An interesting read about Active Speakers: Has their time come

Phelonious Ponk said:

Semi-active is, I suppose, a start. But it's kind of like semi-pregnant. Or maybe semi-cured. It's certainly a problem semi-addressed.

You may take the load of the bass off of the amp that is tasked with driving the mids and highs, but you leave one amp still tasked with driving the mids and highs, through a passive crossover; you leave a whole set of problems unaddressed. You learned that they needed to be addressed. You addressed part of them. You are aware of the theoretical benefits and, presumably you hear the real ones. You know how to fix the problems and yet you leave them be above 50 or 60 cycles, where the overwhelming majority of the music is.

How does that make sense to anyone?

And when did Meridian invent the concept of engineered active designs in which the amplifiers are specifically chosen, if not designed for specific, individual drivers? Pro audio started doing this in the late 70s. It had nearly taken over the industry by the mid 80s.

Tim

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Tim,


Meridian started designing active speakers in 1978 and the M1 was launched in 1980. They choose to use similar amplifiers in all speaker units in their first designs. They were not custom designs - they just used the topology used in the 100 series. I remember that probably due to the tape used in wrapping the power transformers their electronic boards had a characteristic smell - we called it the Meridian smell every time we disassembled or opened it! Naturally the power supplies of the 105 amplifier had the same smell. Should we consider that it was the reason of the characteristic sound of the brand of that period?

I think you forgot the smile after the sentence "How does that make sense to anyone?"

audioguy said:

I remember when John Dunlavy took a pair of experimental active speakers to CES YEARS ago. Sounded very good

I got on the Active Speaker bandwagon about 18 months and love it. It was a most difficult decision, not because of how the speaker/amps (it is tri-amped) crossover actually sound but rather no longer having the choice of deciding on amps, and speaker wire. I have only heard a few active speaker systems and one of the standout qualities across each of them seemed to be dynamics.

When we put systems together, we hope to have synergy in the combination of the wire, amps and speakers. A well designed active speaker has already done that for you. Plus active crossovers have some flexibility that passive ones do not.

I would be more than surprised, however, if this becomes anything like a "trend" in high end audio. I just can't see "purists" allowing someone else to tell them how to wire and power their speakers.

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Audioguy,

I can see you valuate highly the dynamics of active speaker systems. Do you really consider that no passive system you have listened had dynamics on par with what you get with actives?

Why do you look for sinuous reasons to explain why audiophiles do not prefer actives? Why don' t you consider that simply their experience with this type of speakers did not attract their preference? It is just my case.

microstrip said:

Tim,


Meridian started designing active speakers in 1978 and the M1 was launched in 1980. They choose to use similar amplifiers in all speaker units in their first designs. They were not custom designs - they just used the topology used in the 100 series. I remember that probably due to the tape used in wrapping the power transformers their electronic boards had a characteristic smell - we called it the Meridian smell every time we disassembled or opened it! Naturally the power supplies of the 105 amplifier had the same smell. Should we consider that it was the reason of the characteristic sound of the brand of that period?

I think you forgot the smile after the sentence "How does that make sense to anyone?"

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That's interesting. It sounds like Meridian was working on active at the same time that active monitors were evolving on the pro side. I didn't forget the smiley. While I completely understand the advantages of active subs, there are very similar benefits in active mids/highs, and that is where the majority of the music is. We're now 20 years into the evolution of the high end active subwoofer and the industry is still largely passing on the use of active technology in the critical midrange. That makes no sense to me.

Tim

Been enjoying my ATC 20-2 actives for several years. They've been doing it for a long time and are one of the most underrated brands out there as far as I'm concerned. They make virtually everything in-house. Not surprisingly given their emphasis on actives, their DNA is mostly pro audio.

It's interesting and illustrative of the active/passive debate to compare some of the models they make both ways. Ear-opening.

microstrip said:

I remember that probably due to the tape used in wrapping the power transformers their electronic boards had a characteristic smell - we called it the Meridian smell every time we disassembled or opened it! Naturally the power supplies of the 105 amplifier had the same smell. Should we consider that it was the reason of the characteristic sound of the brand of that period?

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I remember the smell of that impregnated transformer tape - perhaps I got transformers from the same place as Meridian did

Thanks for including the picture - that speaks more than 1,000 words as to why audiophiles have eschewed actives for so long - the amplifiers suck! Notice here just a single trafo feeding a bridge (no RF snubbers fitted) and just a single pair of res caps. This will be one hell of a noisy power supply! Audiophiles value low noise floor in their systems, they're hugely unlikely to get it with a set-up like this.

Like Audioguy I purchased a three way speaker system about 18 months ago that has active sub woofers. Initially I was going to replace the caps on my then current four way speakers but figured it was going to cost a small fortune for Mundorf caps. Perhaps not a good idea for speakers that were over thirty years old. I had been thinking of getting Avantgarde Duo's after hearing them at Salon Son & Image in Montreal. The two quibbles I had were the lack of integration between the Avantgarde's woofer and the mid-range horn and the distance I needed for their sounds to blend in regards to my listening position and space.
At TAVES in 2011 I came across a new active three way loudspeaker by Blueberry Hill Audio that was tri-amped with an active D class amp for the each sub woofer that had much faster bass than the Avantgardes. It was being demo'd with two tube amps, one each for the midrange and super tweeter. This 100 db efficient speaker system uses no crossovers and just a single Mundorf cap on each super tweeter. Each sub woofer amp module has EQ, phase, level and other controls to allow easy room integration. No crossover should be better than any crossover and no DSP needed to mess up the sound.
What I saved on premium Mundorf caps I spent on SET mono blocks!

tomelex said:

That "noisy power supply" you mention is and was common as anything not too far in the distant past, and still electronics were better than 115dB SN unweighted.

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When I said 'noisy power supply' I wasn't referring to SNR figures, taken with no signal present. Rather I was speaking about the noise that a PSU generates when music is playing out. Many decades of dB noisier than -115dB.

The circuitry topology is what makes the difference.

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Circuit topology certainly does make a difference, it does not make THE difference as there are many aspects making a difference.

Audiophile purists...is that another name for stuck in the past?

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Yes could be - you'll note I didn't use this word 'purists' - to me this implies snobs.

The 'treble harshness' you heard at the show was most likely PSU noise breaking through the amps in use. Did you inspect the power supplies of the amps driving the offending speakers?

High priced (as we've noted so often here on WBF) does not tend to provide an indication of high quality. Taking the lid off isn't normally an option at shows I would agree but price is not at all a reliable indicator of having a decent power supply. Take the Boulder 3060 which has a stratospheric price but a capacitor bank which is decidedly underwhelming. My chipamp currently has about the same capacitance and that's about 20dB less powerful.

Yes for sure - more is not automatically better, especially for a supply operating at mains (50/60Hz) frequency.

When I was shopping, for the first time ever, for loudspeakers back in 2001 I wanted to know what is important in loudspeakers and what is not, so I started reading a lot (JAES, Wireless World, Audio mags, books). I also came across this question of passive vs active, and what I found convinced me that the active concept is inherently superior. I then bought active speakers, which additionally use DSP with FIR-filters.



With an active system you get more bass from the same cabinet size, which may solve some problems in domestic environments, a.k.a. WAF. Klein+Hummel had an active and a passive version of the same speaker (same cabinet, same drivers), the active version had more bass (56 vs 72 Hz). My wife was more than happy that I went from larger speaker to smaller ones.

Back then I posted on this issue on the Audio Asylum, and I thought that it might be of interest for this current thread:

Floyd Toole, “The acoustics and psychoacoustics of loudspeakers and rooms – the stereo past and the multichannel future”, Audio Engineering Society preprint 5201 (2000):

"As loudspeaker systems become active, with dedicated electronics, more of this will be possible. Dedicated electronics can make a good loudspeaker better, especially in a room."

John Watkinson, Wireless World 1999 :

"The fact that the amplifier in use is under the control of the designer means that over-specified power handling is unnecessary and a further gain of efficiency can be realised. When a loudspeaker and amplifier are designed together in this way, the overall cost will actually be less than that of a passive speaker driven by a generic amplifier. Once there is an economic advantage as well as a technical advantage, active technology becomes inevitable."

Bob Stuart (Meridian), “The case for active speaker systems”, Audio Magazine 1987, Sept., p.64

"Most readers will be familiar with the use of multi-way amplification as means to improve either the quality or quantity of sound from a given system."

"The main advantages of multi-amplification are that the loudspeaker can be more thoroughly designed, and that it can perform substantially better, especially in the areas of resolution, detail dynamics, and efficiency."

"Traditional bi-amping is a tricky business for the user, involving a lot of hardware - e.g., two or more power amplifiers, an electronic crossover, and a wealth of cables. In the process of choosing these items and setting the whole thing up, fatal flaws can be introduced."

"An active loudspeaker can give a much cleaner, more detailed and defined sound, and unlike most passive designs, this sound is consistent at different levels. In fact, although active speakers are more efficient and capable of producing very clear, loud sounds, a good active systems will surprise equally by its capacity to produce exquisitely clear results at LOW levels. Active loudspeakers also offer the user the benefits of being complete, self-contained, fully engineered (in the sense that the performance is optimized) and easy to install."

"In an active system, the designer has at his fingertips the ability to independently establish each essential parameter of the crossover. For example, the use of active filters can result in crossover shapes which are as simple or as complex as required by the acoustic system, and can allow independent adjustment of phase and amplitude. This can be achieved without consideration of matching efficiencies or such external parameters as impedance. The more sophisticated design level of the active system makes it a trivial task for the designer to provide for calibration and adjustment to enhance repeatability and consistency."

"By contrast, the active system enables each power amplifier to damp each driver over the whole of the audio band: of course, the close proximity of amplifier and drive unit also enhances the possibilities for good electromagnetic damping."

"In fact, the multi-amped loudspeaker system can be shown to be more efficient than its passive counterpart. In the first place, it is not necessary to over-engineer the power amplifiers built into an active system. In an integrated active system, each power amplifier can be exactly matched in terms of current delivery, thermal capacity and power supply to the drive units(s) with which it will work. This can considerably reduce waste caused by over-engineering in the basic driving system."

"This explains why active systems can be designed to work well with lower powered amplifiers, or produce surprisingly high levels for the apparent available amplification. If the example is carried on to three 25-watt amplifiers in a (active) tri-amped system, we might find that in order to get the same volume of sound in a passive loudspeaker system, we'd need a mighty 250-watt power amp ! It is clear from the above that although an active system is harder to design, there are efficiency benefits, and it is by no means a foregone conclusion that an active system need be more expensive to build."

"Put another way, a passive speaker delivering equivalent bass response would need to have eight times the volume or twice the linear dimensions."

Martin Colloms, “High performance loudspeakers”, Wiley 1991

"The consumer market at present shows reluctance to accept loudspeakers which employ active crossovers with accompanying multiple power amplifiers though this likely to be overcome in the future. However, in theory this technique offers the greatest scope for the advancement of the loudspeaker art and a number of designs are already in production. Important benefits include :

1) A reduction is intermodulation distortion in the accompanying amplifiers due to their operation in a narrower bandwidth.

2) Subjectively, the performance of well designed active systems exceeds expectation when comparison is made with the single amplifier/passive crossover alternative. Characterisations of "louder" and
"clearer" are frequently made, and are believed due to the reduction in "stressful" loading on the individual amplifiers. For example, when a main amplifier clips or enters distortion, the distortion harmonics will be clearly reproduced by the treble driver in a passive system. In contrast, the electronic configuration keeps the bass amplifier distortion to the bass driver and the treble range remains clear and undistorted (this is in fact a special case of the IM distortion improvement noted above). This quality advantage still holds true for two-way systems with a typical crossover at 3 kHz, provided that the bass/mid-unit has a reasonable intrinsic roll-off above the crossover point. If not, a simple passive low-pass filter could be fitted between it and the respective drive amplifier.

3) Bass equalization may be readily incorporated in the active crossover. This valuable if the low frequency alignment requires equalization.

4) The association between driver and amplifier may be beneficially extended to include the LF driver in the feedback loop of the matching amplifier (this results in the so called "motional feedback" or "servo bass" designs).

5) Variations in driver sensitivity may be easily controlled via low-level gain control potentiometers.

6) Because each power amplifier feeds a single drive the overload protection thresholds may be more precisely set than is possible with the normal crossover and single universal power amplifier.

7) The power amplifiers are directly connected across the terminals of each driver. The units are thus driven from constant voltage source which will tend to suppress the fundamental resonance via electromagnetic damping (the degree depends on the driver Q). In addition, the amplifier output impedance can be made negative, if required, providing further control at the fundamental resonance.

8) Electronic filters provide a considerable variety of equalization, response shape and phase characteristics which would be unwieldy if not impossible to realize with passive networks. In addition, electronic filters may be easily adjusted during production.

9) Delay stages may be provided electronically in the signal paths to specific drivers allowing equalization of time delays which may exist between units in the system when optimally mounted. Such compensation is useful for the maintenance of symmetrical directivity in the lateral plane over the several important octaves near the crossover frequencies. Time-delay correction can also facilitate minimum phase design (Linkwitz 1976).

10) Active filters potentially have lower distortion than passive ones, due to the elimination of cored inductors and the use of high quality film capacitors.

The whole thread can be read at
http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/speakers/messages/102781.html

Klaus

tomelex said:

Agreed, makes not sense, especially since big names are including woofer amps built in. Seems only a matter of time that they inetgrate an amp in the mid and tweet as well, atleast as an option.

But audiophiles do like to feel like they can play about with the tone and like to buy something new once in a while so that may be the reason audiophiles have not overall warmly received the full active approach yet, we are still arguing about fuse orientation for sams sake.

tell you, the amount of treble harshness (its too many wavefronts the problem, obviously to some) that I heard from high priced 15 speaker array speakers at AXPONA was incredible. But thats my ears, oh, and my two friends ears.

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Another thing that makes no sense. It should be obvious, to anyone who has paid attention in the last couple of decades, that directly beneath the mid and treble drivers, in the same cabinet, is not ideal placement for deep bass transducers. It creates cabinet resonance and speaker coherence problems that are expensive to address, and room problems that are impossible to address in such a configuration. The effective, efficient and obvious solution is to separate the transducers into smaller mid/treble stand mounts and sub woofers. This superior solution has existed for years and still begs for acceptance from the high end. It does not have to be "small." It can have the same drivers and the same power as equivalent floor-standers, with greater flexibility and better performance. In fact, many big high-end speakers are little more than a two-way monitor sitting on top of a passive woofer. So why is sat/sub still considered the compromise, when the opposite is true? One can only conclude that many high-end customers love their big, impressive-looking speakers and their big, room-gained bass.

Tim

Excellent post, Klaus. It supports everything I hear in good active speakers. I find this part interesting:

"In fact, the multi-amped loudspeaker system can be shown to be more efficient than its passive counterpart. In the first place, it is not necessary to over-engineer the power amplifiers built into an active system. In an integrated active system, each power amplifier can be exactly matched in terms of current delivery, thermal capacity and power supply to the drive units(s) with which it will work. This can considerably reduce waste caused by over-engineering in the basic driving system."

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Many audiophiles seem to absolutely love their massive, over-engineered power amplifiers. They cling to them, in the face of much more elegant, efficient and effective solutions, and string them out across the floor of their listening rooms, elevated by massive blocks of stone or monumental feet, connected by hose-like cables. Forget active for a moment, if you could come up with an integrated amp that would out-perform separate pres and massive monoblocks and fit it all in a box small enough and light enough to be carried into the room by one small person, I believe the most of the audiophile community would summarily reject it.

They love their big, hot, impressive-looking amps.

Tim

Phelonious Ponk said:

Another thing that makes no sense. It should be obvious, to anyone who has paid attention in the last couple of decades, that directly beneath the mid and treble drivers, in the same cabinet, is not ideal placement for deep bass transducers. It creates cabinet resonance and speaker coherence problems that are expensive to address, and room problems that are impossible to address in such a configuration.

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There has been research on this, and the outcome is that

1. cabinets would produce significant acoustic radiation only at the structural resonance frequencies
2. it's rather the internal modes that are dominant and not so much the housing vibrations

* Bastyr et al., “On the acoustic radiation from a loudspeaker’s cabinet”, J. of the Audio Engineering Society 2003, p.234
* Behler et al., „Investigation on cabinet vibrations of bass speakers“, Fortschritte der Akustik, DAGA ’05, 31st Ann Conf. of Acoustics (German Society of Acoustics), Munich 2005

The solution looks simple: make the cabinet small, and have the bass driver operate at frequencies below the lowest internal mode. If you look at active speakers, at the least on the pro sector, the cabinet has just the size necessary to mount the drivers, not more.

Many audiophiles seem to absolutely love their massive, over-engineered power amplifiers.

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In my speakers the amp driving the tweeter has 290 Watt continuous, 360 Watt peak output, this already is more than many audiophile power amps have. All amps together have 920 W continuous, 1140 W peak, per channel. If I apply what Bob Stuart wrote, in a passive system I'd need 3000 Watt per channel "in order to get the same volume of sound".

They love their big, hot, impressive-looking amps.

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You mean undernourished

Klaus

KlausR. said:

When I was shopping, for the first time ever, for loudspeakers back in 2001 I wanted to know what is important in loudspeakers and what is not, so I started reading a lot (JAES, Wireless World, Audio mags, books). I also came across this question of passive vs active, and what I found convinced me that the active concept is inherently superior. I then bought active speakers, which additionally use DSP with FIR-filters.

(...)

The whole thread can be read at
http://www.audioasylum.com/audio/speakers/messages/102781.html

Klaus

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Klauss,

You can add the book "Loudspeakers: For music recording and reproduction ". Philip Newell and Keith Holland give you 16 or 17 reasons ((I do not have it with me) why actives should be better than passives. It is all in the chapter about crossovers.

But the main question is that all these people just give you tens of technical reasons but fail to correlate the technical aspects with perceived sound quality.

BTW, all your references are now more than one or two decades old. Passive speakers have evolved fantastically in sound quality during the last years, and subjective comparative opinions expressed in 1991 or 2000 are not valid anymore.

I am sure that if Sonus faber's Livio Cucuzza would lead a team developing a great active speaker using the core of the TheSonusFaber integrating Audio Research amplifiers and a custom active filter he would design a great speaker. Would it be cost effective? How would it compare with the current passive version of the same model driven by an ARC REF 750 amplifier? We can speculate a lot about it, but unless we have listening opinions this is just WBF talk wit plenty of sentences stating "should" and "can".

Pass did the Rushmore project. It didn't fly. Maybe the market just isn't there yet. Personally I am all up for all active, I'm just not ready for all of them in one box for the simple reason that I have yet to here one that suits my tastes.

Phelonious Ponk said:

(...) Many audiophiles seem to absolutely love their massive, over-engineered power amplifiers. They cling to them, in the face of much more elegant, efficient and effective solutions, and string them out across the floor of their listening rooms, elevated by massive blocks of stone or monumental feet, connected by hose-like cables. Forget active for a moment, if you could come up with an integrated amp that would out-perform separate pres and massive monoblocks and fit it all in a box small enough and light enough to be carried into the room by one small person, I believe the most of the audiophile community would summarily reject it.

They love their big, hot, impressive-looking amps.
Tim

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Phelonious Ponk said:

(...) One can only conclude that many high-end customers love their big, impressive-looking speakers and their big, room-gained bass.

Tim

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Tim,

Perhaps you should start a thread entitled "What I think most audiophiles like". Almost all your opinions about audiophile matters are not based on your listening experiences (or at less you do not document them) but on your vision and beliefs about the audiophile people. I have now doubts that your descriptions are accurately describing a few audiophiles, but your generalization using systematically "many" and "most" in a forum filled with knowledgeable and experienced audiophiles (they even read and participate in WBF , exposing their opinions to open scrutiny) is at less strange.

It would be nice to know what you consider most. More than 68, 95 or 99%?

microstrip said:

You can add the book "Loudspeakers: For music recording and reproduction ". Philip Newell and Keith Holland give you 16 or 17 reasons ((I do not have it with me) why actives should be better than passives. It is all in the chapter about crossovers.

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I'm sure there are still more sources providing reasons for active, against passive.

But the main question is that all these people just give you tens of technical reasons but fail to correlate the technical aspects with perceived sound quality.

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Correlation between speakers and sound quality has been investigated by Klippel, Toole and subsquently the Harman team. Correlation is strongest with frequency response, for other parameters the correlation is either weak or nor conclusive:

* Klippel, “Assessing the subjectively perceived loudspeaker quality on the basis of objective parameters”, AES paper 2929
* Toole, "Loudspeaker measurements and their relationship to listener preferences, part 1", JAES 1986, p.227
* Toole, "Loudspeaker measurements and their relationship to listener preferences, part 2", JAES 1986, p.323
* Olive, "A Multiple Regression Model for Predicting Loudspeaker Preference Using Objective Measurements: Part I - Listening Test Results", AES paper 6113
* Olive, "A Multiple Regression Model for Predicting Loudspeaker Preference Using Objective Measurements: Part II - Development of the Model", AES paper 6190

Frequency response is not a matter of active or passive, so in that respect it shouldn't make a difference. Harman also included active models in their tests.

BTW, all your references are now more than one or two decades old. Passive speakers have evolved fantastically in sound quality the last years, and subjective opinions expressed in 1991 or 2000 are not valid anymore.

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I'm afraid that the basics are still valid: the power amp in an active speaker does not see the complex electrical load of a conventional X-over, the designer is in a position to optimize each amp for the driver the amp is going to work with, hence optimizing the entire system, what Stuart calls "fully engineered", you can include overload protection for each driver (in my speakers the circuits "look" 80 ms ahead to see whether or not there's danger at the horizon), you can design X-overs as steep as you want or need, and with FIR adjust amplitude and phase separately, active speakers are much smaller for the same bass performance, and, at least for mine that is true, the speakers are very clear at low levels and they produce low bass at low levels so that you don't need a loudness button.

I am sure that if Sonus faber's Livio Cucuzza would lead a team developing a great active speaker using the core of the TheSonusFaber integrating Audio Research amplifiers and a custom active filter he would design a great speaker.

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That's an active speaker, fully engineered, not a passive to which the customer would have to add a power amp of his choice, hence a power amp unknown to the speaker designer.

Klaus

microstrip said:

Audioguy,

I can see you valuate highly the dynamics of active speaker systems. Do you really consider that no passive system you have listened had dynamics on par with what you get with actives?

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I don't believe I said that. In fact I said ZERO about dynamics in passive speakers. I have heard passive speakers that have incredible dynamics. A couple that come to mind that I have actually heard are the Scaena, Magico. I'm sure there are more.

Why do you look for sinuous reasons to explain why audiophiles do not prefer actives? Why don' t you consider that simply their experience with this type of speakers did not attract their preference? It is just my case.

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I don't claim to know all of the reasons why audiophiles don't select active speakers. I stated my opinion and I stand by it. Apparently you did not choose them for those reasons. Good for you.

I'm afraid that the basics are still valid: the power amp in an active speaker does not see the complex electrical load of a conventional X-over,

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Hello Klaus

What about the load the individual driver presents?? Why does everone assume that a passive crossover presents an "unfriendly load" to the amp?? Has anyone bothered to look at driver impedence loads before making such a generalization?? Well here is a speaker system using essentially the same drivers as the plot for the individual drivers. Looking at the plots which looks easier to drive, the complete system or the individual drivers??

Rob

KlausR. said:

I'm sure there are still more sources providing reasons for active, against passive.
Correlation between speakers and sound quality has been investigated by Klippel, Toole and subsquently the Harman team. Correlation is strongest with frequency response, for other parameters the correlation is either weak or nor conclusive:

* Klippel, “Assessing the subjectively perceived loudspeaker quality on the basis of objective parameters”, AES paper 2929
* Toole, "Loudspeaker measurements and their relationship to listener preferences, part 1", JAES 1986, p.227
* Toole, "Loudspeaker measurements and their relationship to listener preferences, part 2", JAES 1986, p.323
* Olive, "A Multiple Regression Model for Predicting Loudspeaker Preference Using Objective Measurements: Part I - Listening Test Results", AES paper 6113
* Olive, "A Multiple Regression Model for Predicting Loudspeaker Preference Using Objective Measurements: Part II - Development of the Model", AES paper 6190

Frequency response is not a matter of active or passive, so in that respect it shouldn't make a difference. Harman also included active models in their tests.

(...)

Klaus

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Klaus,

This subject is a common source of disagreement. Toole did only establish correlation between some measurements and statistical listener preferences in well defined conditions, that are far from the typical conditions used by high-end audiophiles. His opinions about electronics and audio accessories such as cables and power devices are well known, and I respect them, but I disagree on them. If your criteria on sound quality is the same as used in the references above I can partially understand your endorsement of actives.

However, not all people have the same weighting of the multiple sound quality parameters as the Harman group. What you and others consider weak or non conclusive can be strong for audiophiles. As they say IMMV.

I share the idea posted by Jack a few posts above - technically I am prepared to accept the superiority of actives, but until I listen to an implementation that surpasses or approaches the best I have listened with passive systems I will stay with passives.

JackD201 said:

(...) Personally I am all up for all active, I'm just not ready for all of them in one box for the simple reason that I have yet to here one that suits my tastes.

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IMHO, if active speakers want to dispute the audiophile market they have to show adequate implementations that conquer market preference - just showing famous papers and text books and complaining about audiophile mentality will not drive them to success.