Dr. Mark,
I am not a fan of Fluance because their business model seems to be based on misinforming their customers.
To that end, you have made an incorrect (though reasonable) assumption about these speakers!
Now the JBL is ported, with 41 watts + 41 watts. The Fluance is sealed with 35 + 35 watts. So not only are both speakers powered but active.
The Fluance is not active. The specifications on their website make it likely you would think so; however, if you look at the included accessories, there is "8 foot 18 gauge speaker wire" listed (to go between the speakers). The video of the rear panel below makes it clear that the speaker with the amps has one pair of speaker terminals on the back to feed the other speaker, thus it cannot be an active crossover! The Fluance appears to be 35Watts per channel instead of 35W for the woofer and 35W for the tweeter.
If I were going to market a small bookshelf it absolutely would be a sealed design, active with bass Eq to extend the low end.
I would not market it at those prices though. To do this design properly would require a very well designed and built mid/woofer with large xmax.
The real message is that amps now do really belong in speakers. The absolute worst place for amps is in receivers. This trend will hopefully now pick up speed. This is long overdue.
Good information in these comments. I would like to see a sealed active speaker like you describe!
In the following video, go to 1min 22sec to see a close view of the back panel!
While you are there, look for the Made in China label (which isn't there) and note the prominent Canadian flag and "Designed and Engineered in Canada" label that are there. I honestly was under the impression that the "Made in China" label was required to be on the product itself by law!
In the absence of a "Made in China" label, I suspect most people would be deceived to believe this product was made in Canada! Furthermore I believe that is exactly Fluance's intent!
Additionally when Dennis Murphy reworked the crossover for a pair of their Signature Series, he found that he could not use the same crossover design for the R & L speakers because there was too much variation between the drivers. For his initial review, Gene discovered that the tweeters were wired out-of-phase from the woofers and the crossover was of poor design. They did implement corrections once he contacted them, but the idea that a speaker company would put a speaker in production which measured and sounded so poor as to indicate major problems is troubling.
Since then, ShadyJ has reviewed the Signature Series and he says they are good speakers, so I suspect they are no longer so poor as the original production models.
However, between the indication of poor oversight/quality control/consistency, general lack of technical expertise, and willingness to deceive their customers; I have no interest in, or respect for, Fluance!
Maybe you already figured that out!
