Because they decided to go all-in on active speakers a long time ago, and thus missed out on the biggest market which is still passive????

Graham

Probably because they found out, that a combination of a taylored amplifier, a DSP for the processing of the input and some suitable tranceivers in a nice enclosure, would give them much more options to make good (sounding and looking) speakers.

Matching an external amp with a set of passive speaker can be a tough job, and is often a hit and miss.

MM

i love active spekars ..

no amps...no preamps...no additional junk...just beosound and speakers....perfect..

Millemissen wrote:

Probably because they found out, that a combination of a taylored amplifier, a DSP for the processing of the input and some suitable tranceivers in a nice enclosure, would give them much more options to make good (sounding and looking) speakers.

Matching an external amp with a set of passive speaker can be a tough job, and is often a hit and miss.

MM

Good points, but you can't escape the fact that a lot of people buy passive speakers not matched to a particular amplifier. I wouldn't mind betting that more than 90% of passive speaker sales are based on reviews that take no account of the amplifier source.

Graham

marexy wrote:

i love active spekars ..

no amps...no preamps...no additional junk...just beosound and speakers....perfect..

Agreed. I was never satisfied when I moved for a time, away from B&O, to separates (speakers / amps).

I'm going to side completely with B&o on this. The relationship between driver, amp and dsp is an intimate one. To get the best out of the music the dsp and amp need to know what is demanded of the drivers in terms of the inbound source signal. The electronics should be monitoring the behaviour of the drivers and how to get the best out of them and also adapting the signal knowing how best to extract the most from the transducer. At best its like an organism with positive and negative feedback with each component speaking or listening to each other. Knowing this is the ideal formula why would an engineer take a retrograde step to passive speakers. B&W know this but compromise their principles and stick with passive to make more money. B&O adhere to their engineering principles and prioritise this over profit and this is noble and to be admired in this era. What B&W and others need to do move forward and follow the optimum engineering principles and 'educate' the audiophool mass and bring them into the 21st century. B&O and studio monitors have got it right and rest haven't. I have listened to many passives in my quest over the last 12 months and they aren't a patch on B&O or active studio monitors. Finally, active speakers monitor the mechanical and thermal stress on the drivers. Passives by in large can't or can't do it very well. 

If you want to dig into this, here is a place to start:

Millemissen wrote:

If you want to dig into this, here is a place to start:

link

N.B. If you haven't got much time for reading, just scroll down to read the Conclusion.

MM

"Conclusion 

All of that being said,

• if your electroacoustical behaviour of every component in your audio chain was “perfect” (whatever that means) AND
• if loudspeakers behaved linearly (i.e. they gave you the same frequency response at all listening levels, and they didn’t change their behaviours when they heat up, and so on and so on) AND
• if you did everything properly (meaning that your cabinets were the right size and shape) AND
• if your production tolerances of every component in the system was +/- 0%.

Then MAYBE a passive loudspeaker design could work just as well as an active design."

I think that that was achieved with the S45/S45-2 speakers. 

Graham