[witchdoctor]

You are right about the trade off of long IC's. I see may articles on the benefits of using monoblock amps near your speakers so you can trade off a long IC for a short seaker cable. My front speakers use 1 or 2 meter XLRnterconncts from Bogdan Audio, not really that long. My rear speakers use runs of about 10 meter XLR Silver Serpents from Better Cables. Not to expensive and a great value. Long IC runs are better using balanced connections and I saved a ton of dough on speaker cables, espescially if I had bi-wired.
You make a great point about subs. Mine got much better when I placed it on Mapleshade Ultimate triple point cones with 2 Heavy Hats on top.
Regretfully Paradigm no longer makes these wonderful speakers. Audiophiles like buying amps and speaker wire. Non audiophiles don't spend that much money on speakers. You may pick them up on A'gon or E-Bay if you are lucky. Check out the link to the review posted above.

[tom1356]

Tom congratulations you have managed to insult pretty much every audio
company in just one post. Are you insane? There are MANY great amplifier and speaker designers. Some even have rooms right here on Audiocircle. If you have been listening to Bose and Rat shack you should try checking out some new gear.
I agree that choices among active gear is more limited. That doesn't mean that these are bad choices. Pro studios all over the world seem to get by just fine with this limited selection. And you better h ...

You seem to be confusing my use of the word best with your use of the word good.
I think the disagreement here might be one of point of view.
You seem to idolize manufacturers. I don't. Are there good active speakers? Yes. Are there state of the art ones? No. Do some mastering studios use them? Maybe. Do the best mastering studios use them? No.
My goal is state of the art, not good or tidy. State of the art components that you can purchase are extremely rare and will all need some modification to truly excel.

I don't think any of the manufacturers on this board claim to make both state of the art amps and speakers. If the manufacturers are insulted they have thin skins and unrealistic views of themselves and their products.
I may be insane...I'll ponder this.
You are the king of sweeping generalities. List the mastering studios using active speakers.
Of course you ran off the discussion to active crossovers and bi/tri amping none of which is what we are talking about.
We are approaching this from different points of view.
I come from a background of retailing high end audio since 1985. I've owned and sold McIntosh, Audio Research, B&W, Nakamichi, Proceed, KEF, Micro Seki, and a ton more I can't remember.
I listen to 300b mono block amps I built, a TVC passive pre I built, a SACD player I have highly modified, and a pair of line arrays I built.
 I make my own tube sockets, RCA plugs, resistors, and I just started work on capacitors. There may be better audio systems out there than mine, but I'm not done yet.
Of course none of this means I know what I'm talking about.

The bottom line is if you can be happy with a commercially available active speaker system than fine.
 I wish I was.

[audioengr]

eico1 wrote:

There is much less chance of internal wire making a difference since many times the runs are a less than a foot and usually unsheilded separate wires soldered directly without connectors.

This is exzctly the problem.  It is the wires that are run individually for power delivery.  It is also the traces on FR4 circuit boards.  Both of these will have a negative impact on sound.  It is more siginificant than you think.  I have traces over a foot long in my Mark Levinson #38.  This is why I modded it.  Made HUGE difference.

[audioengr]

Active speakers make a lot of sense, provided that they are used in a digital system.  If the digital protocol involves buffering at the destination, this can virtually eliminate jitter.  The only downside is the additional electronics of D/A in each speaker (but this is becoming cheaper to do) and the power cord required for each speaker.  The power cord thing is a bit harder.  This causes ground-loops by definition.  Perhaps the solution is optical or transformer isolation of each speaker from the system to eliminate ground-loops.

[audioengr]

I agree with Tom.  There are lots of excellent circuit designers.  Unfortunately, there is a lot more to component design than just circuit design.  There are also critical skills:

1) Power delivery
2) Signal-path design on circuit boards
3) Thermal management
4) Power regulation
5) Grounding and shielding

Very few designers posses all of these skills.  That's why my modding business is doing so well.

[witchdoctor]

Tom, the "best" recording studios do use them if you consider the content you are listening to.  Please enlighten me to the CD/DVD's
you are listening to that were not mastered on active speakers.
Does anyone feel the Lord of the Rings Trilogy not to be one of the "best"
soundtracks available?
http://www.sonicstate.com/news/shownews.cfm?newsid=922

I will be the first to say that my gear is not the "best". I have neither the
tinkering skills or the budget to build the "best" listening environment.
I congratulate you on your audio craftmanship and if I had the skills and the time to improve what is commercially available I have no doubt it could be improved. I understand we have professionals at this site who can help us improve the commercial gear available.
But I hope you don't mean to imply that all commercial gear would not meet your standards. If your mods are that good, let's go into business. I'm only half kidding.

[witchdoctor]

From ATC's website regarding the best. I think highly of skilled professionals like your self that can mod and build stufff. But there ARE designers who can do a GREAT job on there own. This is from ATC's website. If all these studios are wrong the best mods in the world won't fix a bad recording. I hope it is not as bad as you say.This is from ATC's website:   http://www.atc.gb.net/

WHY DO THE WORLD'S BEST USE THE WORLD'S BEST

Shure Inc
Sony Music Studios, New York
Kate Bush
Warner Bros Burbank, CA
Dairy Studios
Polygram Wiseloord Studios, Holland
Sain Records
Lenny Kravitz
Whitfield Street Studios
Skin (Skunk Anansie)
Mute Records (Depeche Mode, Erasure)
K & A Productions (Naxos)
Todd AO, USA
Pioneer Optical Disc (Barcelona)
Nick Whitaker (Internationally Renowned Telarc Acoustician)
Telarc
VTR TV Production Company
Ground Control, LA
Paramount Pictures, Hollywood
Angell Sound, London (5 Studios)
BBC - UK
Royal Opera House, Covent Garden
Lightning Seeds (Ian Broudie)
Sydney Opera House
Pink Floyd's Studio & Dave Gilmour's Home
Royal College of Music
Jarvis Recording Studios, NY
Birmingham University
Dep International
Essex University
Nimbus Records
Bristol University
John Kurlander
University of Surrey (Francis Rumsey)
Ian Anderson
Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club
Manor Mobiles
Lou Reed
Beacon Studio (Dublin)
SBS Television, Australia
Hans Zimmer
Lansdowne Recording Studio
Karl Wallinger World Party
Greg Walsh (Producer Paul McCartney, Tina Albert's Music Turne Elkie Brookes)
Albert's Music
Angel Studio, Islington
Peter Walsh (Producer Stevie Wonder, Peter Gabriel, Simple Minds, Pulp)
Oorong Studio, N.Y.
London Post
James Guthrie (Pink Floyd, Toto, Chicago)
Enya
The Tate Gallery
Thierry Allard, Bruxelles
Bob Ludwig Masterdisk
Boogie Park, Hamburg
Bruce Leek
Bruce Dunlop Assoc., London
Vogler Audio Media
Prince Sufri, Brunei
Tony Wass
Monster Music, Madrid
John Richards
Crazy Sound, Guadeloupe
Beethoven Street
Fluke, London
Moles Studio
Spectral Harmony, Bombay
ARC Studio
Haman Studio, Tel Aviv
Kash Productions, Madrid
Zaza Studio, Tel Aviv
Polygram, Hong Kong (Mastering & Studio 1)
Loco Studio, Wales
Matrix
London College of Music
Swedish Radio
Polish Broadcast
Carlton Television (Nottingham & London)
Lakeside, Switzerland
York Street Studios
Tape to Tape, London (Heathman's Mastering)
Albert's Studio
Telegael, Eire (6 Studios)
John G Deacon Founder Conifer Records
Allaire Studios, New York

[Jason1]

Anyone interested in ATC might find these kit versions of the SCM50 and SCM100 of interest.

https://secure.wilmslow-audio.co.uk/acatalog/Wilmslow_Audio_ATC_K50_and_K100_Kits_12.html

[tom1356]

I don't know how old that list is but it has grey hair.
5-6 years ago I listened to the Duntechs that Bob ludwig uses at GATEWAY mastering in Portland ME.
I don't doubt that ATC has given all those people speakers. I would bet your house that few if any master with them.

BTW: move Bob to the top of your list where he belongs.

[witchdoctor]

I wish I owned a house instead of my small NYC apt. I am not necessarily advocating ATC as a brand. I am simply advocating that the ACTIVE technology they use in speaker design is viewed as superior by the pro's who produce the content we all listen to. As for recent mastering click on the link I posted for the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
There are numerous pro mastering websites on the web if you feel they have changed to the passive technology in the last 5-6 years.
The debate on this thread was about the benefits of removing interconnects. I advocate the removal of speaker cables using active speakers as being both logistically, technologically , and economically superior. I agree that you can probably improve commercially available equipment through modding. which costs time and money. I feel that the pro studios feel that active speakers are designed and built well enough as to be sufficient. All I am saying is that if I can reproduce the sound that the engineer heard in the studio in my home the easiest and most economical way possible I feel I have met my goal. What is Bob using in his studio today? What was his opinion of the active vs. passive technology?

[Rob Babcock]

Taking the question philosophically, I'd say yes, no wire is better than a wire.  No wire can ever improve anthing in any way; it can only degrade the sound.  Less wire=better.  Period. Dot, dot, dot.

[tmd]

Thanks Rob. That is one output I wanted from this thread. I assumed that adding wire and connectors couldn't be better no matter what. The debate is interesting too, even though it has gone off on a tangent.
I am going to start tinkering with DIY quite a bit and will have some fun integrating as much as possible. I may try to build something that has one power cord in and two speakers out just to satisfy my own curiousity. I will then 'add' interconnects

[WerTicus]

i have my player hooked directly into my power amp...
with sacd and dvda coming out as anolog YOUR INSANE to pass the signal through anything!

pretty soon im going be soldering the RCA to the inside of the amp and run the cables outside so there is one crappy connection eliminated.

of course i have a set of speakers that are flat from 20 to 20.  
You might need bass or treble adjustment... or new speakers

oh cool i have better tweeters than the atc's on that diy site... Vifa D25TG-35... but i have the xt25tg30-04's   does anyone else use vifa stuff here?

[tom1356]

i have my player hooked directly into my power amp...
with sacd and dvda coming out as anolog YOUR INSANE to pass the signal through anything!quote]

I like to listen at lower volumes than that would involve.

[witchdoctor]

This is ANOTHER benefit of active speakers. My Paradigms have both a volume control knob , a bass and treble contour knob which lets you adjust the crossover , and a switch for a high pass filter.

[tom1356]

This is ANOTHER benefit of active speakers. My Paradigms have both a volume control knob , a bass and treble contour knob which lets you adjust the crossover , and a switch for a high pass filter.

Again it's how you look at things. I wouldn't let the music pass through all those pots on my system.

If you like them then fine.
Let it go.

[WerTicus]

yeah i like to listen to it really loud the resistance of the cable is just enough that the amp dosnt clip

.....