I know the Rega Planar 3. When properly setup with a good cartridge, an Audio Technical with MicroLine stylus will do, and quality phono stage, it should smoke any MP3 and most CD players. We used to demo the Planar 3 versus CD players when I worked the weekends at Acoustic Image to customers and most would leave surprised at how poor the CD sounds compared to good vinyl.

lol wtf?

What about active speakers makes you think they're better than equivalently high-quality passives?

That's because only the trained ear can hear the difference compering vinyl vs. mp3 on bad passive speakers.

I highly doupt the designer of one of the most highly regarded headphone amplifiers in the world can be ragarded as one among 95% of audiophools or with un-trained ears. This is just silly statement.

As I said before this is a waste of time as you are just as biased as head-fi.
And I really doesn't matter when you areNOT are open minded for the better.

1. In The True Horror of Passive Crossovers, Dr CS has shown how the crossover progressively disconnects drive units from amplifiers to lower the output from the bass driver and increases it to the tweeter. In the process control is lost, which is clearly audible ( booming bass for a start) and worse than active typically by a factor of up to 300. This is partly why actives are so much more clear.

2. Martin Grindrod explained all the measurements he'd made and showed how inductors might produce as much as 10% distortion under certain drive conditions. This is terrible compared to even the most basic active crossover that would have about 0.0015%.

3. We've also explained that it is vital to reduce the output from each driver as quickly as possible as we pass the crossover point. This is to avoid audible overlap that occurs in this region. We argued that 2nd order electronic filters were the steepest practical with passive designs, but that 4th orders were possible with actives and gave a significant improvement in smoothness and clarity. It is easily audible, but we've been contradicted by "experts" on other forums. Sadly it wasn't easy to prove this statement until recently when we obtained a DSP evaluation package.

LOL... http://hddaudio.net/viewtopic.php?id=8510

walk the fucking plank.

That's because only the trained ear can hear the difference compering vinyl vs. mp3 on bad passive speakers.

I agree that complex crossovers crush the performance of speakers. I prefer speakers with no crossovers or a very simple crossover. There are a lot of compromises with this approach. Active crossovers are not necessarily the solution, especially if the active stages are just as complex and use a chain of four to six op-amps running massive feedback. In the end, there is no solution that does everything well. We have to pick the architectures which suit the sonic attributes that we prioritize.

I don't know if you know this - but we are not a bunch of HF noobs. Donald has built active speakers and crossovers. He also designed speaker drivers (he used to work at Aura) and was involved in some very well known speakers from some big names. I have built a variety of speakers both active and passive as DIY projects. Some with DSP, some with complex 48 piece crossovers, some with passive line-level crossovers, some with no crossovers, some with simple two-three component crossovers. I've played with practically every kind of driver technology. My parent's garage and my garage are a graveyard for old speaker cabinets. More than a few people here have been doing this kind of stuff for decades. We don't need to cite other people, other websites, etc. Sorry, but you are totally out of your element. It's obvious you have no clue what you are talking about.

I enjoy debating the merits of various architectures to get the best sound. But obviously you already know everything from reading stuff on the web (BTW, practical hands on experience trumps reading or citing others here), so no need for debate. Take a hike - permanently.