Powered speakers show audiophiles are confused


17 of 23 speakers in my studio and home theater systems are internally powered. My studio system is all Genelec and sounds very accurate. I know the best new concert and studio speakers are internally powered there are great technical reasons to design a speaker and an amp synergistically, this concept is much more important to sound quality than the vibration systems we often buy. How can an audiophile justify a vibration system of any sort with this in mind.

128x128donavabdear
fisher_400 The principle is the amplifier and speaker should match in a very intimate way. If the amplifier designer has no idea what speaker is eventually going to be used for the music I would say that designer is throwing darts. I don't think this is controversial at all, I would say that an amp doesn't have to be designed for the speaker inside the cabinet of the speaker its self but for the system to be it's best the speaker and amp must be designed for each other. Who could disagree with this idea if the speaker has 5 drivers 2 drivers and the crossovers are passive, active or hybrid the amplifier may not be able to be all that it needs to be for that speaker, amps designed for LF are different than amps designed for HF. I actually never got to my planned point in this discussion because so many people couldn't even understand the obvious premise of the starting point. It's been a little frustrating. Also Im not talking about cheap D amps stuffed into any old speaker I'm talking about best practices.

 

Well said Donavabdear!  
Does anyone, even the most passionate Audiophile, think the amp is more important to the end sound than the transducers?  

Brad

@lonemountain

I was posting about specs and @brianlucey made an astute observation about cohesion needed in atmos. I was saying how a benefit of active is making the amp/speaker chain more cohesive. A consumer doesn’t need to reinvent anything re: speaker/amp/cable matching when you go active and place them by just follow the dolby specs. I posted roughly 4 setups using the same specs the OP and I use earlier in this thread and then I see another SOA setup using those specs and an active speaker I am sure is near and dear to your heart. Any comments about Blackbird Studio C you would like to share?

 

Another ridiculous trolling argument. Of course it is possible for an all in one speaker to sound as good as some speakers with a separate amp. Can an integrated amp sound better than a separate preamp and amp separates? Sure, although typically within a give manufacturer, the separates will be higher end/better sounding and more $$.

If some company theoretically sold separate amps and speakers, I would be willing to bet that the non-integrated option would sound better and cost more.

For some people the convenience outweighs sound quality. An iPhone is an integrated system....

I want my system to do what I want it to do not some engineer wants it to do. I have been using digital signal processing since the late 90s and having experimented with hundreds of target curves. I know exactly what I want my system do to. 

The masses have always favored simple all in one systems. KLH made it's name doing that in the 60's. They were surprisingly good but I would have taken K horns and Marantz Model 9's. Not one state of the art system I have ever heard was composed of "active" components. 

Meyer? Give me a break! That is all marketing BS. Meyer is a modern day JBL. I suppose you could do worse.