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@kota1 ​​@thespeakerdude 
Thank you guys for your notes I know you are both correct acoustically about my speaker placement. I very much appreciate your thoughts even though I sorta already knew the answer. 

I don't understand the antagonistic people that want to jump up and criticize, hopefully that aspect of this forum will go away soon. I know both of your strengths and appreciate your notes. Thanks

@thespeakerdude

Everything I have posted is factually supported

No, you have posted opinions, the facts that would support your opinions are very vague. You make claims about your creds and have posted zilch, not even a pic of your system. I think I know why you are an expert on "snipe" accounts.

Shoving a bunch of links into a post and demanding people read them is ridiculous. Why not just post a subscription to AES?

@texbychoice

I have some comment on your post

1) " every speaker passive or active is designed to a price point". Absolutely not true! I can tell you as fact that many products are engineered and then the manufacturer/engineering department figures out how much it will cost to build and sell. My own manufacturer, ATC, does not design to price point and its frustrates many people on the business side as the price point steps are not what the end users would like. It has holes and odd steps in value that relate to parts and improvements in major components (such as discrete vs non discrete amplifiers) but not nice even steps that relate to a person deciding what to spend- should it be $5 grand or $10 grand or $15 grand? Instead there are jumps like 5K to 15K with nothing in between- which appears curious to end users.

2) Many consumer lines that are owned by investment companies DO design to a price point, are heavily researched, even employ focus groups and definitely have product management departments that have targets- we need something at "5K, 10K and 15K" etc. These assumptions of price steps are logical and make dealers and distributors happy that a nice logical path exists to "step up" quality. Such even steps may not exist in terms of actual product engineering- meaning there are many exam plus of a class D 50W amp costing no less to build than a much larger one. A 15 inch woofer costs nearly the same to build as a 10 inch, but everyone expects the prices to be radically different because a 15 is "more".

Virtually every one of our great speaker companies, KEF comes to mind, was engineering driven and to hell with price. It costs what it costs and this continued while the founder was in charge, usually to some point where the company became large enough that it was beyond the scope of a product engineer to manage it.

3) The reliability likelihood relating to parts count in active vs passive is not an accurate way to look at it: Active speakers are a speaker + amplifiers just as a passive system is a speaker + amplifiers. When one party has control over more elements of the system from an engineering perspective, you can make it MORE reliable. Everyone in engineering and repair knows the failures most often occur where there are connectors, and passive systems typically more connectors (inside and outside) than active system do. In addition, these passive connectors are more likely to have end users using those connectors hooking and unhooking amplifiers from speakers to change them out. The very process is where many failures originate.

We have active systems in play 18 hours a day at high SPL levels for 15 years plus- NO FAILURES- with routine maintenance. Locations like Blackbird in Nashville, Sterling Mastering and Dolby Labs use these speakers constantly. There are no reliability issues.

Brad

@lonemountain

A 15 inch woofer costs nearly the same to build as a 10 inch, but everyone expects the prices to be radically different because a 15 is "more".

If the price is the same for any product offering "more" power, size, weight, etc. if the price isn’t higher consumers suspect shenanigans. Sometimes paying MORE is a badge of honor (keeping up with the neighbors, status, etc). I have seen members here like @ghdprentice actually post the prices he perceives that will let you into the rarified stratosphere of elite/reference/end game performance.

Face it, nobody that dropped $4500K on electronics plus $ on speakers want it bested by a $750 active speaker (the example Andrew Jones gave in the video). The people that splashed the cash need to defend their choices else risk being seen as gullible or whatever.

If a speaker company needs to charge MORE in order to be perceived as higher value or whatever, more power to them.

Case in point, HDFury sells a video device for 4K around $500. The NEW device for 8K video was priced around the same or a little lower. People complained on youtube it didn't cost more and you know how this story ends, an instant $100 price hike on the new model.