It's been forever since I've posted here. Kind of nostalgic, actually.
Anyway, this is a direction that I really, really don't want to see speaker manufacturers head in. Active speakers are great - love the concept, and the advantages are pretty clear. But integrating the software into it is an automatic, hard no for me. Speakers should remain dumb. They should just work. Every time. Speaker manufacturers aren't typically great software engineers, and I suspect that you're going to see this sort of glitchiness in just about every mid-range to high-end manufacturer's "smart" products moving forward.
Power them, provide some DSP options - handle some stuff that's intrinsic to the sound output itself - but don't try to connect to my devices, because my devices are always changing, and there's going to be a point in the nearer-than-you-expect future where a perfectly good set of speakers becomes obsolete due to a phone OS update or something equally silly. Though I suppose having to throw them out and buy a new set is kind of a manufacturer's wet dream.
Either way, I like my speakers to remain "equipment" rather than "appliances".
