Ajani said,
I think that like many other persons, you're really a fan of AVI products and not active speakers in general. I don't doubt that AVI makes great products, as they have many satisfied consumers. However, that doesn't mean that in general actives are better than passives. Yes AVI makes a lot of claims as if the problem with HiFi is the lack of active speakers, but that really is not the case. AVI products sounding good to you is not the same as active speakers sound good.
You can't just swap out KRK, Mackie, Focal, Dynaudio, Genelec, Event, M-Audio and Adam and expect them to sound the same or even similar. All of those brands have received critical and consumer acclaim for their pro-monitors, yet if you check out a pro audio forum you will see the same hifi style bickering about which one sounds great and which sounds rolled off, bright, muddy etc.
Even if all HiFi manufacturers went active, there would still be arguing on these forums about what products to buy. Persons would still want to upgrade from their Rega or Nad actives to Naim or B&W actives. People would still argue about Whether a soft dome active is better than one with a metallic tweeter.
IMO, you just need to listen to what you can and find the product that best suits your needs.
Ajani, firstly can I say that it is an absolute pleasure to debate with someone who wants to do just that. Not just snipe away and actually not contribute to the conversational at all.
I am indeed a fan of AVI because of the quality of the sound, VFM and primarily because it has cured me of tweaking and wondering/hoping/praying that nirvana is just one change of component/cable/etc/etc away. FOR ME AVI ADM 9T and now AVI ADM 40 are my audio nirvana.
As to AVI against other actives, I think I remarked earlier that, based on my experience of active AVI ownership, 40 years of passive ownership and auditioning, as well as believing the statements of manufacturers that do both and scientists that tell us that active is a superior technology; then actives in general are preferable to passives in absolute sound quality terms. Like others I am absolutely sure there are absolute dogs out there in active-land and I do not think for one moment that all actives sound the same. For a start off some have multi-position bass adjustment so they can't even sound the same within the same product.
As you say, if every manufaturer went wholly active there would be the same endless arguments about what is best. But IF this were done in a constructive way, WHICH EVEN HAPPENS HERE SOMETIMES, then for me that is a positive thing. I only came to AVI because of the exposure on this forum and knew they must be pretty good because people were being so pathetic in their unreasoned berating of people who were sharing their experience. Once again these berated people coming from plenty of experience of passive and loving a passive speaker until they heard an AVI ADM 9T.
Your concluding sentence is spot on and I entirely concur. You should indeed buy what you like, or should that be - you buy what you like and hope that you still like it at home in your listening space and in the long term?
In conclusion, I will repeat what I often have to say here. I recommend/endorse AVI because I am an owner and for me they have been a revelatory listen. I frequently state that other active speakers are available and I believe that whatever does it for someone then if they are as happy as I am then I am as happy for them as they are for themselves.
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