So what about powered Speakers?

@williewonka  After putting together what for me is my 'final' system (ATC 50ASL + Grimm MU2) I had decided to just focus on listening to music without any more changes to gear with the exception of room treatment which I intend to do at some point when I can convince the wife. I do appreciate your feedback on the cables, I will revisit this when I will undoubtedly decide to tinker with the system some time in the future 😅

 

@curiousjim - RE:

 With separates, you can mix and match to hopefully get the sound you want

The emphasis being on "Hopefully" 

Mixing and matching can take the better part of one’s lifeftime, especially once you introduce cables into the mix.

E.G. I’m 73 and in the last 15 years I have experimented with my own cable designs that incorporated better materials and designs like

• the improved conductivity of OCC copper and OCC silver, resulting in faster dynamic performance
• types of insulation ranging from PVC, Teflon, Foamed Teflon, cotton and what I refer to as "Air" i.e. which was as close as I could get with the resources on hand
  • all of which improved clarity and articulation
• Various cable geometries like twisted pair, braiding and finally the DIY Helix design. 
  • The DIY Helix cable geometry, refines the imaging capabilities of a system that results in a more believable sound stage with more space around the performers and better venue acoustics
• Improved Connector designs - which to my surprise actually made quite a discernable improvement in details in some cases.

My point being - cables play a significant role in the performance of every system, so eliminating the speaker cables from the mix should get audiophiles closer to a more desirable system much faster.

Also during that time I have applied a few component upgrades, like

• phono stage
• Streaming devices
• integrated amps

All this finally resulted in a system that pleased my ears.

But once I got the cables sorted I realized that when introdued into my system with the improved cabling, many of todays "budget" componnents actually performed significantly better than thier price point would suggest.

I started reading about Powered speakers and figured that eliminating the speaker cables just might provide some benefit. After all, many people on these forums promote placing the power amp as close to the speaker as possible in order to make the speaker cables as short s possible.

Short seaker cables allow you to use the very best materials because you only need a small length and thet are much easier for a DIYer to fabricate. 

No speaker cables (i.e. effectively, inside a powered speaker) must make even more of an improvement - I believe.

As @phusis stated

Going by the OP’s subject however, i.e.: bundled active speakers, imagine finding the "balls to the wall" active filter-amp-speaker (and possibly DAC in addition) system that suits your ears and dreams and that has the benefit of providing for a much improved amp-to-driver interface, and then forget about it and start concentrating on improving everything around it from the basis of a much more resolving and transparent (active) speaker system with a major bottleneck less to deal with.

And this was what surprised me the most on trying the active speakers!

• The active speakers I have tried are what I consider "budget models", but they came very close to providing a level of control and  articulation over the drivers in the box, that had taken me over 15 years of cable design and development, together with component tweaking to achieve.

 So rather that waste time an effort looking for the perfect speaker cable, take a look at (or a listen to) powered speakers.

But make sure each speaker has an amplifier in the cabinet...

• Some of the more budget oriented speakers only have the amplification in one speaker with an umbilical cable to the other speaker
• These by design, cannot possibly perform to audiophile levels because the umbilical cable from one speaker to the other will introduce artifacts into the signal it carries, that will interfere with image/sound stage.
  • The umbilical is generally not the best cable implementation either

 OK - so I am not suggesting that powered speakers are the only route to "Audio Eden".

• But some very "BIG NAMES" are adopting this design approach
• So they are becoming a very real option in the industry
• And I believe are definitely worth considering

Regards - Steve.

@williewonka 

I totally understand different strokes for different folks.  For example, my brother is 100% happy with the sound that comes out of his IPhone 11. I have only heard smaller systems like from KEF and I really did not like what I heard and I have never heard $200K an all in one system. I’m sure they will sell well.  It’s just not for me. 
 

BTW, you are three years older and three years wiser than me. 😊

Thanks to everyone that has posted links to various powered speaker brands and models.

This thread could become a valuable resource for those that may be considering a Powered Speaker approach.

Keep the links coming

Cheers - Steve