[Russell Dawkins]

He explains the rationale behind the upcoming active version of the Elac UB5:
https://vimeo.com/166897894
It's similarly bargain priced with a projected list of around $750 with three on board amplifiers—class AB for the mid and tweeter and class D for the woofer.

[maty]

Active speakers are better if they use a good (bi) amplification and active crossover.

Nearfield monitors (pro)

* But most uses cheap amps to reduce costs.

* Good amplification in class D costs money.

* Class AB many use monolithics, with low slew rate!!! 10 V/microS is very common 

* And PSU are also bad.

* Manufacturing quality has gone down a lot these years.

It is better a good passive speakers with a good second hand class AB amp or expensive like Neumann KH 120 A, Genelec... if you want to listen very good records.

[maty]

And yes, cheap class D for a tweeter is a bad idea. All class AB or class D only for the woofer.

[JLM]

Thanks much for the link Russell.   

There's always going to be good and bad implementations of passive and active speakers, but I vote for the active concept.  It amazes me of the quality cheap active speakers can possess, like the compact $300/pair JBL LSR305 studio monitors I had in house for a week recently.

There are many advantages of active design that Andrew doesn't touch upon in 10 minutes.  Years ago I auditioned Paradigm Studio 20 v.2 ($800/pair, stand-mount 2-way) versus Paradigm Active 20 ($1600/pair, same cabinet/drivers).  It was an epiphany.  No comparison.  In another league completely.  The Actives were much more dynamic, had flatter frequency response (a revelation in itself), and the depth/strength of bass from stand-mounts was mind-blowing.  Passersby were gobsmacked, thinking we were playing the Paradigm Studio 100 ($2200/pair floor-standers with multiple drivers), but the imaging was much more precise. 

I believe Andrew hedged when he said a $4000 amp with $500 UB-5 passive would be the audiophile's first system and the $750 UB-5 active would be the audiophile's second system.  First, as mentioned a $4000 amp on $500 speakers is ridiculous as is the combined 1:6 price differential.  Secondly, he has to give in to market demands as most audiophiles want to be audio chefs and select their own ingredients to come up with their own creations (a control issue).  Third, he does want to alienate that audiophile mainstream.  Fourth, many established audiophiles would be embarrassed to have such a simple, inexpensive system as he was displaying. 

I'd like to see clarification that these are active design (low voltage crossover feeding each amp and one channel of amplification per driver) versus powered (simply amps built into passive speakers as per the signage above the ELAC display on the video).  This is a sloppy use of terminology that hurts the cause for active design.

[Early B.]

Is there anyone who manufactures "audiophile quality" active speakers? I mean someone like a Daedalus or Salk or Vapor Audio or GR Research that typically uses high quality parts and takes aesthetics seriously. As an audiophile, I don't want a cheap $30 plate amp attached to my speakers like most other active monitors.  I'd also like to see integrated speaker stands to hide the power cords and ICs for monitors, and full range floor standers to eliminate the need for separate subwoofers (i.e., wife friendly). All of this should be available at a price significantly lower than my current speaker/amp combo without losing fidelity. IMO, if the cost is comparable or higher than what I already have, there's little incentive to consider active speakers.

 

[Freo-1]

ATC makes"audiophile quality" active speakers that are among the very best in the industry. ATC also makes their own drivers, which are also among the best available at any price.  They are not cheap. 

[bummrush]

Id never heard of active speakers before.In the seventies moved in with a guy who had active vott speakers. All i can say is wow. Now this was way before magazines, near field  listening, all these things,but like they say you knew good sound when you heard it. Those speakers were special.

[Russell Dawkins]

I believe Andrew hedged when he said a $4000 amp with $500 UB-5 passive would be the audiophile's first system and the $750 UB-5 active would be the audiophile's second system.  First, as mentioned a $4000 amp on $500 speakers is ridiculous as is the combined 1:6 price differential.  Secondly, he has to give in to market demands as most audiophiles want to be audio chefs and select their own ingredients to come up with their own creations (a control issue).  Third, he does want to alienate that audiophile mainstream.  Fourth, many established audiophiles would be embarrassed to have such a simple, inexpensive system as he was displaying. 

I don't think he is aiming this at the established audiophile; certainly not the audiophile whose system is a virtual shrine and testament to their impeccable taste, discernment and buying power. He mentions that many contemporary buyers are not interested in the complexities of all those separates with their cables when all they want is music. He seems to be attempting to offer a distinct upgrade in sound quality with the same simplicity and moderate price point they are used to.

I'd like to see clarification that these are active design (low voltage crossover feeding each amp and one channel of amplification per driver) versus powered (simply amps built into passive speakers as per the signage above the ELAC display on the video).  This is a sloppy use of terminology that hurts the cause for active design.

This is covered in the discussion on the video. He mentions that the woofer amp is class D and the mid and tweeter amps are class AB, since they don't need to be that powerful. I think he also lets slip that the class D woofer amp is 80 watts but, due to the absence of losses in the crossover is equivalent to much more (double, at least) if it were driving the passive version of the speaker, due to the inevitable losses incurred with throwing away so much of the energy spectrum when feeding a bass-only driver, as happens in a three way.

'Active' and 'powered' are used almost interchangeably when discussing speakers. If you follow Andrew's reasoning carefully, you will see how little advantage there would be to powering a speaker internally, then going through a passive crossover.

I can't think of a single respectable powered speaker where the built-in amp is driving a speaker-level crossover. As Andrew mentions, amplifier parts these days are not much more expensive than crossover parts, especially 'passive' crossover parts, and even more especially those feeding three way systems, as the low crossover point between the bass and mid drivers requires large-ish inductors and capacitors—both a little pricey, not to speak of the parts count when designing more complex crossovers, as he does. He explains near the top of the video that he is from the complex not minimalist crossover camp.

[JLM]

Is there anyone who manufactures "audiophile quality" active speakers? I mean someone like a Daedalus or Salk or Vapor Audio or GR Research that typically uses high quality parts and takes aesthetics seriously. As an audiophile, I don't want a cheap $30 plate amp attached to my speakers like most other active monitors.  I'd also like to see integrated speaker stands to hide the power cords and ICs for monitors, and full range floor standers to eliminate the need for separate subwoofers (i.e., wife friendly). All of this should be available at a price significantly lower than my current speaker/amp combo without losing fidelity. IMO, if the cost is comparable or higher than what I already have, there's little incentive to consider active speakers.

Most active speakers go well beyond cost comparable passive speakers in terms of "audiophile quality" if you're after accuracy.  Home (audiophile) use in comparison instead infers primary goals of entertainment from a pleasing sound.  (Meridian and PMC are just two more manufacturers that build active speakers for home use more along your line of thinking.)  Serious aesthetics (super fancy veneers/extreme cabinet shapes) cost serious coin and end up being the majority of the manufacturing cost.  What money home use speakers invest in veneers, studio gear typically put into what goes inside the cabinet.  In fact active designs rarely find multiple woofers, midrange drivers, or tweeters necessary, in fact one of the very best mastering speakers, the JBL M2, is a 2-way.  Most active speakers are desktop/bridge mounted near-field monitors while mastering is done with floor-standers so speaker stands either don't or can't apply. 

Your characterization of $30 plate amps is inaccurate and your opinion of cost comparisons neglect reality and the advantages of active design. 

You really should read Floyd Toole's "Sound Reproduction" and learn about the advantages of distributed bass (with small speakers) versus using full range speakers.

[JoshK]

I'm going active.  I just ordered a pair of JBL M2s and a DCi 4|600 amp.   That is 600wpc into 4 channels for biamping them.   

[brj]

The reduction in required amplifier power when moving to an active system is really rather shocking.  (To begin with, I suspect most people running passive speakers don't have anywhere near the power they need to hit dynamic peaks without distorting.)  I have large active 2 ways driven by a pair of Pass Labs XA30.5s.  The XA30.5 is notionally a 30 watt class A stereo amp, but thanks to its 6 dB of headroom, it will operate in class B up to 153w.  All of the XA series Pass amps have a current meter on the front that won't start to twitch until the amp leaves class A operation, which provides visual feedback any time I exceed 30w of power draw.

It takes some very bass-heavy tracks driven at volumes that I won't listen to (from my listening position 12' away) for more than a few minutes at a time in order to get the 12" 95 dB efficient woofers to move the needles out of the 30w class A operating range of my amps.  In normal listening, it almost never moves, even in large scale orchestral works.  And the dynamics of my system make me grin every time I run it... serious jump factor.

Suffice it to say, when you only need to pay for a few watts of power (and you're avoiding the cost of high-quality passive crossover parts) you can spend your money on some really nice sounding watts.  Yes, you need more channels of amplification and cables, but you can still come out ahead on cost if you're willing to accept the complexity.  If the speaker vendor is willing to build the active amplification into the speakers themselves, you hide the complexity and come out even further ahead.  (No extra ICs or power cords to buy.)

Hmmm.... a hypothetical active UniFi UF5 modded to be fed by the massive and clean current sourcing abilities of a BatteryBUSS fronted SLA battery or UltraCapacitor power supply... there's an interesting idea...

[brj]

I'm going active.  I just ordered a pair of JBL M2s and a DCi 4|600 amp.   That is 600wpc into 4 channels for biamping them.

Wooooooow.... Nice!!  field trip to Canada!

[MarvinTheMartian]

I found another video, describing the Elac plate amp in more detail.
https://vimeo.com/151854181

Bash bass and 1 or 2 class AB channels for the top, one power cord for each speaker : )
Shawn

[jpm]

When I hear "Active" and "Audiophile" in the same sentence, the first name that comes to mind is Linn.

[JDUBS]

I'm confused by how you guys are thinking about active speakers.  I used to actively triamp Yorkville Unitys, meaning I had a 6-channel DAC that output to 3 separate stereo amps and then on to the drivers, directly.  Zero passive crossover components in the signal.

I used Audiolense to construct convolution filters which allowed the above to occur - with room correction.

It's pretty awesome but a lot of work.

Now I use powered "monitors" (QSC floorstanding 3-ways).  I saw these (or similar) at a lot of the music venues I go to...so figured I'd have a set home to best duplicate the live experience.

Are the active monitors here ones that convert to digital and then apply dsp?  I assume so, unless they have a digital input.

-Jim

[maty]

In Germany:

-> http://www.abacus-electronics.de/37-1-APC+powered+speakers.html

-> http://www.ksaudio.com/

[zybar]

When I hear "Active" and "Audiophile" in the same sentence, the first name that comes to mind is Linn.

First active speakers I heard were tri-amped Linn Keilidhs.

Quite impressive.

But at the time, it was very expensive and well out of my price range.

I have been "partially" active for the past 10+ years with Vandy 5A's.  The 5A's have built in powered woofers and handle the bass from 100hz down.

George

[brj]

I'm confused by how you guys are thinking about active speakers.  I used to actively triamp Yorkville Unitys, meaning I had a 6-channel DAC that output to 3 separate stereo amps and then on to the drivers, directly.  Zero passive crossover components in the signal.

I used Audiolense to construct convolution filters which allowed the above to occur - with room correction.

It's pretty awesome but a lot of work.

Now I use powered "monitors" (QSC floorstanding 3-ways).  I saw these (or similar) at a lot of the music venues I go to...so figured I'd have a set home to best duplicate the live experience.

Are the active monitors here ones that convert to digital and then apply dsp?  I assume so, unless they have a digital input.

An "active" speaker system is one that utilizes a line-level crossover, rather than speaker-level crossover.  Where you split the frequencies upstream is up to the architect of each system.  Note that a fully active speaker system has a separate amplification channel connected to each individual driver, though a partially active system may have one amp channel for the woofer with a second amp channel driving the mid-range and tweeter through a passive crossover.  Taking the woofer out of a passive speaker level crossover provides the biggest bang for the buck.  (The woofer generates, by far, the largest back-EMF, etc.)

In my case, I split the frequencies after my pre-amp, rather than after my source, as you describe.  I have a 2-channel DAC feeding a 2-channel pre-amp, that then feeds my analog line-level crossover, which splits the frequencies between my tweeters and woofers.  (If I can ever get my multiple subs built, I'll use the second output of my pre-amp to feed the modded DCX that I bought from you years ago to control them all.)

That said, my line-level crossover is only handling frequency splitting duties, not driver correction.  I handle driver correction in the digital domain using a convolution filter in HQPlayer.  (Eventually I may implement a house curve digitally as well, but I have some room treatments to finalize yet, and so haven't played with it.)

Also, even an active system may have a handful of passive parts between the amps and the drivers, usually for protective purposes or to improve the impedance response of a driver.  (I'd definitely recommend DC block caps on tweeters, for example.)  Those parts in no way connect the drivers to each other, however, so you still have a fully active speaker system.

Just in case things weren't confusing enough, the use of a line-level crossover that distinguishes a speaker system as "active" may, itself, be either active or passive, meaning powered or unpowered.  An unfortunate overuse of the term "active" in this case.  My line-level crossover is active, and is capable of generating up to almost 18 dB of gain depending on the number of poles I set in my filters and how I adjust the woofer vs. tweeter levels.  Because of this gain, my pre-amp is passive, as I already have more than enough total voltage gain in my system.

The upside of an active speaker system is significant, but there is definitely a learning curve if you're planning on doing it yourself.  Having the speaker designer implement it is definitely a huge savings of time and energy on the part of the customer.  Of course, if one is already prone to tweaking cables and tubes, this is the ultimate tweaker's paradise... everything is endlessly adjustable.

[maty]

From my old post -> https://nauscopio.wordpress.com/2011/04/17/sala-de-andreu-campo-cercano-mp3-versus-flac-1644-versus-2496-b2031p-versus-trevisub-campo-lejano-y-multicanal/

BIG image -> http://maty.galeon.com/NB-imagenes/andreu/16042011/sala-andreu-16042011.jpg

[poseidonsvoice]

Nice, succinct and very much to the point Brian (brj). You hit all the salient points in my book 

Anand.