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.

128x128donavabdear

@thespeakerdude All my components are balanced, but the subs have an AC hum my system runs off of 2x circuits both plugged into PS Audio P20 Power regenerators they send the power to DC then back to AC, seems good in theory. I've tried lifting grounds, no change measuring the voltage between neutral and ground nothing, what has worked is using an extension cord powering the subs from another part of the house and also using old ac filters like from monster and furman and such, but that's not a real fix. 

@kota1 I will check out the meridian systems but I'm happy with the Lyngdorf processor and the BHK 300 mono block amps it's just the BHK preamp that is noisy. I took it out of the system and used the Lyngdorf as the preamp, everything sounded very clean (other than the sub buzz) but it didn't sound nearly as good as with the tube preamp so I put it back in and am living with the slight noise, I can't hear it when the music I playing anyway. Tubes are like that old girlfriend that you hate but is so good looking  you can't let her go.  

The Focal Stella headphones are paired with the Naim Unity HP amp it's class A power and is all owned by the same company so I thought the headphones and amp would work together nicely, nope, way to untube like way to analytical and harsh, the dynamics hurt my ears, so Im using the headphone output of the BHK preamp. My idea of synergy in this case didn't work very well I just don't use the headphones much, but I would like to. 

I think I'm justo going to buy some nice speakers and subs for my upgrade, I don't think I can go active, other than the subs.

@kota1  The @thespeakerdude clearly works for a speaker company that doesn't allow social media so he's being careful not to give his credits. That's certainly understandable I'm very glad to learn from his experience as well as yours. Thank you both, you've been very helpful to me.

@donavabdear  tube equipment isn't necessarily noisy, I've seen multiple posts that claim the BHK preamp is noisy. I have a tube preamp and a tube dac both with AC heaters and no audible noise.

@donavabdear 

I don't see @phusis or @mijostyn claiming to work for a speaker company. IMO @thespeakerdude is another DIY guy who is all about the "talk" because unlike @phusis and ​​​@mijostyn he ain't got the walk.

However, the good news is you didn't drop any coin on his lame advice yet so while the entertainment factor is fine, at least you don't gotta take much risk.

I think I’m justo going to buy some nice speakers and subs for my upgrade, I don’t think I can go active, other than the subs.

Like I said, you should start a build thread and get suggestions from other members. Just from your one post you already picked up some keen info from @invalid

I’ve seen multiple posts that claim the BHK preamp is noisy.

Who knows how many other people have experience with a similar product or issue that can give you some info based on their experience and the money they already spent, so you can save yours.