Those Hypex plate amps are nice!
This has to be one of the more interesting speakers I’ve seen lately.
I wish more people would give active speakers like this a chance. They have so many advantages going for them. I just reviewed a pair of Phil Bamberg’s active speakers for Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity https://hometheaterhifi.com/reviews/speaker/floor-standing/bamberg-series-3-tmw-active-loudspeaker-review/ and they were excellent. I think people might come around to actives like this if they only got a chance to hear them.
Best... Carlo.
A few years ago we developed a self-powered monitor speaker called the PowerPlay. We constantly get calls from people in apartments, especially efficiency apartments in large cities, who don't really have room for a large system. I thought it would be perfect for that application.
It had about the flattest frequency response you could imagine and sounded great. We took it to audio shows and audio society meetings. Often, people would turn up their noses when they heard the words "self-powered." But when we played them, everyone was impressed with their performance. I heard numerous people comment, "I'd never buy a self-powered speaker, but if I did, this would be high on my list."
Over the next three years, we sold ZERO pairs of this model and finally simply sold our original demo speakers.
I was speaking to a client who lived in New York and he said we were aiming at the wrong market. He thought this was a "lifestyle" product and not an "audiophile" product. He was probably right.
He suggested going to the Brooklyn flea market and demoing them. He thought that as soon as we sold a pair to someone in an apartment building, we would get lots of orders from others in that same building and, eventually, people in other apartment complexes as well.
If he was correct (and I think he was), we needed to establish a completely new market for this type of product. And that was something we weren't all that interested in doing.
So, for now at least, we won't normally offer self-powered speakers except as a custom item. And it's too bad since you can create an almost perfect crossover using DSP - something you can't do with a passive crossover.
My guess is that in 10 years most all speakers will be powered with built-in DACs, preamps, amps, Alexa and Google support, Airplay support, Roon support, etc. But we'll see...
- Jim