Why not active?

Phelonious Ponk said:

If you build them, we will come!

Seriously, the advantages of well-designed active systems seem huge to me, but consider the source -- I spent a decade listening almost exclusively to reference headphones. When I returned to speakers, all I seemed to be able to hear, even in some very good speakers, was this edge in the midrange that was completely absent in my headphones. I thought it was lack of headroom, but wattage and current didn't solve it, then, when told that I might be sensitive to the distortions of passive crossovers, I started listening to pro monitors. Then I found a pair with built-in preamp and DAC. Now I run lossless files straight from my MacBook pro to the speakers. I may try other active options (I'd love to hear a pair of Linkwitz Orions) but i'll never go back to passive systems.

Phelonious Ponk

Click to expand...

If it was up to me, we would be building them 2 years ago, Which headphones have you decided are most accurate?

mep said:

Here we go. Now we want our magic active speakers to have built in digital eq to be a limiter and provide "dynamic EQ" as well. I also need to start buying my speakers at my local music store or big chain boxes like Sam Ash. In my thread called analog apologist I jokingly referred to lovers of all things digital as digital heathens. I should have referred to the digital lovers as digital devils. When you want to build in a limiter/compresser to your playback chain, you need to be cast out of analog heaven until you repent for your digital sins. JonFo is just the type of guy I am designing the implantable D/A converter I mentioned in my above post.

Click to expand...

Well, I for one am a little skeptical about digital limiting and dynamic EQ in my active speakers. It may make sense in a car where there is high background noise, but generally I don't want anyone screwing with the dynamics and EQ of my recordings. There are so few popular recordings left with dynamic range as it stands.

If the limiting is designed to protect the drivers, then it makes sense, but it should be unobtrusive and only used when necessary. It seems the design of limiters in active speakers today is one of the biggest determining factors in how they sound, so it has to be done right. I just tested three different active Ipod Music Stations and above 95 dB (@ 1 meter) two of the units had frequency responses that started to resemble a telephone's.There's no substitute for driver excursion.

Dynamic EQ like what some manufacturers are selling I'm a bit dubious. At the very least, you should have the option of turning it off. I think JonFo was talking about power compression effects in loudspeakers where their frequency response changes as the voice coil heats up and the DC resistance rises.

Thanks Sean, I agree about being skeptical about digital limiting and dynamic EQ.

Mark

JonFo said:

Hi mep, good post, I was grining ear to ear

Click to expand...

Jonfo- I truly hoping you were grinning ear to ear and I don't care if you were laughing with me or at me. As long as you were laughing I am fine. Some people tend to take themselves far to seriously in this wacky hobby of ours and I do like to poke a little fun and inject some humor that some get and others don't.

As for cars, I have a 2006 VW Passat with the 3.6L engine which seems to be far more powerful than the 280HP it claims to have. It is really a nice driving machine and it has less than 26,000 miles on it. I also have a utility vehicle which is a 2007 Ford Ranger extended cab 4x4 that I custom ordered from the factory. I probably have one of the few Ford Rangers that has leather seats. I have around 36,000 miles on it. The thing I like best about both vehicles is that they are paid for.

As for digital, I really think the best sounding digital rig I had was a Pioneer Elite combi player hooked into an Audio Alchemy jitter reduction box going into an Audio Alchemy D/A converter. This was during a period of my life when I first moved to Indiana from Maine and didn't have a private listening room and couldn't use my analog set up. The Pioneer Elite player ended up having mechanical issues that caused it to not eject CDs and eat them instead and it ended up in the trash. I have invested a fair amount of money in CDs and I bought all of the Beatle reissue boxes including the 24 bit files on the USB. I have played them back on my CD players and the digital server I built. I still prefer my BC-13 collection over all of them.

Two active systems I would have loved to have listened:
Jean Yves Kerbrat system - customs horns and tube amplifiers :

http://audio-nirvana.fortunecity.net/pag_eng/kerbratg.htm

I read that the current version version actually uses TACT electronics and digital filters, but could not find the link.

The second system is Paul Stubline's Maggico setup built around Bottlehead electronics. But I think Steve will describe this one better than me ...

It is on my wish list if I ever have the time - to build an active system. Meanwhile I live with the opposite: a single element speaker - SoundLab A1 Px's.

For the affluent first timer I would recommend the Meridian wireless active speakers with a Solo Music Server. Loaded with their favorite music at least they would listen. It would also fit nicely into the home.

tonmeister2008 said:

Well, I for one am a little skeptical about digital limiting and dynamic EQ in my active speakers. It may make sense in a car where there is high background noise, but generally I don't want anyone screwing with the dynamics and EQ of my recordings. There are so few popular recordings left with dynamic range as it stands.

If the limiting is designed to protect the drivers, then it makes sense, but it should be unobtrusive and only used when necessary. It seems the design of limiters in active speakers today is one of the biggest determining factors in how they sound, so it has to be done right.

Click to expand...

Agreed, I want as much dynamic range as a recording can deliver, and a system that supports delivering that dynamic impact.

Limiting in this case is strictly related to maintaining linear performance of a speaker system.

All speaker drivers have limits, the question is, which would listeners rather have?:
1. Highly distorted reproduction and possible physical destruction
2. Power limiting to maintain the driver within spec

A well designed and integrated limiter will NOT be detectable when the system is operated within design parameters. A good example of well-regarded active speaker systems that absolutely have built-in limiters are the Meridian DSP speaker series, and I've never hear anyone diss a DSP8000 as being a less than capable speaker.

BTW- I use the limiters in your company’s DBX DriveRack 4800 speaker processor, which makes a truly great active crossover. To my knowledge, the only times the limiters I set up for the sub and woofers have kicked in is during setup and calibration of the system. On the Sub, they start to operate when the sub is kicking out >115 dB SPL, and I never push the system that hard. Basically, limiters play the role of safety fuse.

tonmeister2008 said:

I just tested three different active Ipod Music Stations and above 95 dB (@ 1 meter) two of the units had frequency responses that started to resemble a telephone's.There's no substitute for driver excursion.

Click to expand...

Hardly Hi-Fi, but I would guess that their performance could be improved by keeping the drivers within spec, vs letting the freq. response (and no doubt THD) vary with volume, wouldn’t you agree?

tonmeister2008 said:

I Dynamic EQ like what some manufacturers are selling I'm a bit dubious. At the very least, you should have the option of turning it off. I think JonFo was talking about power compression effects in loudspeakers where their frequency response changes as the voice coil heats up and the DC resistance rises.

Click to expand...

I did not mean to infer a specific manufactures implementation of that term, but rather the more generic application of constantly varying EQ based on modeled and measured behaviors of the driver across the power spectrum it is supposed to cover. As you note, drivers change their characteristics based on heat and other parameters that could be taken into account. And yes, power compression is what I’m talking about, as well as intra-speaker balance at low-levels (due to varying driver efficiencies).

Back to my car analogy, a modern ECU will have multiple throttle and timing maps that are dynamically switched in based on a myriad of external inputs, such as temperature, engine load and atmospheric pressure. Some even have multiple maps according to performance criteria: fuel-efficiency, max power and torque, etc.

An active speaker system with dynamic EQ abilities could sense voice coil temps, atmospheric pressure / moisture and varying resistance to possibly switch out correction maps (assume FIR impulse sets) in real-time to ensure optimum performance and longevity.
One could even envision this also being use to offer owners voicing options, such as ‘neutral’, ‘British laid-back’, ‘disco’ etc.

mep said:

Jonfo- I truly hoping you were grinning ear to ear and I don't care if you were laughing with me or at me. As long as you were laughing I am fine. Some people tend to take themselves far to seriously in this wacky hobby of ours and I do like to poke a little fun and inject some humor that some get and others don't.
...

Click to expand...

I enjoy a good repartee anytime. It is good to have different perspectives on this subject, and mine are pretty much in the digital camp, in case no one noticed

audioguy said:

With a dedicated room that was wired (power and interconnects) for speakers everywhere, that is not an issue for me. And in fact, just went the active route.

I played the mix and match game for 40 years. Some results were better than others but it costs a lot of money, time and frustration (in addition to the excitement of getting new toys). Quite frankly, I now just want to listen to music and not screw around with the hardware that produces it. I have found active speakers that do everything I need and am not looking back.

Click to expand...

Hi audioguy,
I am also considering going the active route. May I know what active speakers you chose?
Dan

tonmeister2008 said:

For me, active speakers have so many advantages (price, performance, usability, configurability, portability) that they will have to eventually replace passive speakers.

Add to that a speaker that is wireless (e.g. the new IEEE AVB protocol handles both wired and wireless HD multichannel audio + video over Ethernet) you simply plug it into the wall, and it automatically configures and calibrates itself to the system as a main theater speaker or as part of zone ( kitchen/bedroom/outdoor speaker) --whatever you want it to be. Every audio component in your house intelligently communicates with each other via TCP/IP so that you can control your music and the system's parameters (volume, surround mode, etc) at your computer or a remote like an iPhone or iPad. Imagine a speaker consisting of an array of powered speakers with DSP where the directivity/beam of the speakers can be adapted and optimized to the setup conditions (loudspeaker/listener placement, room acoustics,etc). Something like Wave Field Synthesis requires many small powered loudspeakers to recreate or approximate the sound field of the original acoustic event in your room.

These types of scenario are hard to realize with a "dumb" passive speaker that has no amplifier/DSP or the ability to calibrate itself and communicate with the rest of the system.

I'm not sure why active speakers have not caught on in consumer audio, when they are so popular in pro applications. Of course, active speakers are the standard for computer/multimedia/mobile audio products. Within the high-end audiophile community, I'm sure many customers want to be able to tweak/swap out their amplifiers and have that added flexibility. High-end amplifier companies certainly don't want to encourage active speakers unless they get in that business too. I also don't think the performance benefits of active speakers have been well explained or marketed to consumers.

For the other 90-95% of the audio market, today the driving purchase factors are price,ease of use and setup and form factor, which active speakers can potentially deliver in spades. The fact that there are potential performance improvements to be realized will be icing on the cake. For some market segments, these performance improvements will be very important factors in their purchase decisions.

Click to expand...

Hello Sean,
In this same vein, what $1000 to $1500 actives would you recommend? Thanks very much.
Dan

Phelonious Ponk said:

but the real problem is acceptability in a domestic environment, or WAF. Actives haven't caught on well in the consumer market and most of the aforementioned monitors are pretty industrial-looking, without grill covers or furniture finishes.

Click to expand...

This is a funny 180 degree turnabout from 20 years ago when B&O ruled this market.

Beolab 4500 Active Loudspeakers
http://www.beoworld.org/prod_details.asp?pid=799

BeoLab 4500 was a wall speaker which was no more than 8cm deep. It had a built-in (active) amplifier and extended bass reproduction, which used the wall as a reflector. The display told you which source that BeoLab 4500 was reproducing at any one time.

Click to expand...

BeoLab 5000 Active Loudspeakers......Manfactured: 1988 - 1992
http://www.beoworld.org/prod_details.asp?pid=369


They were not cheap speakers by any stretch.

I have a pair of ATC 20-2 actives. Love 'em, and think they sound better than all the ATC passive speakers I've heard including those w/the same driver complement. And I put some very good amps in front of the passives. Could be in part because ATC actives are time/phase coherent unlike their passive brethren.

Phelonious Ponk said:

Sean - you are one of the few who are in a really good position to answer this question, so here goes: Why have active speaker systems failed to catch on in consumer audio?

I'm personally a big fan, to the point where I believe it is very difficult for passive systems to equal good active ones in anything close to a fair comparison. Sure, a big pair of passive floor standers can move more air, and produce a greater scale, perhaps, than a good pair of active monitors and a well-integrated sub, but the advantages of the elimination of passive crossovers and the perfect match of individual amplifiers to the loads of individual drivers can offer advantages, not only in control and clarity, but in price/performance, that are obvious and very audible. Make it a pair of subs and the advantages of the big floor-standers vanish.

Why do you suppose they've failed to make it into the home market in any significant numbers?

P

Click to expand...

Dear Phelonious Ponk: Certainly I'm not Sean but I'm advocate for active speakers, all of you already posted its advantages over passive speakers and for the ones that think that the amps in an active speakers can't be " audiophile " grade we have to remember that in his today product catalog Nelson Pass has an active system. I already heard it and I like it.

If it is true that the majority of the people out there ( customers/audiophiles. ) has a very low/poor knowledge on the subject even " ignorance " and that this factor preclude that the active speakers grow up in massive way IMHO it is true that to re-educate all those people is an almost imposible task for the audio industry. The AHEE does not promote active speakers systems and is the AHEE whom define what we customers will follow buy. Even that Nelson Pass active speakers has not a lot of success.

The AHEE already educate to we HE customers that with passive speakers we have a lot of good alternatives to choose the amps we " like/want " and that we can afford and that over the time we can up-grade it changing for " better " amplifiers ( SS or tube, does not matters. ).
In the other side the AHEE already " told " us: hey, if that passive speakers you don't like any more then you can change it with out changing the amplifiers.

The AHEE is a commercial business ( nothing wrong with that. ) where we customers must buy " easy " must " up grade " easy must improve easy: $$$$$$$$$$, this is what we customers means for the AHEE,$$$$$.

There is at least other subject why active speakers don't really goes " massive ": to design first rate ( audiophile grade. ) active speakers you need an expert designer in at least two not alike audio design areas: speakers and amplifiers. IMHO there are not many out there.

Regards and enjoy the music,
Raul.