Chances we'll see an Active Sierra speaker? Or Sierra Headphone?

[Asliang]

=On active speakers=

Seems like the consumer active speakers market is growing, with some high end speaker manufacturers jumping in. We have the Dynaudio Xeo/XD series, and now in December KEF is jumping in with an active Kef LS50.

I know ever since the NHT XD came out in the early 2000s, it really showed that if you combined high passive drivers with active amplification you could get the best of both world and incredible sound that a passive system can't reach, as the crossover is bypassed entirely and DSP controls directly the power that reaches the drivers.

An active Ascend Sierra-2 could completely blow the field apart, IMO. But of course, there's a supply limitation of RAAL tweeters. So perhaps an active Sierra 1 would be more practical. Right now Dynaudio's XD 200 is basically an Active Focus 160, took a $2900 speaker, added active amplification and a DAC and jacked the price up to $5400. From my opinion, an Active Sierra-1 NRT, if priced right (say $2000 or under) could be among the best, if not the best consumer active speaker under $5000.

=On headphones=

On the other hand, the headphone industry is also exploding. Since the 1996 with the introduction of the Sennheiser HD600, the $300 price point was considered "high end" for headphones and stayed pretty stagnant for over 20 years. There's saying about supply creating it's own demand. Well, in 2009, Sennheiser suddenly jolted the market and created the HD800, priced at a gargantuan $1699. In the last 5 years, there's been a huge influx of entrants into the headphone market, including California's own Mr Speakers, due to the high end market created by Sennheiser. Ironically Mr Speakers recently released a headphone called the Ether Flow which is now considered the best headphone at it's pricepoint (under $2000) and has unseated the HD800 juggernaught.

Just this year, Focal jumped into the headphone market and dropped a bomb with a $4000 headphone with a 40mm beryllium diaphragm and the world's first former-less voicecoil electrodynamic driver. Despite the astronomical price, Focal can't make these headphones fast enough to meet demand and since it's release in July of 2016 it's been on backorder and being gobbled up from retailers and etailers at a rapid rate. This is creating a arms race of ever higher performing headphones, a market that barely existed 5 years ago. Any interest for Ascend to jump in? Maybe with that SEAS diamond driver?

[curtis]

As for active speakers, the NHT XD used the DEQX DSP system. I heard/read more than once that a good speaker engineer, given the same amount of money, could match its sound as far as the active crossover was concerned...and now there are at least affordable room correction systems. In fact, one manufacturer ditched DEQX because they found the added cost...well...didn't really add anything. You don't hear much, if anything, about DEQX nowadays.

Also, "hobbyists" shy away from active speakers because most already have amplifier/receiver costs in their systems.