Why do most audiophile prefer passive speakers?

[BlueDL]

As has been pointed out above, there is quite a good choice in actives available nowadays. I hope to go for actives in the future. I need to find an aesthetically acceptable set of floorstanders in order to comply with the ‘wife acceptance factor’ rules in our house (as our lounge doubles as my listening room, unfortunately).
I am eyeing up some ex-demo ATC SCM40A, but they may be too bassy for my room size. A home demo would be a must before parting with that kind of cash.

I think keeping the DAC outside of the speakers does at least allow a greater degree of future-proofing to feed any urge for upgrades or tinkering.

[BlueDL]

5 minutes ago, Kal Rubinson said:

Have you heard/used them? You would be convinced if you did.  It is not possible to do so on paper.

That’s got me intrigued (although, surely the laws of physics will kick in eventually?).

[BlueDL]

18 minutes ago, firedog said:

 

Clearly wasn't referring to the BXT, that's already a different animal. 

Given size of that beast, I tend to agree with you 😃

[BlueDL]

31 minutes ago, firedog said:

Way too general.  Depends on the speaker. The better ones have excellent amps. And unlike with passive speakers, the amps can be specifically designed for each driver (no "one amp for all").  This means much simpler amp design and lower cost to get high end results.

You should check with the manufacturers who make high end speakers that are produced in both active and passive versions. Every one of them will tell you the active versions sound/perform better.

Spot on. I have ATC 3-way actives, and the almost universal view is that you’d need to spend twice the price on amplification in order to get the passive equivalent to even sound close.