Simple Price to Performance (Cost Per Preference Point) Table based on MZKM Preference Source Data

[stevenswall]

Not sure how much effort it takes, but maybe a fairer comparison would be a table for active and another for passive?

The original data is now linked in the original post and it includes passive and active. I just divided the price by the points.

 

[HooStat]

The list is very instructive. There are a few confounding factors -- some speakers have amps, DACs, or DSP, some are manufactured in higher cost countries, and some are produced far away (i.e., increased cost of transportation and duties). I suspect that the gradient is lower when these things are taken into consideration.

 

[stevenswall]

Interesting, but it's a house of cards. Assumptions built upon assumptions then charted. The connection with reality is too tenuous.

Interesting assumption about the connection.

 

[stevenswall]

That's not a spinorama. Given your long ramblings on the 705P thread and elsewhere, strong insistence on superior 8260 measurements to everything else, and unwillingness to send your speakers in for measurements, my conclusion is that you're just trolling.

Started a thread if you're interested:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...p-ship-a-genelec-8260-to-amirm-150-430.13539/

 

[beefkabob]

Interesting assumption about the connection.

Wordplay instead of actual discussion? Shame.

 

[boniek]

To be fair you can't compare active speakers to passive ones. Passives need amp and dac to be cost-equivalent. Either add/substract some assumed cost for these components to compare speakers all together or make two separate categories.

 

[stevenswall]

To be fair you can't compare active speakers to passive ones. Passives need amp and dac to be cost-equivalent. Either add/substract some assumed cost for these components to compare speakers all together or make two separate categories.

I'm just dividing one thing by another, but that would be nice to have some additional price tacked on. I just use a $100 amp with my passive speakers. Maybe there's a decent amp that has digital inputs that isn't too expensive. The crazy high end stuff seems like overkill since amps are much more transparent than speakers looking at frequency response and distortion.

 

[richard12511]

To be fair you can't compare active speakers to passive ones. Passives need amp and dac to be cost-equivalent. Either add/substract some assumed cost for these components to compare speakers all together or make two separate categories.

It depends. I've actually recommended passives for friends with a really small budget, as actives would have been considerably more expensive to set up in their situation. A lot of "non pro" audiophiles have a $300 AVR they can use to power their passives for free, essentially, but they don't have anyway to get an active system up and running without spending extra money.

 

[maverickronin]

It depends. I've actually recommended passives for friends with a really small budget, as actives would have been considerably more expensive to set up in their situation. A lot of "non pro" audiophiles have a $300 AVR they can use to power their passives for free, essentially, but they don't have anyway to get an active system up and running without spending extra money.

And in a lot of areas you can pick up an AVR or stereo receiver at a thrift store for dirt cheap too.

 

[boniek]

It depends. I've actually recommended passives for friends with a really small budget, as actives would have been considerably more expensive to set up in their situation. A lot of "non pro" audiophiles have a $300 AVR they can use to power their passives for free, essentially, but they don't have anyway to get an active system up and running without spending extra money.

There are cheap actives too (many pro models, swans, who knows what else). Still doesn't change the fact, that what I wrote is true.

 

[richard12511]

There are cheap actives too (many pro models, swans, who knows what else). Still doesn't change the fact, that what I wrote is true.

It wasn't so much the cost of the active speakers themselves, it was the cost of getting them set up in a typical living room running multiple sources. They already had a cheap AVR lying around, so all they needed to buy was a couple speaker cables for a few $. AVRs with preouts are considerably more expensive(like $1,000 more, here), and good audio interfaces with the connectivity and features of a cheap AVR(room correction, bass management, network connectivity, support for various surround formats, airplay/spotify/tidal support) are also pricey.

If you already have a good audio interface, or a nice AVR with preouts, then yeah, actives are cheaper(since you get the amp for free), but I'd bet that for quite a few folks out there, actives are actually more expensive, as the cost of connectivity is higher than the cost of a cheap AVR(with an amp built in).

Due to this, I think adding a built in cost for amplification would make the list worse.

 

[boniek]

It wasn't so much the cost of the active speakers themselves, it was the cost of getting them set up in a typical living room running multiple sources. They already had a cheap AVR lying around, so all they needed to buy was a couple speaker cables for a few $. AVRs with preouts are considerably more expensive(like $1,000 more, here), and good audio interfaces with the connectivity and features of a cheap AVR(room correction, bass management) are also pricey.

If you already have a good audio interface, or a nice AVR with preouts, then yeah, actives are cheaper(since you get the amp for free), but I'd bet that for quite a few folks out there, actives are actually more expensive, as the cost of connectivity is higher than the cost of a cheap AVR(with an amp built in).

Due to this, I think adding a built in cost for amplification would make the list worse.

I don't think assuming anything about buyer and what they want is fair. Not everybody has AVR. Not everybody wants AVR (for example for computer speakers, speakers in kitchen or bedroom, or who knows what else). Sometimes necessity of buying AMP/DAC (or AVR) changes what is good deal considerably not only in low end but high end also.
If making lists separate would be less controversial I'm all for it. As it is this list simply ignores very important cost factor.

 

[stevenswall]

I don't think assuming anything about buyer and what they want is fair. Not everybody has AVR. Not everybody wants AVR (for example for computer speakers, speakers in kitchen or bedroom, or who knows what else). Sometimes necessity of buying AMP/DAC (or AVR) changes what is good deal considerably not only in low end but high end also.
If making lists separate would be less controversial I'm all for it. As it is this list simply ignores very important cost factor.

Separate lists can be made using the source data in the original post. Simply copy the data into excel, separate passive speakers onto another sheet, and divide the cost by the score, not controversial in the least to separate categories of data. As far as data that isn't included, that approaches an infinite amount, any anyone is free to add whatever data they wish to their version.

Update: My list is likely outdated now if anyone is making purchase decisions on the low end using the ranking:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/affordable-accuracy-monitor-review.13624/

 

[richard12511]

I don't think assuming anything about buyer and what they want is fair. Not everybody has AVR. Not everybody wants AVR (for example for computer speakers, speakers in kitchen or bedroom, or who knows what else). Sometimes necessity of buying AMP/DAC (or AVR) changes what is good deal considerably not only in low end but high end also.
If making lists separate would be less controversial I'm all for it. As it is this list simply ignores very important cost factor.

Likewise, not everyone has an audio interface or AVR with preouts

My point is that which is cheaper between active or passive depends on the user and his/her use case, so building in an advantage for one or the other doesn't really make sense. Better to just list it as active or passive, then let the user consider his/her personal use case.

For example, actives are cheaper for my office as I'd need to buy another AVR($300) to hook up passives, and the only connection I need is to my laptop, and I already have an audio interface. Does it make sense to tack on $300 to every passive speaker in the list because of that? No, because it depends on the situation. It would make just as much sense to tack on $1,500 to every active because I'd need to buy another AVR with preouts to get the functionality I need with actives in my bedroom system.

 

[edechamps]

It wasn't so much the cost of the active speakers themselves, it was the cost of getting them set up in a typical living room running multiple sources. They already had a cheap AVR lying around, so all they needed to buy was a couple speaker cables for a few $. AVRs with preouts are considerably more expensive(like $1,000 more, here), and good audio interfaces with the connectivity and features of a cheap AVR(room correction, bass management, network connectivity, support for various surround formats, airplay/spotify/tidal support) are also pricey.

I have a number of friends who worked around this problem by connecting their active speakers (mostly JBL 305/308) to the amplified outputs of a cheap AVR. Which seems completely bonkers at first glance, but it does work quite well and they've been using that setup every day for years now. From a purely electrical perspective there's nothing egregiously wrong with that solution, I think. Of course, one has to be careful not to accidentally set the AVR volume too high, under penalty of the active speaker input stage blowing up in smoke Some AVRs have volume limiters to help with that, and so far the JBLs have proven to be quite resilient to input voltage abuse.

A cleaner solution could be to open up the AVR, figure out where the internal amp input (line outputs) is, and piggy-back on that. That's actually quite doable for old AVRs that still have service manuals with full schematics, but I think it's harder to do that on newer models.

 

[richard12511]

I have a number of friends who worked around this problem by connecting their active speakers (mostly JBL 305/308) to the amplified outputs of a cheap AVR. Which seems completely bonkers at first glance, but it does work quite well and they've been using that setup every day for years now. From a purely electrical perspective there's nothing egregiously wrong with that solution, I think. Of course, one has to be careful not to accidentally set the AVR volume too high, under penalty of the active speaker input stage blowing up in smoke Some AVRs have volume limiters to help with that, and so far the JBLs have proven to be quite resilient to input voltage abuse.

A cleaner solution could be to open up the AVR, figure out where the internal amp input (line outputs) is, and piggy-back on that. That's actually quite doable for old AVRs that still have service manuals with full schematics, but I think it's harder to do that on newer models.

That's really clever. I've never tried something like that, but I don't see any reason why it shouldn't work. Just have to be careful.