Then it occurred to me: why not take a page from the subwoofer playbook and add high level speaker inputs to a powered loudspeaker setup? This seems like a great inexpensive way of future proofing your loudspeaker to accept any future changes without being locked into a proprietary ecosystem.
High level inputs for powered subs or speakers are a workaround at best. I think they are offered as a way to connect legacy gear, but would never recommend designing a setup this way.
Subs: Full range signal is sent to sub and low passed (hopefully) via a dial on backplate.
Pros: Dont need to know much about audio setup or a new amplifier to cobble a sub to the setup.
Cons: Latency. A full range signal intended for mains arrives at the sub at the same time. The sub amplifier and cone have delay. It is impossible to time align properly although you can phase align a cycle late. Mains still play frequencies duplicated by sub, so phase cancellation abounds.
Speakers: Full range signal is sent to speaker backplate (as in some hypex plates) and re amplified and processed to suit powered speaker.
Pros: Use existing speaker level and avoid running new low level (rca) signal cable to new powered speaker locations. Use existing or other amplifier that is low power to “drive” high power monitors.
Cons: Noise floor and gain structure of setup will be tough to predict or correct if problem. If connected to an AV setup, again latency becomes an issue and lipsync will have to be corrected. Cant do that with a “dumb” amplifier ahead of the speaker so must deal with in display. Pretty cludgey.
Main problem is you are not able to time align drivers at crossover frequencies unless you can delay the main to suit the sub latency.
Latency is easily detectable and measurable in phase plots. Once corrected it is a night and day difference. Cant do that in this setup.
