Active speakers -- the future of Hifi?

Great responses. Thanks. My Roon Core now is an Antipodes K30 that is connected to a Mytek Brooklyn DAC+ to my pre-amp and so on. I suppose I think I’d be giving up some fidelity by sticking the K30 on a rack somewhere and connecting it to the network via Ethernet (it doesn’t natively support WiFi) and then listening to everything on the Dynaudio Focus 50s (or KEF LS60 or Speaker X) over WiFi. Right? But man, replacing a dozen boxes with two boxes (not to mention all of the physical media) sure does sound enticing!

I don’t think so. Fidelity is maintained between the Core and Roon Ready devices, regardless of the network connection. It works or it doesn’t, the RAAT promise. If your WiFi is bad, you might get dropouts, but if it’s OK, you won’t.

I don’t know about the Dynaudio’s, but the LS60’s can be connected to your network via ethernet - no need for wifi.

In my experience, going from “direct connect” via USB or HDMI to a network between core and endpoint resulted in clearly better sound and seems to be recommended by Roon. Isolating your core from vibrations and EMI/RF (and away from the speakers) helps, as does a quality switch serving just the audio segment of your home network.

1 Like

If your core device has any sort of noticeable reaction to physical vibration it probably needs checking out or replacing. That said, some vibrations are definitely better than others …

RoonShareImage-637936875548259560

4 Likes

@Bill_Janssen posted a link to an interview with Bruno Putzeys yesterday:

It seems Mr Putzeys very firmly belives that active speakers are the future.

3 Likes

And the future’s now :wink:

2 Likes

Shame they are so expensive and out of a lot of peoples reach. Be interesting to see how well the new DynaAudio Focus Range pan out, kef seem to be a bit unreliable.

Yes the KEF warranty seemed an issue to me at 2 years and people said they had expensive bill’s after this point.
Dynaudio warranty seems better, but only really know in 6 years if anything happens to them.

I have 2 set’s of speakers (KEF and Tannoy) that are almost 30 years old and a pair of B&O that are 16 years old and I am sure others have passive speakers older than mine.

From my active gear only my oldest Sonos gear that I purchased in 2006 is still active though woefully old technology wise (2 of the 4 amps failed after about 13 years). There is still a Sonos ZP100 and a ZP80 bridge in use in my office.

It will be great when someone makes a replaceable amp to go inside the speaker and offer’s 20 years of replacement/upgrade parts, though not sure it is going to happen.

If Naim team up with Focal (in same group) then they would likely do that they still service anything they have made over the history of the company, not many can claim that.

1 Like