I’m a recording engineer so I have spent many hours listening to active nearfield monitors. For work I have definite preferences. We’ve been working for 15 years to improve the monitoring in our studio, and it’s pretty good now.
But the only set of studio monitors that I would ever consider listening to for enjoyment were a set of passive Quested nearfields (the H108). To my ear these sound much sweeter than their active biamped cousins. I have no idea why, just an observation.
Right now I have a pair of KRK VXT 108, which are mid-level monitors. They are kind of a “get the job done” monitor. The cabinet is massive, weirdly shaped, and made of some kind of synthetic material. It is very inert, and I perceive little sense of any “box” sound.
These are highly engineered speakers, neutrally voiced, and relatively transparent. I can work on them, but I can’t stand to listen to them for enjoyment.
For pleasure listening I prefer vintage designs, with passive crossovers. (By default). I have several pairs of ADS that I listen to regularly.
What I find with these vintage designs is that they are far more “colored”, often the resonance of the cabinet is clearly part of the sound. Also I often don’t think they are voiced as well as they could be, so I’m thinking about ways I could tweak this with active crossovers or modifications.
The biggest issue I have with these older speakers is they often have irritating resonances in their frequency response. I’ve been experimenting with digital EQ (running on a laptop) and tuning them by ear. The improvements are huge.
To my ear, speakers have become “over engineered”. The frequency response is much smoother and controlled, but they don’t “sound good” to me. But I have far more experience with older speakers. (Speakers that are my age, heh heh, I think my nostalgia influences my preferences pretty heavily.)
As an example, I have a pair of B&W DM12 bookshelves. These are really nice to listen to, but they have a “tubby” low end. So knocking down the low mids cleans them up nicely.
I’ve compared to the entry level B&W bookshelves of today, and I’m appalled. (601, 602). They are simply unlistenable, I would not listen even if given them for free. It’s bizarre.
My provisional theory as too what is going on is that the new speakers are engineered to meet certain specifications, which is actually possible with new technology. In the “old days” I suspect much more of the design was done “by ear.” This led more naturally to speakers that made the necessary compromises in a more euphonious manner.
Another example that blew my mind were the KEF Q150s. These got a lot of positive reviews, topping lists of budget bookshelves. When they went on sale recently, I bought a pair just to hear what they sounded like. They sound awful. They do have a reasonablely controlled sound. But the highs are harsh, the low end had a “one note” quality from the port. The sound was sort of balance and “nice” but neither hear nor there.
In any case, the notion of “accuracy” in a speaker designed for fun listening is dubious. IMO accuracy only makes sense for recordings of acoustic instruments, that are relatively simple. (Not multi mic).
If you like any kind of classic rock, pop, world, RnB, from about the 60s to 2000, anything that is recorded with multitrack devices, that uses processing to create effects and change the sound, the only thing that would give you a starting point for an accurate reproduction would be a pair of the same monitors that the recording was mixed on. For those years, that meant primarily wooden boxes with drivers, and a mix of active and passive crossovers.
I was at the Best Buy a while back, and they had a set of Martin Logan electrostatic speaker’s with built in subs, driven by some pretty nice MacIntosh gear. An classic Elton John track came on and it sounded ridiculous. The instruments were kind of floating in the air in positions that made no sense, and the mix was basically incoherent. I don’t know much about those speakers, but they are very pricey.
The quest goes on!