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

@erik_squires - what time mark in the video. I looked at a few plots on another video and noted strange off axis.

@thespeakerdude Sorry my friend, I don’t care enough about this video to go looking again. If I assume he’s using the same differences Stereophile uses in charting off-axis response then his plots make a lot more sense.

The dip at the crossover region in the vertical plots is quite common, though I seem to remember a Tekton stand mount with absolutely horrible vertical response plots.   If anyone is interested in comparing vertical FR with different speakers.

@erik_squires it seems odd to me that speakers don't do frequency plots like microphone plots showing off axis coloration at different frequencies. The importance is just the same, with microphones generally the longer the polar pattern the poorer the off axis colorations are and that is very important to the overall sound depending on the acoustics of the room and where there are other off axis noises. It is the same for speakers poor off axis coloration that bounces off a wall is just the same as a microphone that hears poorly from the side. 

@erik_squires I feel the same about the video :-).  If it's the dip I think you mean that is likely just the stacked two way dip.

it seems odd to me that speakers don’t do frequency plots like microphone plots showing off axis coloration at different frequencies.

Meh. How many cars do you see sold with rpm/torque curves?  These aren't lab instruments sold to post-doc researchers.