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Is it time for active speakers?

kc5819w

pfm Member
Having owned quite a number of speakers and equipment over the years



This isn’t an argument that active speakers are always better, but it’s interesting that they just aren’t more popular in the home, and yet are ubiquitous in the studio. The "BBC monitors" of today are rarely used in hifi.

With an increasing number of active consumer hifi speakers now entering the market, is it finally time for widespread active speaker use in the home?
 
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Have had ATCSCM100ASL's since 2004 and have never looked back or itched to replace them, and I've listened to many really good setups over the years. Not one has left me feeling I'm missing something.
 
not a good idea - speaker cable is generally cheap, interconnects are not - 3 metre will cost quite a few pennies is more fragile. when it becomes digital maybe
 
I have had actives , dsp actives etc .. but with my "end" system..I chose passives.
However had the beolab 90 been available for audition , I might have chosen them.
 
In splitting the signal into discrete bands you make the signal much more susceptible to interconnect quality difference. At least £800 per interconnect is required in an active system. Which is why they're so expensive compared to passive.

Only on a hi-fi forum would you need to ask if the above is a joke.
 
Active loudspeakers may be a sensible choice. But high end consumer audio is based on faith and opinions of gurus.
 
I,m glad that there does seem to be a greater acceptance of the merits of active loudspeakers these days, though it does seem mainly at lower end of the market as 'add ons to computer systems. Still not much penetration with 'hardcore' HiFi enthusiasts that like to swop boxes.

Personally I have always appreciated the benefits and sound quality obtainable and have used them continuously from the late 1970's. First Meridian M1's and still with my modified Meridian M10's that I have had since the early 80's.

There have been a very few passive speakers that when correctly driven I have preferred over the years, (e.g. Apogee Scintilla's, the larger Vivids), but my room sizes and or price have prevented purchase.
 
I had a pair of Paradigm Active 20 speakers paired with an Adcom CD player with variable outputs (build in volume control) as my first real HIFI system in the late 90's.

Price performance you couldn't get anything better at the time.

In all honesty, I don't think HIFI has evolved significantly in the past decades. Another way to look at it is that other factors such as room and speaker positioning have an overwhelmingly more decisive contribution to "Sound Quality" that the "minor" advancements in electronics and, dare I say, speaker design.

My understanding is that the amplifier in an active setup is custom build to maximize the speaker performance so it's a match made in heaven.

You can get a good pair of actives for not so much money nowadays. Connect it a Chromecast Audio streamer direct to your PC, tablet or phone with Spotify premium in 320 kbps and you've got a killer system.

Just my 2 cents.
 
In splitting the signal into discrete bands you make the signal much more susceptible to interconnect quality difference. At least £800 per interconnect is required in an active system. Which is why they're so expensive compared to passive.

Only on a hi-fi forum would you need to ask if the above is a joke.

That has to definitely be a joke. Please, it's a joke. Please be a joke. Not a very good joke, but a joke. Right? You're joking? Tell us you're joking. Please.
 
The only drawbacks of actives IMHO are that
-you need to get power to them
-you have fewer boxes to swap
- at the moment there is less choice
 
That has to definitely be a joke. Please, it's a joke. Please be a joke. Not a very good joke, but a joke. Right? You're joking? Tell us you're joking. Please.

I just sold a 6.5m pair of ATCs XLR>XLR cables for £50.... no, those dots are not really really small zeros
 
In splitting the signal into discrete bands you make the signal much more susceptible to interconnect quality difference. At least £800 per interconnect is required in an active system. Which is why they're so expensive compared to passive.

Only on a hi-fi forum would you need to ask if the above is a joke.

Mine are connected with XLR cables from a guitar shop and I got change out of £30.

Rich
 
In splitting the signal into discrete bands you make the signal much more susceptible to interconnect quality difference. At least £800 per interconnect is required in an active system. Which is why they're so expensive compared to passive.

Only on a hi-fi forum would you need to ask if the above is a joke.

Only on a HiFi forum would the idea that cables need to cost £hundreds to work correctly be considered anything other than a joke.

Oh good, I've managed to help turn this into a cable thread. My sincere apologies to all.
 
...
With an increasing number of active consumer hifi speakers now entering the market, is it finally time for widespread active speaker use in the home?

The main blocker, I'd imagine, is that for most folk speakers are part of home AV systems. I'm not aware of many 'consumer' multi-channel pre-amps? As Adam mentioned earlier, perhaps one of the other key issues then becomes getting power to those 5/7 speakers?
 
I've been active for about a quarter of a century and can
Allay any concerns regarding box count.

My system currently stands at 10 boxes just for amplification. (Not including phono as its in the plinth)
 
I just sold a 6.5m pair of ATCs XLR>XLR cables for £50.... no, those dots are not really really small zeros

maybe they are good cables I dont know but many well regarded interconnects are not eg Van Den Hul D102 I have used for a long time - I see the real price these days for .8m is about £150. So the cost of 6 m 2x3m would not be cheap running into the £100's. So am I joking? - well I just looked in the mirror and my face dont seem to be laughing.
 


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