WHY NOT STUDIO MONITORS 4 MUZIC?

[Anonymous]

Native you can't be married, looks are very important to most of our other halves.
But sound quality is often more of an issue with us, one of the reasons I was able to get my hands on the wifes credit card. A good setup is a good setup active or passive. I do feel that active offer superior sound for a lot less money, unless you have silly money to spend. As you can see I bought Avi from my kit below.
Nick

 

[CnoEvil]

so were gettin somewhere now. So the issue here is a cosmetic problem.. Hum...

....not necessarily; Active + Beautiful = Expensive. This then means that your VFM arguement isn't as valid.

How much are those anyway?

 

[edplaysdrums42]

Indeed the ATC's to me are a thing of beauty but i'm not liking the look of those rokit things

 

[BenLaw]

just been trawling through the active speakers/monitors on ebay and i have to say most of them are pretty ugly, someone might be onto a winner if they could make a decent pair that looks great as well as sounds great (obviously avi have benefitted from doing just that)

Active and beautiful

 

[MattSPL]

so were gettin somewhere now. So the issue here is a cosmetic problem.. Hum...

....not necessarily; Active + Beautiful = Expensive. This then means that your VFM arguement isn't as valid. How much are those anyway?

About £46,000 i think

 

[CnoEvil]

so were gettin somewhere now. So the issue here is a cosmetic problem.. Hum...

....not necessarily; Active + Beautiful = Expensive. This then means that your VFM arguement isn't as valid. How much are those anyway?

About £46,000 i think

A snip. 🙂

Now if it had build in Class A, it might be of interest. 😉

 

[Anonymous]

so were gettin somewhere now. So the issue here is a cosmetic problem.. Hum...

....not necessarily; Active + Beautiful = Expensive. This then means that your VFM arguement isn't as valid. How much are those anyway?

About £46,000 i think

and of course they're way better than passive ones that cost 30 times more 😛

 

[Craig M.]

I managed to read almost all the comments on this thread!

IMO, Monitors (be it active or passive) are to give uncolored, true to the source signal out. Most often than not, many people might not like such faithful reproduction. This is good for a Sound recordist but he might not really have the same at home where he really intends to enjoy the music.

I guess, we all are trying to enjoy the music at home which I think we look for the way the music gets a slight hue which makes it more fun to listen.

this gets posted on here a lot, but i wonder. how many people have heard an accurate sound, rather than something that claims to be. there have been blind listening tests conducted by harman kardon that seem to prove that people, trained and untrained listeners, prefer an accurate sound. link. i have no idea if mine are accurate or not, they are the most natural speakers i've heard. a mile away from the clinical sort of sound i always thought active monitors would give.

 

[Craig M.]

I have never heard of any active speaker using pure class A amplification which is purer than A/B or D

You haven't seen the ATC active specs then?

as far as I know they are A/B. see specs on their web site.

they are class A upto 2/3rds of their power output.

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

I have never heard of any active speaker using pure class A amplification which is purer than A/B or D

You haven't seen the ATC active specs then?

as far as I know they are A/B. see specs on their web site.

they are class A upto 2/3rds of their power output.

yes, I know that... although I don't know how this can be possible! I checked once their actives and couldn't believe what I saw in spec sheet. for a 2-way speaker they use 50W + 200W amps. 2/3rds of that gives ~30W + ~130W. do you know how big a 100W class A amp is? to give you an idea look at MF AMS100 or Pathos Adrenalin. I surely would like to know where they hid all that power supply needed to deliver current to keep class A working... there is a reason why from a standard amp box you only get 30-40Wpc of class A where class A/B easily can deliver 100Wpc.

I wish they put on ATC's web site how much power their actives consume in iddle. that would tell a lot. but assuming that what they say about 2/3 ratio is true and assuming perfect power consumption for class A amp of 50% (normally is less down to 25%) what we are facing in terms of power usage is: (30 + 130)*2 *2speakers = 640W of power cosumption in iddle for a pair of speakers. well done! and who sais it's airplanes responsible for global warming? 🙂

 

[Craig M.]

i don't think they mean it in quite the same way, because as you say, the power consumption and size would be huge. i wonder if their statement of 2/3rds somehow relates to the sound output? some sort of logarithmic scale? i dunno, it's too late to get jiggy with google.

 

[chebby]

You can fry an egg on a 20 wpc Sugden A21.

Seems like you could roast the whole chicken on an ATC amp! (How big are the heatsinks? About a third of the Sugden A21 case consists of heat disssipating fins and that's a tiddler in comparison.)

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

However for people like me, when I could not find my desired coloration of music either in AVI or other powered speakers or even the regular amp + speakers, I kept on changing till I like it !

Just in case if any one is wondering, the desired coloration is not only individual specific but also individual specific at a particular time slice, which makes people change their system after few years and I guess we should not confuse this with upgraditis as there is only a borderline difference (and I think I am switching lanes often

)

Hi WishTree

if you get tired with your present "desired colouration" let me know about this. I'l gladly "inherit" your amp

 

[WishTree]

Hi WishTree

if you get tired with your present "desired colouration" let me know about this. I'l gladly "inherit" your amp

Gladly.. Though somehow, I have to bump you ahead as I have many requests to keep them informed, if ever I change the amp..

I am happy that my amp has some decent following in hifi enthusiasts!

 

[WishTree]

IMO, Monitors (be it active or passive) are to give uncolored, true to the source signal out. .....

this gets posted on here a lot, but i wonder. how many people have heard an accurate sound, rather than something that claims to be

Again - IMO - This is what the active / passive studio monitors intend to do. Which also means that their presentation could be different from Consumer speaker whose primary purpose must be to entertain.

If you like the sound of an active speaker, then that is the end of it.

The only challenge that I encountered with when I was trying to get an active speaker is, I am unable to tune it to my liking as the amp + speakers are tied together. However for an entusiast, if he is not too happy with active speaker's presentation then there is a huge market out there with seperate amp + speakers which has slightly more potential to fit the ear of the enthusiast.

What is natural or accurate? I guess the concert hall itseld adds a color to a live concert and same guitar played in hallway, to a room to an auditorium will differ for one another.. so what is natural or accurate?

This is for all - I guess the quest is to getting what we like rather than what we got is superior to some other system

 

[idc]

Which is best active or powered?

 

[Craig M.]

Which is best active or powered?

an active crossover has all the potential benefits, powered passives are just that - a passive crossovered speaker with an amp bolted on. that's not to say that an active speaker is always going to be better, i should imagine they are just as easy to design badly, as a passive.

makes you wonder why they are not more popular, although, a chat with a local dealer was illuminating - they new absolutely nothing about active speakers, even to the extent of not knowing what they are!

 

[Native_bon]

EDITED BY MODS - House Rules

 

[idc]

The present interest in active/powered speakers could just as well be down to people's living spaces. They suit desk top systems and rooms where people want to keep the box count down.

Whether it is the latest thing or not, I would be looking at active speakers purely because they suit my living room.

 

[Anonymous]

The present interest in active/powered speakers could just as well be down to people's living spaces. They suit desk top systems and rooms where people want to keep the box count down.

Whether it is the latest thing or not, I would be looking at active speakers purely because they suit my living room.

i agree, though in my case i'm considering them in the future (the AVI's, pending a demo, and some money 🙂 ) because they contain a high quality dac, more than enough amplification, they apparently sound great, they look great imo and i'll save space.

though for now i'm very happy with my current set-up 🙂

 

[idc]

So putting the amp inside the speaker is supposed to have major advantages. What happened to the benefit of putting amps on racks to ensure they are isloated from vibration? How can it be ggod for an amp to be vibrating away in time to the music?

 

[Anonymous]

So putting the amp inside the speaker is supposed to have major advantages. What happened to the benefit of putting amps on racks to ensure they are isloated from vibration? How can it be ggod for an amp to be vibrating away in time to the music?

good point, doesn't seem to be a problem though.

 

[Craig M.]

So putting the amp inside the speaker is supposed to have major advantages. What happened to the benefit of putting amps on racks to ensure they are isloated from vibration? How can it be ggod for an amp to be vibrating away in time to the music?

i'm not sure putting the amp in the speaker has any advantages, it's all down to the active crossover.

solid state amps are not microphonic, so the vibration doesn't matter.

 

[Craig M.]

The present interest in active/powered speakers could just as well be down to people's living spaces. They suit desk top systems and rooms where people want to keep the box count down.

Whether it is the latest thing or not, I would be looking at active speakers purely because they suit my living room.

i've got to say that reducing the box count wasn't any kind of motivation for me, but the sound quality was.

googling are actives better than passive speakers, will give all the reasons for the improved sound.

 

[oldric_naubhoff]

So putting the amp inside the speaker is supposed to have major advantages. What happened to the benefit of putting amps on racks to ensure they are isloated from vibration? How can it be ggod for an amp to be vibrating away in time to the music?

Hi IDC

I see you're genuinely interested in this active speakers phenomenon. but your thinking is wrong. sorry if I sound preachy for you but I just want to explain the difference between active speaker and powered so you know in the future. and it doesn't lie in just adding a power amp inside speakers enclosure.

so, as mentioned before active speaker has active crossover. active crossover is working with line level signal which means it lies just after preamp in components' chain (hence you must connect an interconnect to active speaker and not speaker cable). what crossover does (active or passive regardless) everybody knows; it splits full range signal into streams suitable to be reproduced by different drivers (woofers and tweeters). so if you have 2-way speaker there would be 2 streams and if you 3-way speaker there would be 3 streams and so on. after being split in crossover the signal is sent to power amps for amplification and then power amps are connected directly to drivers (this implies that if you have 2-way active speaker you'd have 2 power amps inside the box, for 3-way active speaker it'll be 3 power amps and so on; one power amp for each driver). when power amps are connected directly to drivers it has this advantage that every Watt of power being produced is spent to drive the driver and not to drive passive crossoer as it's the case with passive system or just powered speakers. to give you rough idea how much more efficient this solution is; if you have a 2-way active speaker with 50W power amps for each driver (100W in total for speaker) it will give you dynamic capabilities of a 200Wpc power amp connected to the same speakers but in passive version. you might argue if you really need all that power and dynamic range in home use but fact is fact... there's more. each power amp in active speakers is employed to amplify only narrow part of full range music spectrum. depending on crossover point it would be DC - to say 2000HZ for woofer amp and then 2000HZ - 20.000Hz for tweeter amp. this reduces intermodulation distortion becouse amps are not forced to amplify very low frequencies and very high frequencies simultaneously. it should be noted that well designed power amps will not have problems with intermodulation distortion even if asked to amplify full range signal but well designed means higher cost to customer...

another important matter for active speakers vs. passive speakers is crossover design. if you use a passive crossover of 2nd order or higher you'll most likely have problems with electrical phase shift meaning poor imaging and not linear frequency response. if you ever get a chance to see a frequency response graph of a passive speaker with 2nd order crossover you'll see a dip or bump of about 3db in crossover region. it's because frequencies from woofer and tweeter either cancell themselves out or strenghten themselves up depending if drivers are conneted in positive or negative acoustic polarity. also the sound from both drivers should reach listener at the same time which is not always the case. this can be entirely eliminated when using active crossover and even steeper crossover slopes can be used. it's impossible to design a good passive crosover of steep slope because of variable and unpredictable impedance from the drivers, hence the problems with taking phase shift under controll. the only situation when a passive crossover is as good as active is when it is first order (most shallow slope). but to be able to use it you have to have drivers of outstanding linearity and wide bandwidth. I know Dynaudio is using first order crossovers for sure. I guess B&W as well but not sure. few manufacturers of hi-fi speakers boast what crossover types they use. also Monopuloses speakers address the issue of lack of time coherence between drivers.

P.S. I wrote above that you connect an interconnect into an active speaker. in fact you connect an interconnect into a powered speaker too. but the difference with powered speaker is that the signal reaches power amp for amplification and then amplified sygnal is filtered through passive crossover, hence facing the same limitations as traditional apm + passive speakers set up.

hope this clarifies the main differences a little