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Active is best according to ATC

NorthSky

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But but butt ...
 

fas42

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Yes, the reality where the more you spend, the more special the sound is - a somewhat peculiar place to visit, you won't catch me hanging around there ... ;)
 

NorthSky

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It's funny that no two sound systems sound alike. ...Active or not.
It must be the rooms, or the music recordings from different masters, or the volume levels, or the listener's set of ears, or ...

Once I had a portable active pair of speakers...AC power operated, or battery operated...very cheap. I have another pair like that (no batteries though) for the computer...very cheap again...with cheap sound. ...Plastic enclosures.

I have nil experience with hi-end active speakers. Most likely because 98% of all speakers are not active. I follow the trends, like a sheep, like cheap stuff.
 

fas42

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It's funny that no two sound systems sound alike. ...Active or not.
It must be the rooms, or the music recordings from different masters, or the volume levels, or the listener's set of ears, or ...
The sound systems. They should all sound the same, which should be the sound of the recording - it's a very simple principle, which most people seem to want to ignore ... :p.

Bob, to date I haven't heard an active speaker, in the flesh, which does it for me - I got hold of some decent Behringers a couple of years ago, which easily bested all the name stuff many times more expensive that were around - one of those round tuits, etc ...
 

Fitzcaraldo215

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The sound systems. They should all sound the same, which should be the sound of the recording - it's a very simple principle, which most people seem to want to ignore ... :p.

Yes, nice and simple, except sound systems all should sound the same, but they don't. And, what is your secret for knowing what the "sound of the recording" actually is?
 

fas42

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Part of it is that the speakers completely disappear as an apparent source of sound; as I mentioned in another post, any distortion contributed by the system has no acoustic associated with it, so it doesn't exist in the perceived space of the recording environment. And, part of it is listening to the same recording on multiple systems, mainly my own - all the common elements of the sound heard on all those occasions will be part of the "sound of the recording", and as I improve the accuracy of my systems, however they're made up, more and more of the intrinsic sound comes through - I hear more and more of the signature qualities of the recording.

Many times I try one of my test CDs on an ambitious, unknown setup - and I could be listening to a totally unknown recording! The tonality is completely skew-whiff, the acoustic of the event is almost completely lost, large slabs of detail are missing, there's a sameness about the tone of all the instruments making up the mix ... somehow, I don't think the latter is being "more true" in revealing the recording ...
 

Fitzcaraldo215

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In other words, it is all in your head and it is sensed where your head meets the seat of your pants. Actually, your head is stuffed into the orifice located in that vicinity.
 

Thomas savage

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In other words, it is all in your head and it is sensed where your head meets the seat of your pants. Actually, your head is stuffed into the orifice located in that vicinity.
That can be a most agreeable past time, you should try it Carl before dismissing out of hand :D it's a great way to defeat slap echo too;)
 

Sal1950

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That can be a most agreeable past time, you should try it Carl before dismissing out of hand :D it's a great way to defeat slap echo too;)
There's sumtin serious wrong with you dude. :eek:
 

NorthSky

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I was a subscriber to Widescreen Review for many many years, and since the very beginning.
I still have all those mags, and in one of them there is an extensive article on ATC speakers and their main founder/creator/designer.
Their drivers are very good, their speakers are also used by professional mixing/recording engineers in some of the best world's recording studios (active) and by audiophiles/music lovers looking for accuracy and coherency and musicality of the highest caliber.

There is nothing attractive by their designs, same as JBL speakers; the essence is put where it counts...the sound quality and on and off axis response.
I could search for that article if someone is interested, but it's an older article and I just don't know how much improved they are today.
Needless to say that I espouse their philosophy and further developments into active speakers for the masses and the audiophile community @ large...worldwide.

Even the BeoLab 90 is an active speaker plus with unique features to adapt with the room in which it will settle.
That, is sound development, and Harmon Kardon (Floyd O'Toole) has been talking about it for the last "thousand" years.
A speaker possessing its own internal amplification and acoustic room correction/equalization is no doubt in my mind the right way of listening to music from music recordings and multichannel movie soundtracks. Each speaker positioning in each room has its own acoustic signature, and that is the spot where it has to be fine tuned.
Having its own internal amplification and adaptive room EQ simplifies that process with better precision and less speaker wires to hide.

There are several schools of music reproduction, and several setups; from a recording studio to a hi-fi stereo chain and to a full surround sound system.
Since 1930 with mono systems to 2016 setups, from 78's spinners to hi-res multichannel music/movie servers of the 2010s, a lot of progress has been made into the supra music listening experience. I wish more active speakers today would comprise the bulk of the speaker manufacturing industry.

And with computer technology I don't see why speaker designers wouldn't want to use them.
Active crossovers are the dynamics of sound reproduction today in the year 2016. That's the evolution of the best program.

That is only my opinion of course, and I didn't quote the audio bible written by Alphonsus the great audio guru/scientist from the Egyptian city of Mordor, where they first designed the great pyramids. ...Just a way of speech. :)

* It's a beautiful blue day here on this beautiful blue planet. And the Rio games are getting more and more exciting by the day.
 

Sal1950

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watchnerd

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There just is not the market there to inspire the huge change in approach and huge investment it would take for these companies to establish a 'audiophile active'

I would say that KEF, Dynaudio, and ELAC would disagree with you given all the active speakers they've launched / are launching.
 

watchnerd

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Audiophiles still don't like actives!

There might be a market in the younger end of the scale..

I would say that's true of older audiophiles, and Dynaudio said as much, as well, when someone asked if they would be making active versions of the new Contour series; the answer was "no", because old-skool audiophiles want to mix and match components.

However, there is a new generation of audio enthusiasts with disposable incomes who are the exact opposite -- they're streaming-native and want an upgrade path from Sonos.
 

Thomas savage

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I would say that's true of older audiophiles, and Dynaudio said as much, as well, when someone asked if they would be making active versions of the new Contour series; the answer was "no", because old-skool audiophiles want to mix and match components.

However, there is a new generation of audio enthusiasts with disposable incomes who are the exact opposite -- they're streaming-native and want an upgrade path from Sonos.
I agree..
 

Cosmik

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I would say that's true of older audiophiles, and Dynaudio said as much, as well, when someone asked if they would be making active versions of the new Contour series; the answer was "no", because old-skool audiophiles want to mix and match components.
But I could easily conceive of allowing mixing and matching with active speakers to an even greater extent than ye traditional system - it's something I've done myself.

I think the real reason people shun active speakers is a question of image - they don't like the very idea of how they work and the resemblance to 'professional' audio systems. If you try to "imagine the sound of..." a particular component (and we all do..?) then active speakers are just going to sound terrible. Except they don't, in my experience.
 
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