I'm posting this thread for the purposes of speculation and in the hopes that Dave F. might be interested in discussing this idea a little bit.

Recently, I've been thinking more and more about the potential advantages of self-powered speakers with active crossovers.

Class-D or even true digital amplifiers can work extremely well and extremely efficiently when they are purpose built for a specific impedance curve with a limited frequency range. Attempting to make Class-D or digital amplifiers capable of driving essentially any speaker out there and over the entire audible frequency range has led to some either expensive, or not-entirely successful products. But when the parameters are more strictly defined, Class-D or truly digital amplifiers can be very successful, and also relatively inexpensive.

All of this is to say that matching one amp to one driver seems like a recipe for success.

Now, if each driver in a given speaker has its own, matching amplifier built right in, obviously there needs to be a crossover. Dave clearly has a ton of experience and expertise in designing passive crossovers in speakers. But if the self-powered drivers are going to have to be plugged into a wall outlet anyway, why not consider an active crossover?

Products like what's available from miniDSP show us just how easy it can be to create amazingly precise and controllable crossovers that would require many more components and complexity in a passive crossover design.

So I am simply wondering, Dave, do you have any interest - or perhaps even plans already in progress - to design and sell speakers using active crossovers and individually, purpose-built amplifiers for each driver?

Personally, I see this as the future of speaker design. With purpose-built amplification and DSP control, drivers can be controlled right to their limits. There's less need to design "headroom" into the performance of the driver in order to accommodate the limitations of passive crossovers and potentially any amplifier out there being the source. The end result might be less expensive speakers that require no external amplification that offer lower distortion. That's a winning combination in my book!