Why are we so passive?

There is nothing wrong with passive. You can get very good sound from passive speakers. Although active speakers often sound better where both options are available and direct comparisons can be made.

Active speakers allow for a greater degree of precise driver integration. They eliminate loss of power in passive crossovers, and they dramatically reduce IM distortion from one amp powering several speaker drivers. However, you get what the designer has intended and this is certainly a limitation for those who like to fiddle.

Active is generally well accepted in recording studios where ultra high fidelity and translatable consistent sound is demanded, with looks being much less relevant. Listeners at a studio are in the know about music and have a job to do and prefer a reference sound to "sugar-coating"; if they are to be impressed then it is the actual sound that will carry the day not the "look". The locaton is also an "industrial work" setting with gear expected to last many years. In the past, monitor consistency and match with other studio gear was so poor that engineers did not trust their work until they had tested the mix on a variety of cheaper home audio type speakers. Today that happens much less often, as active speakers have created very reliable and consistent high quality sound.

Audiophiles also care about the sound but often balance these requirements with how things look, as, after all, it is a domestic environment. They may want their susbstantial investment to be visibly self evident too, even to casual non-audiophile observers. They also like some individuality to their setup with a tweak towards their tastes (accuracy is second to a tailored sound for maximum personal enjoyment). Like a sports car with go faster wheel hubs and other largely symbolic styling, such as aerofoils and stripes and things that identify newer versus older models; the look in a domestic setting is relatively important to most audiophiles.

So the absence of a big chrome monster power amp or an array of glowing tubes is, IMHO, a significant drawback of active speakers to most audiophiles.

Furthermore active speakers, being work horses, mostly tend to be big ugly, boxy and extremely heavy ....rather than tall narrow and elegant. Big, boxy and ugly being the requirements of good sound quality - especially if accurate bass reproduction is desired.

Given the restrictions, however, I suspect that a another significant advantage of a high end active speaker is that the sound has often been lab tested to be as close as possible to neutral, natural and transparent; therefore active speakers are generally less likely to fatigue a listener after several months and cause "upgradeitus". Although,like passive speakers, active speakers will still suffer heavily according to the quality of room acoustics (room acoustcs being probably the most common reason people remain frustrated and keep changing gear).

Really? alot of musicians don't know crap about good sound. Just look at all the photos of "artists" with the Yamaha NS-10's in the background... yeah like that's some kind of "reference"

Funny you should mention these. The NS-10's have almost a cult following. In the past, studio monitors were not reliably accurate...they were impressive but differed from studio to studio significantly...nobody could trust their mix and so the legend of the NS-10 was born. These very cheap crappy speakers simulate what most consumers have at home. In the past audio engineers relied on the NS-10's to check that their mix would translate well to a home audio system (i.e. for example it wouldn't blow up the speaker with too much LF or it would sound ok when played loud where most consumers speakers start to compress). This need became so prevalent (the problem of mix translating to cheap consumer gear) that some people just mixed or mastered straight to NS-10's.

As I mentioned, active speakers have largely caused the industry to converge on a much more accurate and consistent lab tested sound (for sure studio speakers still sound a little different from model to model but much less so than in the past). This has largely negated the need for NS-10's to test a mix.

Therefore, I don't think the NS-10 implies musicians know crap about sound - it was just a tool that worked well. After all musicians want their sound to translate as well as possible and compete with what else is out there. (Lately this has led to "CD loudness wars", which is a whole other topic where there is intentional destruction of sound quality by artists and producers)

I do agree with you that musicians are like the rest of us and there are varying degrees as to how much they care about sound. For example, INXS were so fanatical about sound that they had their own studio, Rhinocerous Sydney. Mark Knopfler, David Gilmour and several others are the same. Of course, having the luxury of your own high end studio means that you have already made it big, as a musician. Recently PC's and software are making home studios much more affordable and democratizing music production a little, for example Creed's big hit album was produced for only a few thousand dollars. However, high quality production is still pretty expensive and requires expertise and most musicians still rent everything and pay by the hour for experts.

{Genelec Actives} Do they compare with my Cerious Ceramic speakers and Atma-sphere OTL tube amps? No.

I bet they don't. Two very different sounds. Both are good but serve a different purpose. Active speakers are definitely not for everyone.

Undertow has added some good points. For example, an active speaker allows the designer to control phase more precisely. Actives have less compromise than passive crossovers; less trade offs in power loss on passive elements, keeping phase changes minimal whilst balancing frequency response (the kind of issues that make some people swear by single drivers...although a single driver has trade offs too....but that is another story).

Lush,

I am glad to see a consumer brand embracing active speakers...until now it has been only computer speakers and pro gear where you find active speakers (pros began to embrace active speakers about 20 years ago...)

As Meridian correctly states they have a lot of technical advantages....which may or may not be enough to conquer the consumer market. Time will tell...perhaps the already wide acceptance of active subwoofers among consumers is the"Trojan horse".

both a lover of chamber music and a heavy metal fan in one design it would have been achieved by now.

Good point. The desired tailored coloration of many audiophiles means that "foolproof" active speakers are unattractive in many cases.

However, funnily enough, Michael Bishop at Telarc (well respected classical audiophile recording label) and ACDC (no introduction necessary) both agree on the same active speakers. So it might be possible to make a design that satisfies both camps.

it's an inflexible approach, regardless of the technical justification.

True. It is certainly not popular with anyone looking to tailor the sound in a specific manner. Definitely a good reason why it may never get traction with audiophiles despite all the technical advantages.