The active speakers club

Depends. Compared to the Weiss, Benchmark, Wadia, ... DACs, mentioned earlier, it's very reasonably priced. Certainly if you consider the transport and streamer that are included.

I see your point and agree, a grand for just a DAC? Yes V.expensive and unecessary, but when other functions are added, so is value.

I use the CA DACmagic Plus and having tried many DACs and tinkered with a few DIY DACs, I cannot see huge differences between them, so for a multi purpose product, I see the DAC as perhaps one of the simpler components and therefore should be quite cheap. It's a new product and the R&D outlay needs to be recouped as soon a s possible. Prices will drop sooner or later and will be better VFM. This is diverging a bit, but the newly re-emerged 3D equipment was expensive when it first came to market, it's now mainstream and almost standard (not to mention almost defunct).

Apologies to the OP, perhaps we can get back on track.

Questions;

Are all B&O speakers active?

Can Meridian speakers be used with non-Meridian equipment?

Anything like the Audiolab 8200CDQ that can also play DVDs?

Don't know

Probably

Oppo 105 for starters

I have recently joined the active speakers club with an Audiolab 8200cdq and Focal CMS65 speakers. I'm very pleased with the sound and have no regrets at selling off my passive system. I can play my cd's or listen to music from the laptop using an optical cable.

Previously I owned a naim uniti which was paired with many speakers but just didn't work in my listening space with any of them. I really liked the uniti otherwise as it was very well built and easy to use. I have tried it with pmc db1i, dynaudio focus 110, dali mentor 1, spendor a5, dynaudio x12, neat motive 3, sonus faber toy, elac bs243, snell k7 and proac 1sc speakers... so no one could say I didn't give it a fair chance. 

I also owned a system consisting of cyrus cd6se, plinius 9200 and spendor a5 before that. I think my current system easily beats any of the others I have owned. The sound is very clear and detailed and there is plenty of bass but this is very fast and controlled. The system is very simple and doesn't take up any more space than my naim uniti did with passive speakers. The audiolab is again very easy to use and is connected to the speakers with some xlr cables. The focal cms65's are very well built and also have added option of being able to adjust bass and treble.

EDIT double post

Double post: deleted.

Another option, not yet mentioned on the forum: the Reveal 501A and 601A by Tannoy (http://tannoy.com/studiosummary.aspx).

They sport XLR and unbalanced jacks, input sensitivity an a HF-trim. And the front reflex-port makes positioning less fussy. The 601A digs a little lower than the 501A (60 vs. 64Hz) and has a volume control!

EDIT: oh, and the prices are 230£/pair for the 501A and 300 £/pair for the 601A.

501A

601A

Thought Behinger and Focal were domestic as well?

[quote=DocG]

Another option, not yet mentioned on the forum: the Reveal 501A and 601A by Tannoy (http://tannoy.com/studiosummary.aspx).

They sport XLR and unbalanced jacks, input sensitivity an a HF-trim. And the front reflex-port makes positioning less fussy. The 601A digs a little lower than the 501A (60 vs. 64Hz) and has a volume control!

EDIT: oh, and the prices are 230£/pair for the 501A and 300 £/pair for the 601A.

[quote\]

Tannoy also do a nice sub that would go well with these.

How does that work then? source - XLR - sub - XLR - 601As?

Not all B&O speakers are active. You have to look carefully to check out which are which.

the last time I looked, the passive speakers were in the minority.

The Meridian website will tell you about connectivity to non-Meridian equipment. The older actives from the 1990s were designed to connect to any preamp which hadstandard DIN connections (I think - I may be wrong about the DIN).

Yes.

A Sub (used with monitors) usually has a feed from a source or preamp, this is then bypassed to the monitors. The signal that the monitors get is dependant on the Subs filter settings or left as a full frequency signal that can be cutoff with a high pass filter on the monitors.

If you look at images of the backs of the monitors and sub, you can see what I mean.

Another option for driving actives is the recently announced Musical Fidelity dac pre amp.

http://www.whathifi.com/news/musical-fidelity-reveals-m1-sdac-with-preamp-headphone-amp-and-aptx-bluetooth

I'm not familiar with all Meridian speakers (they moved out of my price range) but my M2 speakers from the 1980s have both DIN and RCA inputs.  For the DIN input it can be either single ended or balanced depending on the lead and how the plug's wired.

Roger