Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused


17 of 23 speakers in my studio and home theater systems are internally powered. My studio system is all Genelec and sounds very accurate. I know the best new concert and studio speakers are internally powered there are great technical reasons to design a speaker and an amp synergistically, this concept is much more important to sound quality than the vibration systems we often buy. How can an audiophile justify a vibration system of any sort with this in mind.

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@ricevs

 

Feel free to use a term such as subjectivist if it makes you feel better. What I am is someone who has been involved in speaker design for professional applications for approaching 2 decades now. I don't take offense when someone says you can learn everything about speaker design in 4 hours. I don't take comments like that seriously at all.

I don't believe that many modern DACs, and op-amps or amplifiers are transparent. I know that used properly, by competent engineers, in competent designs, that they are, when connected to speakers and placed in a room and listened to by human beings. Computer measurement equipment may tell a difference. No human will. One of the things as a speaker vendor, mainly powered now, must know, is the dividing line between audibility of the electronics and audibility of the rest of what makes up a speaker. For a long time, the electronics, except at corner conditions, has not been an audible contributor, even for the most expensive models with very very low distortion drivers and optimized emission patterns. I don't think that. I know that from the extensive listening tests that we do. We don't just guess at these things. We do listening test after listening test, properly, to remove bias, in multiple rooms.  It is not hard to make electronics color the sound, but that is not our market.

Resistor in crossovers can have a sound if poorly specified. This can come from thermal modulation, though the electronics guys tell me that technically they can have a voltage characteristic and some are high enough in inductance to show differences near the crossover points. As everything is active or DSP crossover now, that is a moot point.

I don't know what you are going on about religion or the soul. To me, you are just trying to wrap that up in some sort of attempt to discredit what I say. I don't know how else to interpret it.

How about we do keep this to a factual discussion? Class-D is not PWM. Dipoles can be great and then can be pretty awful. They are much more sensitive to the listening room and the listener position and are more difficult to fix with room correction. Subwoofer integration is also more challenging. Great results can be achieved, but it is not trivial. Built with dynamic drivers they introduce further issues with dispersion, specifically variability and lobing. Line sources normally don't run into this issue as severely, hence why line source dipoles have more market acceptance. The low distortion these line sources have also contributes.

Getting back to active speakers, simply connecting an amplifier directly to a driver provides good, but not perfect control. You eliminate the crossover, but you still have the natural resistance of the voice coil, and non-linear inductance between you and generating perfect motion.

 

 

@kota1 , I'd rather not turn my media room into a post office. It is also not a good idea to have a light source in a projection theater, another mistake. 

@mijostyn , you have done a nice job on your media room. I think black out curtains that are absorptive would also work. Given the power tools you have I am sure lopping off a window was easier.

 

 

@kota1 , It is great that Anthem makes this kind of gear at a more reasonable price. Their equipment is a real value. Their processor is nowhere near as flexible as the TacT and I am use to that level of flexibility. I did not get the Trinnov because it is not flexible enough. The DEQX Pre 8 can have a similar user interface as the TacT. It also has a 4 way, fully programable crossover. ESLs are essentially wide band midrange drivers. They do not like making low bass or high frequencies above about 18 kHz. Above 12 kHz they can drive amplifiers crazy with the low impedance they present at higher frequencies. Since my hearing falls of at 16 kHz I'm not that interested in what is above 18 kHz. Diverting everything above 12kHz to a Magnepan ribbon tweeter will take a big load off the main amp and allow me more flexibility in adjusting the high end. The problem is getting the tweeters. Magnplanar will not sell them separately. In order to get the tweeters you have to give them the serial number of your speakers. I have to find a store that has 20.7s set up so I can copy the serial numbers:-)

 

@kota1 , That wall is on the sunny side of the house. I built the house 30 years ago and all the windows on that side need to be replaced. It was a lot cheaper to cover it over. You would never know there was a window there.

Right at this moment I'm listening to my daughter play a Bach piece on her violin. What a beautiful sound.