But I don’t think you’ve looked at the speakers I’m talking about. Try these reviews of the ATC SCM150. I think posting links would be against forum rules, but this info should enable easy finding:
Stereo-magazine dot com review of ATC SCM150 ASLT by Michael Lang 04/06/20
Hifiplus dot com review of ATC SCM150 ASL by Jason Kennedy Jul 06 2016
And even the smaller speaker ATC SCM50 ASL:
Theabsolutesound dot com review of ATC SCM50 ASLT by Neil Gader Feb 08th 2019
Edit: and just stumbled across this review of the 150 - a slightly odd review because it is a bit wider than just the active 150, but they are the primary subject. It contains this summary: The ATC SCM150ASL Pros are in the class of the finest loudspeakers in the world. They are truly accurate-sounding loudspeakers, and so nearly perfect in their capability to deliver the essence of the best soundtrack and music recordings—realism. These loud- speakers can sound like the real thing, when the real thing is captured in the recording.
From Widescreen Review, search for this: 87.120.13.121/images/All%20About%20ATC.pdf
Not standard they cant, got to back to naim and be modified.
Shows how important naim think active is these days.
Plus remember when kudos came out with the active speakers, to start of naim wasn’t bothered about sorting out a snazo for them, until i guess the penny dropped and they could see potential in amp, snazo and power supply sales from it.
Active has it place in hifi history, great way to make much more money, buy selling more gear, to drive poorly designed speakers, that really needed active to show there best, got to hand to naim really great marketing and still at it today but with power supplies.
Because lets face it, gear at this price range, should really come with the best power supply they can offer, not how it is, but i am going down a different road, lol.
The design goals was, do the best you can, not do it for £40k, 60k, remember this costs over £170k new i believe.
But as the amps are already very powerful, no need to go active, as no point, and thats basically what i said in a much earlier post, plus at this price range, you are going to be using some nice expensive speakers and they tend to be passive
Please explain? Active XO feeds one power amp channel feeds speaker driver. How is Statement different? (i don’t pretend to know Statement intimately !)
I know there isn’t a Statement level SNAXO just as there isn’t a Statement source.
I was sitting next to @Gazza during the 2 x 300DR active vs 500DR passive demo with a ND555/552 front end into Kudos Titan 707 in active and passive guise.
I thought it was a close thing and possibly just preferred the active which was a tad more energetic.
A few weeks earlier I had heard a similar demo of 2 x 250DR active vs 300DR passive into Kudos Titan (606 I think) speakers. Here the active set up was clearly better to these cloth ears.
Is that a fair test of active vs passive? Surely the same level/type power amp into the same speakers in active and passive configuration would have been better, it does answer the eternal upgrade question though in those cases to your ears. Must have been an interesting and enjoyable comparison all the same
So, for example 2 Nap 250’s active vs 1 250 passive?
No, I think the comparison should be based on the cost within the same brands products eg one power amp passive costing X vs two or more lesser amps costing the same or near as possible to the single passive amp. (.ie a £3000 amp vs 2 × £1500 amps active)
In my lower order example I got more enjoyment from 2 active Nap 90/3"s than a passive Olive 250. Cant recall how much an Olive 250 was when the 90/3’s were current, but I’m sure the total cost of 2 × 90/3 and IXO was actually quite less than the 250.
FWIW, I met a leading Naim engineer at a Naim show who agreed with me without hesitation that the 90/3 was remarkably capable and punched well above its weight when used actively.
I think the idea of comparing a lesser Naim NAP active with a bigger NAP passive was to have comparable costs for active vs passive.
I have heard the same NAP passive vs active (again into Kudos Titan speakers) and the active was always better. The idea here being to start with say a passive 250DR (which you might already own) and later having the possibility to upgrade to active by adding another 250DR, active crossover and additional cabling.
Really i feel you should compare two or more amps, snazo, power supply to a single better amp, we will forget about the extra speaker cables, mains cables, interconnects and shelves, as we all know these items wont cost much lol.
Tricky. If you already have one amp (likely) then it would probably be cheaper to buy a second one of those (possibly 2nd hand) plus a SNAXO or whatever then the next amp up - but that would vary.
(In my first foray into active, I built a copy of my NAP120 by photographing the tracks of the circuit board, copied from that negative to suitably-sized lithographic film and using that to etch a new circuit board, bought the various components and soldered it all together. Made my best guess of the quiescent current through the output transistors. Seemed to work well, and I still have it somewhere. I hope that the statute of limitations has run out by now).
In that case, comparing active 250 with passive 250 would seem reasonable.
It depends upon whether you want to know whether active 250DR is better than passive 250DR, or whether there is a passive amp of sufficiently better capability that is better than the active 250DR.
I dont think anyone will argue that if you use speakers that can run active and use the same amp to drive them, using 2 of the same amps to drive them is going to be better, as why wouldn’t it, you have twice the power driving the same speaker.
The active V passive for me is more, can you get the same results or better for a cheaper outlay over just going passive with a better amp and or speaker?
Isn’t this the reason for going active? If not then i have completely missed the target.
I dont see it any different to comparing any other component at a given price range.
To my mind comparing 2 amps costing £3000 each .ie £6000 vs just one £3000 amp isn’t the same comparison at all. If were trying to answer whether active is better or not, it surely needs to be 2 or more amps costing the same as the one single amp. If the 2 lesser amps costing the same subjectively sound better then it is better.
Put another way, 2 otherwise identical systems costing the same, one passive one active, which sounds better? To my mind that is the logical and most objective way to compare.
Just for the record…in my day i had a cds/180/ active 250 system with SBL,s…just wonderful. so i know what it can do. Perhaps being older i am on a different journey having been active before.
So you have one amp already and considering an upgrade. Your existing amp is worth say £1500, your considering upgrading to a £3500 passive amp. You could consider another £1500 amp with £500 x-over, same cost.
I think the main observation is that actives are most common in the professional market rather than the consumer market - and it’s companies that cross over between the two such as PMC, ATC, JBL and Yamaha where you see Actives also targeted for the consumer / prosumer
