Active Setup

[serverbaboon]

I was at a Hifi show last month (well home entertainment) and one of the most impressive rooms was the Dyna-Audio room. They had a set of stand based speakers and a sub woofer giving a a very good sound from a 20 year old CD Walkman. I was extremely puzzled by this 'magic' till I followed the wire and realised that the speakers were active. Although in truth I felt the sub-woofer needed backing off a touch to integrate a little better but I got to wonder how good a system this could be.

The speakers had a couple of class AB amps in them, one for each driver and another amp in the sub and come as a package for £1000 so just add a source

A Slee pre amp playing my Turntable, CD player and Tuner (yes there is till some good FM out there) connected to the active package could be an interesting system and due to the lower box count much higher on the domestic approval rating than my current system.

Now I know some of the more active tweakers out there would miss the ability to change a few input caps and psu changes on the power amps, and the ability to change your power amp at later date seems alien but does anyone out there have any experience of active setups?

Is it a total anathema?

[mrarroyo]

Currently I use a Klipsch LF-10 ( www.klipsch.com/products/discontinued/details/lf-10.aspx ) and it is a very hard unit to beat IMO.

The only other time I have used a powered speaker was in a workshop in a basement. I got an inexpensive Bose Powermate speakers to keep me entertained while in the workshop.

[lini]

Active setups have once been more popular in general hifi. Even companies like Grundig offered quite a few active speakers (as well as pre-amps, preceivers and even cassette-preceivers; they even had a pre-amp for their 22 cm mini series...) mainly during the late 70s and early 80s - with good sales results.

Recently active speakers are having a comeback especially in pc-as-source systems, for which a lot of people buy compact active studio monitors for musicians/music production, as there are hardly any hifi quality pc speaker sets and the semi-pro stuff is pretty competitive in price (compared to hifi bookshelf speakers and adequate amplification for these as well as active speakers designed for the hifi market). Not to mention the numerous active subwoofers in surround systems.

And from the technical side, x-way designs with a matching number of power amp sections sure have the advantage of being able to relocate the crossover from after to before the power amplification stage, where it's cheaper and easier to implement in good quality. In addition, signal/power loss via line level connection is also less than via speaker cables.

Nevertheless, I wouldn't consider going active for myself, as I already own too many receivers, integrated amps and pre-/power-amp combos and mostly use headphones anyway - so at least normal active speakers aren't really interesting for me. But if I would use speakers more frequently and hence could justify a higher budget for these, I'd surely consider some models of the more special and rarer kind of active speakers, namely the servo controlled ones.

Only that kind fully derserves the name active speaker for my taste, as these models use sensors to include the actual motion of the speaker membranes into the feedback chain: The precision and slacklessness some manufacturs achieve with such servo controlled active speakers is quite astounding - especially in the bass, where it also seems to have a very positive effect on extension. So if you ever happen to see a dealer having, for example, a pair of Backes & Müller BM4s in the showroom, give 'em a listen. I've heard some of their larger models years ago (a former neighbour had an excellent Revox system combined with BM12s, and a couple of years later I heard another pair B&Ms in a recording studio control room), and still remember the sound...

So, yes, if your system and usage allows going active, definitely go and listen to some more models. If you have one of those big markets for musicians' stuff in your area, you'll most probably find quite a good choice of active models in all kinds of sizes (i.e. near-field, mid-field and main monitors) there. The choice of active speakers (except active subwoofers) in most hifi shops usally is rather ridiculous in comparision (with a strong trend towards 0... )

Greetings from Munich!

Manfred / lini

[rowuk]

High quality active speakers take away all of the voodoo of speaker wire and force the sound concept of the designer on your listening situation!
I consider this a good thing, because the companies building that stuff generally have a good idea of what to do! You are SOL (Shit Out of Luck) if you prefer valves though.

I heard some PMC active speakers recently worth about 1000 quid. They knocked my socks off. My second son has a set of Adam active studio monitors (about EUR 600 for the pair) that have so much detail, it sounds surreal! The B&Ms that Manfred mentioned or the big Genelecs that are often found in recording studios also demonstrate the quality possible.

This concept is definitely worth investigating if you are someone more interested in the audio experience instead of the path to get there!

A good quality shielded audio interconnect is not much smaller than speaker wire so you haven't gained much in making your setup disappear!!!!!!!!

[rickcr42]

upside-you KNOW the amp and speakers will have good synergy being from the same manufacturer and designed as a "system" plus there will be a cost savings componant due to a full 50% of any electronics device cost usually being the hardware (chassis-the rest is 30% power supply.10% audio circuitry ) so having the amps built in saves cash

downside-you have to throw the baby out with the bath water if you decide you want different speakers or a different amp so if you are one that is never happy,the type to always be changing the system probably not the best choice.....