active speakers, Paradise? Trouble in paradise?

I also own a Pair of Fully active speakers. They are called Rushmores , by Pass Labs. Truly Paradise.

Ecruz

Having seen the price for the big ACTS.. I should think being impressed ought to happen when first demoed.

I get the imp from many such reviews, save those on the Quad and Adam monitors, some self powered units have stupendous atack capabilities.

Your note on the presentation not being piercing or painful, is helpful. The big ACTS though, or the big Meridians, etc. are way beyond this campers campfire.

I too heard a pretty nice setup last night.. ML Sumits, Esoteric player, powered by Pass Labs, top pre, and a pr of xa 160.5, and 'The One' cabling. Well treated... maybe too well, but in all a very nice setting, sound,and great gear.... and again, that ain't happening for me without a mask and a gun, or getting all six numbers exactly ringht some weekend.

Thanks for the thoughts.

Shadorne

Thanks for the insights. That list should help a lot to further a gbit of leg work.

I've thought about these for a while... active units that is... and felt they had just loads of obstacles to contend with in order to recreate what non active speakers do... but it would appear their makers ahve figured out how to overcome these barriers.

It's an interesting proposal... I suspect too these reproducers are not difficut to remove the active parts if there is any failure?

...and it seems to me to stand to reason , the active speakers like electrostats get plugged into AC current too.

With a tight budget, KRK VXT8 are amazing active speakers for under 1200/pr. It gives active-newbies a slight taste of what full fledge active speaker system can do.

Active x/o actually solves loads of problems. What's the logic (or benefit) of taking the amplified signal and dumping it into yet another circuit? Passive is for the plug-n-play crowd.

Blindjim, I can appreciate that you're always asking questions, always seeking new angles on the audio game. It's that kind of curiosity which leads to some great breakthroughs.

I also wondered just what the difference would be between active and passive crossovers, so I conducted an informal experiment to find out for myself. The results were overwhelmingly in favor of active x-over to a degree I did not expect. I now use the speaker - you'll see the setup and test criteria in the review - in active mode for reviewing; it's that much superior to passive x-over mode.

When you read the article you will find that I am not yet a fan of active amplification; I find that I prefer to have complete flexibility in matching the amp to the rest of the system. This is especially so with Class D amps. I requested Legacy Audio not put the Icepower amps in the speaker but that it use all outboard amplification, a decision which imo took the speaker to a much higher level of performance. The influence of outboard x-over design is pervasive and powerful on the speakers.

http://dagogo.com/View-Article.asp?hArticle=816