If the electronics are transparent enough for their contributions to be inaudible, there’s nothing much to tweak any further, really – technical understanding and science may come in handy at determining that point.
Limiting factors are, by orders of magnitude, electro-mechanical aspects of the whole installation, like room acoustics, speaker chassis and cabinet construction…
If decades of upgradeitis do indeed render constant eye-opening, game-changing, jaw-dropping improvements in an audiophiles’ career, the kit was not transparent enough to begin with.
The product brought to attention in this thread however is a smart speaker very much like offerings from Sonos, BlueSound, Amazon, Google, … . They all contain some sort of “computer” inside to provide the smart part of smart speaker, responsible for many of the offered connection features (AirPlay, Chromecast, Spotify or Tidal Connect, Roon Ready, Online Radio access, DLNA, …) and communication with the mandatory mobile app to control the whole thing. Most all of these are software defined features that are in need of updates to keep up their functionality because the third-party products/services they connect to are being constantly developed and improved further. Even networks evolve over time (IPv6, HTTPS including it’s ever enhancing encryption, …). So as soon as there are no more updates, functionality gets lost over time as built-in features and protocols become incompatible to their third-party products/services and even the control app might at some point no longer run on a users current phone/tablet (or the current control app may no longer work with old/unsupported speakers). There will come the time where, even if the speaker manufacturer is still willing to support the speaker, the hardware limitations of the SoC (System On Chip – the built-in computer) in use wont allow for further updates. In a best case scenario the smart speaker becomes a dumb classic active speaker then.
If that is all that a user wants/needs, then why buy a smart speaker in the first place. If not, then a new buy is unavoidable.
An interesting point, and I hadn’t thought of that. The question is the temporal frame of the eventual obsolescence. How many years would be acceptable? (Isn’t it like with cars – a 10-year old car may still work fine, but you can’t expect it to have all the new technological goodies. There will come the point when you may well prefer to buy a new car for its safety features.)
Before I might consider buying such a product, it would need to meet my expectation that it sounds at least as well as separates within the same price range. Or should I expect it to sound better (as so much of its circuitry will have been optimised.)? I’m looking forward to trying out these speakers once they become available at my dealer’s.
Ok but what about any repair. When class D amplifier will fail you can:
send one speaker often a big and heavy device just because of small part failure
send small box (class D is not heavy) when you have separate devices.
And passive speaker can serve you for years or decades. Active… I would be surprised. Especially if it’s streaming based only. Even Roon ready. Decade is a very long period for electronic/software market.
I like the idea but real world shows us that electronic devices fail just after guarantee period
I went active in 2019 with ATC SCM40A. Before that I used passive version of the same speaker for five years. Currently I run 50ASL’s and couldn’t be happier. Less boxes, less hassle and superior sound quality.
I don’t know how much expertise they have in electronics. They might have brought in one or the other specialist. Not everything will be cheap Chinese stuff, as you assume. The amps are from Pascal, a well respected Danish company for instance. By optimisation I mean tweaking the whole system, each and every part, in such a way that it will synergistically sound its possible best, something very difficult to achieve with separates. Some believe that active speakers have clear advantages over active ones. I will suspend judgment on this, as I have no experience with active speakers (nor with Dynaudio products). I’m right now in a downgrading process, having recently cleared my mind of much audiophile twaddle; I guess that’s why the Dynaudio Focus series has caught my eye. Now, they might not sound that great; I have no idea, really, but I will definitely want to hear them.
You seem very certain of your opinions BJ. I understand your concerns such as obsolescence but it isn’t as black and white as your name suggests. Sweeping statements about dynaudio active speakers not having good amps are just opinion. Like ATC dynaudio have a great ethos and pedigree and in general getting rid of the crossover and going active will generally have advantages over passive. Atc make their own amps but I’m sure dynaudio can buy decent class d amps. Stand-alone separate atc amps are good but not as good as some other high end amps, but with active atc using the same amp technology as separates the whole is more than the sum of the parts and they just sound better. Tweakers may prefer the passive atc50 and triamping with some esoteric monsters which might just sound better….maybe…but the cost is lots more. And the wires. And the boxes. And and and and. Or go active and enjoy the best value for money systems around.
A reasonable middle ground would be something like atc actives as the post below mentions. I have the atc scm 50 active and whatever dac flavour of the month I fancy…currently an rme adi 2. This active system includes the following benefits
A) Obsolescence - atc scm50 can be upgraded from 1990 to 2022 spec if required
B) dac can be swapped anytime a new must have comes out
C) Active atc out perform the still excellent passive atc as above
D) Cost and value
E) performance
F) Tried and tested in studios and mastering boothes around the world for many decades with bombproof reliablity.
Listened to dutch and dutch and went round their factory, loved the looks and the sound was impressive but stuck with atc as
A) Dutch and Dutch are a very new company unlike tried and tested studio pedigree and bomb proof reliability of atc
B) I preferred my atc
C) ATC made in uk - Shipping big heavy boxes that can go bang cheaper to uk for me in uk
D) cost to change to d&d from atc would be £7k plus
I fancy listening to some more actives like kii three, buchardt, kef 60, Grimm audio etc. They all suffer from the same issues A) C) and D) on my list above but if they sound significantly better than my atc’s and rme combo then I may be swayed.
Give some a go then come back and let us know what you think.
I don’t get the negative attitude to these. Actives with streaming is the future of music playback at the low end and high end if you ask me. These have inputs so you can still use them like a traditional amp if the technology of the streaming bits date. Dynaudio have strong presence in the speaker market and make excellent products they been making actives for years so I guess they know what amps work best for their speakers. Adding in the smart bit is hardly hard these days with plenty of off the shelf modules that are customisable. Very few streamers out there are built from the ground up by the company that sell them they use established platforms under the hood with their own tweaks on top. If they do break yes its a bigger thing to return but with a product like this your not looking at online purchase, this is what dealers are for.
My simple Atom and Proacs is nearly the same price as the one down from these and I bet they sound way better as a system. My next step would definitely streaming actives and these look very nice.
I never made any specific statements about the amps used by Dynaudio. The link to another thread is clearly announced as my opinion already. Whether here nor in the other thread I ever made any statement about SQ or that SQ of active speakers might be inferior. In this thread as well as in the other one I wrote that classic active speakers, like your ATC for example, may be a good way to go to simplify matters if that is the goal.
My only REAL concern shared is about the “smart” part of “smart speakers”. If users understand the implications and still want to buy them, I’m fine with that.
So to me it seems, we’re basically on the same track (“They all suffer from the same issues A) C) and D) on my list above”). So what do you want from me?
