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Do active speakers sound smaller?

Columbo

Columbo

pfm Member
I've not experience too many actives only some Raurk MR1, Audioengine something or other and Kef LSX but they all have quite a closed/dense sound - I initially put it down to the box size. But I've just come across this AE1 review which says...

"Also, if you want a ‘big room’ sound, drive the speakers through a separate pre-amp. If you connect a turntable and phono amplifier directly to these speakers, the AE1s will produce a very nice noise, no problem, but they only have guts for a small to medium-sized room on their own."

So now I'm wondering do all active speakers sound inherently have a smaller denser sound?

And how does a preamp help to open the sound up?
 
Active speakers are speakers with a power amplifier directly connected to the drivers and the separation of frequencies done at line level. The power amps can be built inside the boxes, or external.
Some speakers are called active, but really should be called 'powered' as they only have one power amp and a conventional crossover, and tend to be at the budget end of the market.
Perhaps the AE1s (which I know nothing about) have only small power amps in them, and maybe not enough voltage gain to achieve full output from a line level input. Some preamps give a relatively high voltage output, so may make them go louder.

However, unless going active forces you to compromise the rest of the system, there is practically no way that an active system, done properly, won't outperform the same speakers in passive mode. In my personal experience, preamps can only make the quality of the input signal worse (logically it cannot make thing better) but the best are really transparent, and can aid matching to certain power amplifiers.

Over the years I've had several active systems, and they do tend to have tighter bass, and some people may perceive that as less bass, even though measurements usually show there is actually more extension to lower frequencies.
 
Columbo said:
So now I'm wondering do all active speakers sound inherently have a smaller denser sound?
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You only appear to have experience of budget or very small actives, and in fairness those accusations can be levelled at most speakers in that price class. To be fair you should really compare at ‘active speaker’ vs ‘non-active plus good amp’ price equivalence.

As for size good little ‘uns can sound surprisingly big. I had a pair of Musikelectronic Geithain RL-904s for a while and whilst they really didn’t suit my room they were superb speakers and sounded massive for their size (IIRC they only have a 6.5” bass). They are about £6k a pair though (mine were second hand).

A friend has a pair of ex-BBC LS5/8s with their bespoke Quad 405-based active amps and no way you’d accuse them of sounding small!

The problem is a lot of cheap actives are just cheap speakers with a couple of class D switching amps thrown in. They aren’t going to compete with a really good pair of passive speakers and amp. Go up market though and there are some very nice examples.

As ever in audio good stuff is good. The specific technology is always secondary to good design, sensible usage context and system synergy.
 
Active speakers come in all sizes & price ranges
Raurk MR1, Audioengine something or other and Kef LSX are all small domestic entry level
Pro monitors like Hedd germany make tiny bookshelf speakers which sound like floorstanders & they also make bigger ones with several Kilowatt of amps in each speaker with @ 129db at 1 metre & they do not sound small

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I would not have said that my aktive linn isobariks or current meridian dsp5500's have a "smaller denser sound" and any ATC's that I have heard active were not either.

Rgds
Stuart
 
Consider me schooled, thanks all.

Though I still don't understand how a preamp makes actives sound bigger - how does that work?
 
Not quite sure where the reviewer who says adding a pre-amp to actives will give that “big room sound” is coming from.
After all, a pre amps job is to control & select inputs & volume, hopefully as transparently as possible, adding nothing to the picture. Puzzling.
As others have said, the 3 speakers mentioned are all small & not really designed for med-large rooms.
I heard the KEF LSX’s, & the addition of a compact sub such as a REL T-Zero really helped open the sound up. Much more so than adding any pre-amp, I’d have thought.
 
Mine are Adam S2Xs, mid-sized standmount monitors. They' sound neutral, wide open and fast with astonishing dynamics and stay clean at ridiculous sound levels.
 
Columbo said:
Consider me schooled, thanks all.

Though I still don't understand how a preamp makes actives sound bigger - how does that work?
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From the AE1 specification they seem to have a big enough sound pressure level (SPL) capability to drive a moderate room.

Just possibly the quote really means that in a larger room you need some extra amplification to go with the amplification in the AE1. And thus avoid the need to turn up the AE1 volume control beyond normal.

The specification shows that 1V RMS input produces 104 dB SPL. My active loudspeakers produce 112 dB SPL for the same input. That's 8 dB more than the AE1. 8 dB is fairly normal for a pre-amplifier.
 
I've been running active systems on and off for years (Linn Sarah, Linn Kan, Naim SBL). If you get it right, then the system will have better control and so may sound a bit leaner. You do nee to work at it though, because they wil be more revealing of system set-up and weaknesses at the source. My current system, Active Kans sound great (to my ears).
 
I run the AE1 actives fed by a Mac mini / Chord Mojo in a room that's about 15'x 10'. No part of the system is taxed in getting to realistic volume levels, or at least as realistic as I want them to be, and I've been very pleased with the sound quality. I haven't tried the AE1s in any other space, though.
 
I've run KEF X300As, Ruark MR1s, Dynaudio BM5s, JBL LSR305s, 306P MkIIs and currently 308P MkIIs and none have sounded 'smaller'

The KEFs actually sounded brilliant, the most 'stereo' of them all; which is obvious as they're not active monitors, but KEF don't colour their active speakers as much as others IMO

The JBLs' for me are the ones to beat; they're absolutely superb and for their price, unbeatable and will give other actives to around the £1k mark a serious run for their money and probably slap them down whilst doing it!

I've got my 308s currently on weighted down Soundstyle Z2 stands, connected to my Mac via a Scarlett Solo 192 DAC interface and they're sublime and kick out some serious welly when needed ;)
 
After auditioning 30+ speakers and touring dealers around the country in recent years, good active speakers have beautifully mated speaker and amplifier modules. I could never go back to passives. My experience is that they sound better than their passive cousins and if DSP and room correction is blended into the that equation, then that is the best that you will ever experience.
 
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hifilover1979 said:
I've run KEF X300As, Ruark MR1s, Dynaudio BM5s, JBL LSR305s, 306P MkIIs and currently 308P MkIIs and none have sounded 'smaller'

The KEFs actually sounded brilliant, the most 'stereo' of them all; which is obvious as they're not active monitors, but KEF don't colour their active speakers as much as others IMO

The JBLs' for me are the ones to beat; they're absolutely superb and for their price, unbeatable and will give other actives to around the £1k mark a serious run for their money and probably slap them down whilst doing it!

I've got my 308s currently on weighted down Soundstyle Z2 stands, connected to my Mac via a Scarlett Solo 192 DAC interface and they're sublime and kick out some serious welly when needed ;)
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Well, the prices for more or less equivalent gear REALLY differs depending on wether you go into a musical instrument store or a HiFi store!!! Compare the JBL 305 with Kefs active LS50...
 
RJohan said:
Well, the prices for more or less equivalent gear REALLY differs depending on wether you go into a musical instrument store or a HiFi store!!! Compare the JBL 305 with Kefs active LS50...
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Absolutely get that and after having the active LS50s on demo for 4 weeks at home, I'd still go for the JBLs every day... They just do it better IMO

Ok; they don't look as fancy, but they sing so much better ;)
 
Here are some very fine actives:

Psi Audio A25M
D&D
Kii
Hedd
Genelec
B&O Beolabs 18, 20, and inbuilt room compensation and beaming 50 and 90.
 
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