invaderzim
Senior Member
He mentions not being able to pick your own amp as a negative but to me I see with quality active speakers it being a good thing that the manufacture gets to pair the speakers with the best amp setup for them. That way they don't end up with someone driving their speakers with an amp that really isn't a good match and complaining about the end result.
But all these arguments are likely purposeless because he refers to active speakers not being for audiophiles and I think his definition of an audiophile is different from just being someone that enjoys good audio. From what I've seen the 'true' audiophile seems threatened by anything that makes audio more easily accessible to the masses. For them you can't just go into a store, buy one thing and listen to music on it and enjoy it. You have to earn the right to call yourself an audiophile and have a list of everything that went into making your system high quality.
I also see active speakers as a threat to the review business. If you buy one thing and are done then there is no reason to read or watch reviews of all the individual components and to keep buying the latest piece that the reviewers are raving about.
The one issue that he mentions that I can see is the electronics inside becoming dated or breaking and not being repairable over a shorter time. Speakers can be used for decades (typically with a simple electrolytic capacitor replacement somewhere in there) while sources like DACs do not age as well. Heck, we have sources for audio that weren't even dreamed of back when I bought my speakers that I'm still using. So who knows what there will be in another 30 years.
Whereas if you buy a really good quality $1000-$3000 amp and really good $1000-$3000 speakers now you could likely keep those until you die and just replace the streaming/dac hardware when needed due to changes/improvements.
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