@deep_333 wrote:
I tried the active route with a GR speaker kit and minidsp’s stuff. It is easier with a diy kit, you simply set the passive crosssover aside and interface with the minidsp kit. I didn’t get the best sound there and i almost felt like the minidsp unit was borderline faulty.
Storm Audio (not cheap) lets one go active with any number of speakers on their multichannel processors. When i did have that processor, i wasn’t thinking about the active route too much, i.e., was already invested in passive configurations and ended up selling it.
The same could be leveled against your example of and experience with active configuration here as you did earlier with regard to the "quantity over quality" guys and them not even being audiophiles into their multi-channel music endeavors. Some seem to believe throwing in a MiniDSP over a speaker kit settles the matter on active vs. passive, but that’s a crude outset that only tells you so much and which also depends on one’s abilities to patiently dial in the filter settings.
Instead imagine using your existing, passively configured high quality main speakers that you know well and convert them into outboard active config. by swapping out their passive crossovers with an outboard quality DSP unit and buy extra power amps for each driver section (meaning: each amp channel is then connected directly to its corresponding driver or drivers in parallel for better amp-to-driver interfacing and load independent amp sections) - preferably similar to the one you’re using already so to make your ground of comparison with the passive scenario to really only be about what it means to have the filtration done prior to amplification on signal level actively vs. the one that happens on the output side of the amp passively via the speakers’ built-in crossovers.
Then follows weeks to months of carefully experimenting with filter values aided by measurements (in addition to other audio friends’ ears) and many hours of listening to determine which filter preset will grant the best results. No unknown speaker kit hauled in as guinea pigs (not that they can’t be fine speakers in their own right), no cheap plate amps or base level DSP unit with a so-so implementation of filter settings; only what have and know well already (with added amp channels and a quality DSP), converted into active configuration as carefully and thoroughly as possible to maximize its potential as you would a setup based around passive speakers (in which case the filter values are already set and fixed).
When you’ve been through all that in the context described, then let me know how you feel about outboard configuration and how it compared to its previous, passive iteration. And I know; conversely I’d have to do what’s essentially the same the get a truer bearing on the potential of multi-channel music reproduction as promoted by you.
