Why are hi-end active monitors not more popular?

Tuffgong,

Nice description. I agree with you that this kind of sound is not for everyone. I only recommend these kind of studio active designs for those who profess to want accuracy and faithful reproduction of the source. Of course, most people believe that this is what they want and your point about increased frustration over badly mastered recordings is one of the reasons "laid back sound"is actually a better choice for many (actually they are really looking for something that makes as much of their music collection sound sweet, warm and nice....syrup and no fatigue)

Just to clarify somones post earlier, the pmc aml1 uses a 3B ST driving the woofer, a 2B ST to drive the tweeter, and a modified 10B providing driver integration. The amp/crossover module is custom made in England. This is not like their lower grade 'actives' that are indeed not active as stated and use a flying mole attached to them, and suffer all the problems an active is supposed to avoid. The pmc aml1 is not two bryston powerpac's slapped onto the back, which would be the next step up from flying mole, and much more preferable since the powerpac is a great a/b amp. The aml1 has a unique heatsink that takes up the entire back, with a hollow center for a chimney effect so they never get very hot. The aml1 has the amazing and huge 32mm soft dome made by audax, which is used in their MB1 and BB5 speakers that are amazingly expensive, and a smaller version of the carbon fiber/nomex woofer used in the IB1, with a 5.7 ft. transmission line packed into the tiny aml1. The woofer is incredibly stiff, very limited range and completely flat sounding (I am sold on transmission line speakers for life now). The aml1 compensates by using a tweeter that is crossed over at 1.4kz, is very large and very expensive. This tweeter is the reason people will tell you this speaker is bright, and indeed I use the hf at -5db to compensate, but I think it is super accurate, beyond compare. If it is a great recording I will creep the hf to -2.5db, but at close range, for home listening, there is just too many artifacts that show up in the tweeter. That's just because it is too well made, most tweeters are not this amazing. I noticed a fugly blue aml1 sold as a single for 1k recently, they are out there, just spraypaint the blue ones and get them twice as cheap. Also there is a pair of active paradigm reference 20's on audiogon right now, try out the o.g. active speaker for under 1k, probably the cheapest real active speaker out there right now, with the crossovers before the amp. Cheers.

Can we all agree at this point that active design is superior to passive all things being equal.

It seems to me that this would be very tough to argue.