I digress. 

@ricevs  Class-D is not PWM. PWM is not "Class D type amplification". The only thing they share in common is switching devices. Purifi is a Class-D amplification product that uses the input signal and feedback to reference the output to a clean analog input. There is no equivalent in a digital PWM implementation.

I believe the first one made was the Tact Millennium back in the late 90s. The PCM digital signal is changed in software to PWM (class D type amplification). Tocatta Technologies (TACT) was headed by inspired people who now work for Purifi. It seems odd that Purifi does not have a digital amp board.....prehaps soon...they will.

Simply hooking amplifiers up to drivers and using a digital crossover only provides some, but not all the benefits of active speakers.

You give a lot of bad if not misleading advice in your article. As a business, there is a level of negligence in doing that. That the new MOFI speaker. Encouraging people to take it apart, simply replace the cross over, and then lower the tweeter is terrible advice. Very few people have the experience or tools to do this. You can make some final tunings to a speaker by ear, but 99% of the work is with tools. Getting the crossover frequency right both for evenness of frequency and disperson, the slopes, any necessary notch filters, etc. is not something you just "do" by throwing in a digital crossover. At a minimum you need a calibrated measurement microphone and knowledge of how to measure a speaker / speaker driver. Then you need to understand what those measurements mean and how to turn that into a solution. You may get lucky or more likely convince yourself it sounds good by ear, with the first music you listen to, but across a wide range of music there will be issues.  I am sure Andrew put a lot of thought into the crossover frequency based on distortion of the tweeter, output at frequency, and dispersion, or more specifically matching dispersion to the woofer and using the woofer as a wave guide. Again, it is negligent to blindly tell people to drop the crossover frequency on a tweeter without knowing the impact, which is likely to be negative.