Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

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.

@thespeakerdude A question about your audio philosophy. Speakers should be like microphones they should record and playback flat if there is an audio character to the microphone sometimes that's great and it helps the happiness of the final product just like speakers. There isn's an exact right or wrong I remember in a recording studio I worked at we had an old EV microphone cable that added just the right amount of warmness (lack of high end) to the vocals of some people. To me microphones and speakers should record and playback in the most accurate way possible. Using room correction that changes the speakers is in general wrong, we should change the room, clearly that's the right way to do things but it is difficult, expensive and takes a lot of skill and luck. Fixing surround sound speakers with room correction makes sense because of the timing issues but also in that case the correct solution is again putting the speakers at the right distances physically. Flat rooms are awful and never work because phasing and wobbling sound is part of why we understand what sound is. Speakers should be flat if they're not the room may not work with the speakers in the same way if room correction software flattens the room with the speakers we have the same problem. Reason no #335 why audiophiles are on a slippery slope concerning proper sound reproduction. There seems to be several groups like the AES that want to standardize surround sound playback systems which is a great idea, after that standard is realized we can color our system the way we want but if there is no foundation our feet are firmly planted in mid air. Do you agree?

I like the THX philosophy re: minimum standards and testing. If you get a THX certified installer it should be fairly consistent. 

Actually speaker design is simple.....there are not that many factors and you can learn them all in a few hours and apply them with a digital xover and digital amps. There are tons of speakers that cross over a tweeter below 1K......yes, indeed. However, the problem is usually power handling.....and with steeper 48db per octave xover slopes it is no longer a problem. Anyone can buy a calibrated mircrophone and measure their speaker in room...including off axis response. A 10 year old with average IQ can take some great drivers and put them on an open baffle and with a good digital xover and digital amps will create a speaker that blows your frickin mind......and I am talking "all done in one day!!!!!!" It is really that simple. The xover in the Mofi speaker is not complex......Andrew probably spent a couple of hours designing it and tweaking it. Of course, he got in different proto versions of the driver and spent time with each one....but the xover design is simple and normal.....He can probably do the calculations for the parts in his head....he has done it so long. He spent no time listening to those xover parts versus more expensive more transparent one.. Of course there are polar patterns but it is easy to undertand and you can measure it very fast. Polar response matching is usually bad when you try to run a woofer too high so it does not have dispersion that matches the tweeter.

Simply hooking up a digital xover to digital amps and then to drivers not only provides ALL the benefits of normal active speakers but it gets rid of the distorting DACS, one dollar op amps on the output of the DACS and normal class D or A/B amps with all their parts and circuitry and feedback. A digital amp has NO....I repeat NO ordinary amplification stages, DACs or feedback......Usually, the shorter the signal path the more pure the result. There will be better implementations of digital amplidication down the road....as EVERYTHING changes the sound. The software that changes PCM to PWM is crucial to the sound. The switching frequency, the passive parts on the output, the noise and quality of the power supplies, the jitter on the clock that runs the processor.....etc. into infinity. So, we are not done....nor will we ever be.....that what makes this game fun.

BUT......this is the first time in the history of humanity.....he he...that a digital amp board is being made and can be purchased by any OEM and one can make amps, integrated amps and powered speakers with this technology that gets rid of so many components. So, will a $1500 digital amp beat a $125K MSB Select DAC, with the $145K Boulder preamp and the $250K boulder Mono blocks with $10K worth of analog cables in between?......probably not. But what will it beat? Most audiophiles have maybe 20K in their system.....I bet this 1.5K thing will compete with that......and then if you used multiple amps and a digital xover....and wired directly to speaker voice coil wires.....well, I think it would compete with 100K systems and you can put it all together yourself quickly and cheaply and have a ball tuning it and trying different drivers.......this is indeed a revolution.....like it or not.

So, what benefits do normal active speakers give that using digital amps and digital xovers not do? Remember, you can make a box speaker using this too. Stick a 10 inch driver in a box and put a tweeter above it......have the digital amp directly behind the speaker and hardwired to the drivers........The only advantage I see of powered speakers is that they are completely all in one. So you can put them in different places and move them around easier......for monitoring at location, etc. BUT, these digital amp modules can be put directly inside a speaker to make the same exact thing....but with no DACs, one dollar op amps, feedack and normal feedack amps inside, they will sound even better than the current powered speakers.......so all the companies making powered speakers now using digital xovers with DACs and op amps and normal class D amps can be upgraded SONICALLY by using these inexpensive digital amp boards.....you will see this happening......sooner than you think.