[OzarkTom]

 

Maybe someday a new designer will make an active full range speaker with no active or passive crossovers. It sounds like a very simple design.

[Russell Dawkins]

Good thread!

[Rusty Jefferson]

Was there late last year for the demo with the DEQX in the system. 

A lot better to me than the passive crossover.

I wasn't able to make it to that meet.  Some aspects were better, for sure.

IME, the biggest gains of going active are really in the bass.  If you have a 3 way speaker, the passive crossover between mid/tweeters is really benign......

With these particular speakers the difference was just the opposite.  Time aligning the mid/tweeter with a steep slope created a nearly  perfect radiation pattern at crossover allowing the speakers to disappear in the room, and snap the soundstage into focus. With the passives in, sound can be heard coming from the speakers, and the soundstage lost focus, but was more.....engaging actually.  It's interesting.

[OzarkTom]

 [/quote]With the passives in, sound can be heard coming from the speakers, and the soundstage lost focus, but was more.....engaging actually.  It's interesting.
[/quote]

With the active Meridians I sold, the sound always came from the speakers, no outside imaging at all. I still liked the speakers. With the MS-442's and a David Berning amp, the sound was huge, one of the largest soundstage I have ever had. It was very transparent and 3D. The speakers totally disappeared.

[Tyson]

I wasn't able to make it to that meet.  Some aspects were better, for sure. With these particular speakers the difference was just the opposite.  Time aligning the mid/tweeter with a steep slope created a nearly  perfect radiation pattern at crossover allowing the speakers to disappear in the room, and snap the soundstage into focus. With the passives in, sound can be heard coming from the speakers, and the soundstage lost focus, but was more.....engaging actually.  It's interesting.

I ran DCX, DEQX and MiniDSP all at various times.  The cool thing you can do with the DEQX and the MiniDSP is save different crossover settings and then cycle through them in more-or-less real time to see which sounds best.  It's very cool because you can have a 6db slope, 12db, 18, 24, 36, etc...and then decide what sounds best to you. 

I found that the steeper slopes sounded better at first (more detailed, more air, cleaner sounding), but over time they just didn't sound as natural as the 6db and 12db slopes.  At least to my ears. 

[JLM]

Maybe someday a new designer will make an active full range speaker with no active or passive crossovers. It sounds like a very simple design.

Single driver speakers are active by default, duh.  But again there is no perfect speaker and even the best single driver designs have their limitations, else intelligent consumers would flock to them.  We each choose which parameters to ignore or highlight.

[JohnR]

Single driver speakers are active by default, duh.

Not by either definition of "active" that is in accepted use...

[JLM]

Not by either definition of "active" that is in accepted use...

Please state what you consider the definitions of "active" in accepted use as I think of single driver speakers as the epitome of active design.

[JohnR]

Either with amplification built in, or using an active crossover. (Or both). More broadly, "active" and "passive" are electronics terms - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_component#Classifications.

[JLM]

Whatever.  I prefer to expand my mind to encompass the concept of an even purer form of active design - single driver speakers.

[fredgarvin]

The shark just got jumped.