The M100 is an incredible speaker in the range of sounds that it can produce. This is a testament to the work that Ian and Andrew are doing.

My comment is that I would guess that the LFR1100 was in extension of the M100, sort of like the LFR880 is based off the M80 speaker set. I have not ripped open any of my speakers to take a deeper look at the internet structure of the speaker to do a side by side comparison, but I would dare to say that the internals of the LFR1100 and the M100 would be pretty close in the major structures inside

The LFR by my experience takes the sound quality of the M100 and smooths out any of the edges and then wraps the sound around you so as Ian has said to me many times, opens up the sweet spot for the best listening position and makes it more the whole room.

Mojo. when you listen to your M2 or M5, do you find that the sound envelope (transparent feeling) is more focused to a small sweet spot that if you sit in the right spot you can almost feel the speakers disappear? Move 3-4 feet to the left or right and the effect collapse. Move forward or backwards and you feel as if the speaker comes back into view as to what you are hearing.

The beauty of the LFR is that there is a controlled "echo" or reflection that with the DSP just opens up the listening area so that what you hear feels more all around you and you're not required to sit in the perfect sweet spot to get the best sound. The beauty is that you get what I feel is a better effect than 5.1 recorded music in your source only needs to be stereo and the timing of sound is not as fussy as trying to perfectly tune in a multi speaker setup.


Now to the OP question. I don't own a pair of actives. I cannot say if they are for my level of hearing will do a far better job that the passive set i have now. I have no doubt that they will be better, but by how much I cannot say. For me, the M80 speakers were an incredible improvement over the Energy speakers that I had. They had a night and day improvement over the dynamic range and gave me detail in recordings that I honestly didn't know was even there. The move to LFR didn't really improve the sound.. well maybe a bit, but what it did do is improve the listening area and enjoyment that I could get from the speakers. How do you put a percentage improvement of sound quality to enjoyment? I don't know. I'd say that the M80 were the 96% perfect sound, where the LFR1100 get me to the 99%. I would guess the Actives will push that up to the 99.9%. If i didn't own the passive set then I would have to think hard if the extra cost is worth nirvana. I would be seriously tempted.

Sadly, I have yet to wear Ian down enough to give me the deal Id need to trade in my current set and move up to Active. But who knows what the future will hold.