Speakers and amplifiers show audiophiles are confused.

@donavabdear

Sounds like a good time, I understand Dave’s issue, there is always a dynamic between engineering and sales. Glad to hear he agrees that active is the best way to go. I would love to get a Bryston matched system of the Active Mini T’s and the Bryston SP4 processor which eliminates the need for the Bax-1 digital crossover.

The video I saw of the Cabasse room was amazing, a small pair of active speakers that sounded HUGE and clear and less than $3K for everything. Glad you got to connect with Bill, I guess the outskirts must work for me, YMMV. I don’t see Nordost as a company that could be bamboozled and they bought Bill's last company, QRT. They must like the outskirts too:

https://novo.press/nordost-qrt-power-products-review-part-1-of-3-qx-power-purifiers-qx4/

@donavabdear 

How was the show? Did you get to stop by the Carver room? Thanks

My favorite speakers at AXPONA were the Wilson Alexia v at $67K the Wilson Alexx Vs sounded best but are more than twice the price. The Magico's were great and the Sonus Faber Aida's were disappointing. 

Bryston and Carver didn't have their own rooms they were parts of other manufactures so they weren't really featured. As I said the most surprising speakers were called Title that were powered by Bryston amps, also the JBL speakers were great, I was walking buy and remembered the sound from studios I heard 30 years ago in the studios and so I walked in and sure enough it was JBL speakers they were made just like old ones were, but at about 1/8th the price.

@donavabdear wrote:

so I spoke to Dave an engineer from Bryson unfortunately they didn’t have their powered systems here so we talked about powered speakers and active crossovers he fully agreed that’s how high end systems should be designed. He interestedly said their system was more expensive to build and design the said the crossovers were $4k and many people thought that was to much

Makes you wonder, in the greater scheme of things, why people would quibble about a @4k expense for an active crossover; likely the least expensive component of the bunch, and one that - as an actively configured setup - is wholly indispensable, absolutely vital to and at the heart of what determines the sound. So, what’s the alternative - being happy about the revealed $4k price of a Duelund-equipped passive crossover instead (I’m sure many would choose to brag about that rather than take issue with it)? It’s like complaining about a component, the all-important speaker processor not least, because it doesn’t hold any gadget value (or otherwise escapes understanding of its mere function), while in reality it’s the one component that co-shares in shaping the whole of the sound in a place in the audio chain much more suitable compared to the output side of the amp. In all fairness I believe an active crossover could be even cheaper while maintaining sound quality here, but that’s hardly the general incentive behind the whining of DSP pricing. It’s missing the bigger picture, that’s what it is.

.. I got the impression that he didn’t have high hopes for the future. He knew how it should go just as you and I would agree but that philosophy doesn’t seem to be so popular now.

Bryston shouldn’t bow to the anti-trend of active, but rather go all-in and show them why active needs more attention. Coming down to it though one can’t blame the manufacturer for being pessimistic about the future of this approach, when the response that meets them is one of overall indifference.

@phusis obviously you are an above average audiophile. I came back from AXPONA amazed at the BS that was knee deep. The engineers were legit but the sales people (with a few great exceptions) were generally all making the mistake that the speakers were somehow in charge or could fix the studio mix. Strangest thing, it was funny that I was with an engineer who had mixed and owned studios for 50 years last week and he had the opposite view his first thought was "you never fix it in the mix" meaning the sound is made in the recording not the mix and it would be absurd to think the speakers had anything to do with the sound of the recording. From a professional perspective the end user sound system is simply a looking glass into the studio, this may be why there are so few musician and audio engineer audiophiles. 
 

Your arguments are exactly right and it astounds me that more people don't understand what you are saying and what Bryson is trying to do. Fighting a religion is never very rewarding.