Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused

@thespeakerdude Are audiophiles confused? I think I know the why of the answer. Great music is emotional when it sounds great and you've spent 100s of thousands of dollars getting there it's not only emotional but it crosses the line to something that stock traders call overconfidence bias as its name implies the person thinks they are right about the equipment they've chosen and how it sounds. Audiophiles rest on many emotions even peer pressure to show how cool their equipment is. All these emotions add up to someone who will pay $1000 for an AC cable 3 feet long that sits between standard Romex and 16 gage internal wire in an amp, not to mention the $400 custom fuse that sits between PC board tracers. 

Moving forward in sound is a little like dating a beautiful woman you must be very careful of the emotional issues which make the actual practical issues more difficult to see and understand. Music is close to our hears and our wallets both are fragile and self serving.

@pcrhkr My question is not that you bought a great amp and speaker, but that you are listening not to the speaker, but mostly wire. IF anyone realized how much wire is in a good LF inductor, then additional wire in the other inductors for midrange etc, they would be horrified. It's tens of feet -maybe even a hundred feet of wire in a giant LF inductor set up for a very low crossover point. We all know what 3- 6 feet of speaker wire between amp and speaker can do, imagine all that wire in the [passive] crossover does AND YOU CANNOT CHANGE IT.   Does anyone actually think they are using Cardas in that Inductor? In active, there is about 12 inches of wire and no big inductors in the single path.

Brad

Active isn't exactly pure either.

What is the "pure" speaker/amp/speaker wire chain you are using @invalid? I would be interested to find out.

I never said I was using a pure chain, just saying active isn't the be all end all. There are pitfalls to it just as well as passive. In theory they are better but in practice I haven't heard a powered speaker system I have really liked, I've heard a few active systems where the passive crossover is bypassed that sounded good, but not one that the speaker manufacturer provides the amplification.