Active vs passive speaker set ups

[Blizzard]

Actives are not always particularly popular amongst retailers ,simply because once you have sold a pair, there are much fewer options for further sales.
Keith.

There's the real truth. Suppress innovation due to greed. Well there is ways to keep the consumer spending even with actives.

 

[ddk]

Dear All

I put this post in this forum as opposed to the speaker forum. I am just curious as to who hear has used or has experimented with active adjustable crossovers, and or active speakers.

People I know that have worked in professional audio are often bemused by the fact that 'audiophiles' use passive speaker systems. I think the arguments go something like this:
- the crossover robs the speaker of efficiency
- the amplifier has to work too hard
- passive systems lack real accuracy as they do not fully control the drivers

I, perhaps like many, use an integrated amp and conventional speakers with crossovers - I have to say that I have had the same amp and speakers for over 10 years, so I am gonna take my time over any 'upgrade/change'.

I started pondering this because I was umming and ahhing about some active subs, and then progressed to considering a marchand adjustable electronic EQ and a multi-channel power amp to drive the drivers directly.

I would be very grateful for your considered views and opinions

Depends on your speakers, it can be simple plug & play multi-amping one using the built-in passive crossovers with the same amps but get's very complicated if you replace the speaker's xover with a 3rd party active unit like Marchand's, there's a lot you need to figure out and get right. Then there's the amp itself, most of the multichannel ones I know are designed for HT and IMO aren't that good with music. A decent custom built multichannel amp will set you back some money.

david
PS There can be sonic benefits to multi-amping a speaker if it's designed for it.

 

[c1ferrari]

We're using two-way loudspeakers (DALI MegaLine III) featuring ribbon and mid/woofer transducers, with an external, active, analog crossover (Pass Labs XVR-1). Four channels of amplification, total.
With this array, one has an environment to audition different power amps and the benefits of an active crossover BEFORE the power amplifier.

HTH!

 

[esldude]

Here is a pretty nice article from 2002 dealing with the active vs passive speaker comparison.

http://hometheaterhifi.com/volume_9_4/feature-article-active-speakers-12-2002.html

 

[Rodney Gold]

It all boils down to the sound ..and going active or dsp active does not guarantee better results than passive.
I have done both ..
in terms of reliability .. my 4 sets of meridians , 2 sets 20 yrs old , needed tweeters and recapping and one board had failed.. all done locally with no problem , meridian sent the whole pcb and component drawings to me
My 2 sets of ATC's needed a mid driver .. also almost 20 yrs old .. no problem from ATC
My linkwitz Orions, krK's , Mackies , Genelec , home builds and some ive forgotten have never needed repair.

Trying to do a diy 3 way DSP active is not for the faint hearted .. its not that easy to get the end resuts.. requires a lot of knowledge and extensive measurements and tweaking... been there done that

 

[Groucho]

It all boils down to the sound ..and going active or dsp active does not guarantee better results than passive.

For me, it boils down to: if speakers had never been invented until now, where would we want to start from? I simply can't imagine anyone now seeking to
- decouple their amp from the drivers with arbitrary passive impedances (reduce damping factor)
- waste amplifier power as heat
- introduce phase shifts
- reduce the accuracy of the crossover
- make it impossible to fine tune the speaker to the room
- tangle variables together so that parameters cannot be adjusted independently of each other
- make designing a N way system so complicated that people shy away from it and stick with <N drivers despite the compromises

It is like saying that your latest high definition OLED TV is not guaranteed to give better results than your 1970s 22" CRT. The only way I could imagine that happening would be if the source material itself was so scratchy or low definition that displaying it smaller and dimmer made it look better...

 

[dallasjustice]

Anyone who thinks active speakers must be expensive, doesn't have enough experience with them. If the OP has an open mind and is willing to listen to a digital active setup, then I would recommend listening to a Linkwitz LX. I heard them at RMAF. They used emotiva for amps and a $499 minidsp MCH DAC. The total cost for the whole system, even when professionally assembled, is under $10,000. It was one the best systems I heard at RMAF at any price.

I use a partial digital active system. When it comes to integrating subwoofers, it's the best method, by far.

For full range loudspeakers, I'm not yet convinced that either active or passive is inherently better. There are more important aspects to loudspeaker design.

 

[Jinjuku]

Anyone who thinks active speakers must be expensive, doesn't have enough experience with them. If the OP has an open mind and is willing to listen to a digital active setup, then I would recommend listening to a Linkwitz LX. I heard them at RMAF. They used emotiva for amps and a $499 minidsp MCH DAC. The total cost for the whole system, even when professionally assembled, is under $10,000. It was one the best systems I heard at RMAF at any price.

I use a partial digital active system. When it comes to integrating subwoofers, it's the best method, by far.

For full range loudspeakers, I'm not yet convinced that either active or passive is inherently better. There are more important aspects to loudspeaker design.

There have been several people saying that the Linkwitz LX was one of the most affordable systems there and was also the best sounding system period.

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

Anyone who thinks active speakers must be expensive, doesn't have enough experience with them. If the OP has an open mind and is willing to listen to a digital active setup, then I would recommend listening to a Linkwitz LX. I heard them at RMAF. They used emotiva for amps and a $499 minidsp MCH DAC. The total cost for the whole system, even when professionally assembled, is under $10,000. It was one the best systems I heard at RMAF at any price.

I use a partial digital active system. When it comes to integrating subwoofers, it's the best method, by far.

For full range loudspeakers, I'm not yet convinced that either active or passive is inherently better. There are more important aspects to loudspeaker design.

I have a friend currently building the Linkwitz flagship, the LX521. When he's finished, I'll buy his LX minis, which are the right size for my listening space, and power them, most likely, with Emotivas. Dr. Linkwitz designed the minis to work in smaller rooms, closer to bordering walls, and says that all they miss from the LX521 is the deep bass (they roll off quickly below 40 hz.) These should be a completely different experience from my active monitors. I'll let you all know how they sound soon, but it might be as late as summer before I get them.

Tim

 

[JackD201]

Passive -> easy

Active -> work

That's not to say work can't be fun. If you have fun doing this kind of thing and by that I also mean making the effort to learn how to do it properly, I say go for it.

What I will not say is that one is better than the other. There are many examples of both that are great and that suck. What is certain is that there are applications where one would clearly be better than the other. That depends on the user and his own performance criteria and targets. You would never catch me using a passive system for PA for example. Likewise, you would never catch me using an external active system in a place with severe space constraints, internal active yes I would and do. Anything in the middle is fair game for either. It's simply a choice whether you want to spend time playing more in the acoustical or in the electrical domain. Success is success and to me the measure is how big a smile you have on your face when you're done.

 

[Blizzard]

Anyone who thinks active speakers must be expensive, doesn't have enough experience with them. If the OP has an open mind and is willing to listen to a digital active setup, then I would recommend listening to a Linkwitz LX. I heard them at RMAF. They used emotiva for amps and a $499 minidsp MCH DAC. The total cost for the whole system, even when professionally assembled, is under $10,000. It was one the best systems I heard at RMAF at any price.

I use a partial digital active system. When it comes to integrating subwoofers, it's the best method, by far.

For full range loudspeakers, I'm not yet convinced that either active or passive is inherently better. There are more important aspects to loudspeaker design.

Great example. But just imagine if it used SOTA PC based DSP, combined with a multichannel DAC such as the Merging NADAC, and powered with Hypex Ncore amplification.

 

[Rodney Gold]

Groucho , regardless of methodology , all that matters is what hits the users ears..
As much as I have loved my actives and dsp actives and been a proponent of actives , my current passive setup is better sounding.

 

[amirm]

I have owned active speakers since 81, Meridian m2's then m10's, subsequently Genelec ,currently Grimm LS1's and soon Kii THREEs, I have not encountered one single fault in all those years.
Keith.

I bought some Paradigm active speakers back in 1990s. Two of them did go bad. I opened them and the speaker terminal lugs had come loose! Tightened them and plugged them back it and it happened again. Lousy part.

As you though, my Genelec and NHT have been trouble free and I have had them for 15 year give of take a few .

 

[Phelonious Ponk]

I'm relatively certain that Dr. Linkwitz spec'd the MiniDSP, and provides a list of a dozen compatible non-audiophile amps for the LX speakers, complete with measurements, for the same reason why Harman sells M2 kits to professionals paired with Crowns instead of Mark Levinsons, without the slightest disclaimer: Because they have measured, they have listened, and they have determined that the performance of their flagship products are not compromised by those choices.

Those who would make active inaccessibly complicated and expensive do so to exercise their audiophile hobby; I seriously doubt they gain much but swollen credit card balances.

Tim

 

[microstrip]

Passive -> easy

Active -> work

That's not to say work can't be fun. If you have fun doing this kind of thing and by that I also mean making the effort to learn how to do it properly, I say go for it.

What I will not say is that one is better than the other. There are many examples of both that are great and that suck. What is certain is that there are applications where one would clearly be better than the other. That depends on the user and his own performance criteria and targets. You would never catch me using a passive system for PA for example. Likewise, you would never catch me using an external active system in a place with severe space constraints, internal active yes I would and do. Anything in the middle is fair game for either. It's simply a choice whether you want to spend time playing more in the acoustical or in the electrical domain. Success is success and to me the measure is how big a smile you have on your face when you're done.

Passive -> easy

Active -> a lifetime of much work

I exchanged a few posts and mails with the creator/owner of a great active system - Paul Stubline of Paul Stubblebine Mastering, that owns a Magico active system using a Marchand modified crossover with many Bottlehead triode amplifiers. At that time it looked like to me as a dream system. Fortunately he was very frontal - forget about it, you do not have the expertise or time to built such system. He explained me how long it took to assemble his system, what type of modifications the Bottlehead team had to carry and how the system had to be tuned. I must thank him for his excellent advice. If I had entered that way I would have spent the next ten years without time to listen to music ...

 

[dallasjustice]

It's funny whenever this question about active vs passive is asked of speaker manufacturers who only know how to make passive speakers, the answer is always the same; it can't be done or it's too hard or it's too expensive. But ask a designer who knows how to build an active speaker. They don't say things like that. It's actually much faster to design and much less expensive in terms of parts to use digital crossovers.

It reminds me of those who called upon the economists who refer to the 2008 market collapse as a "Black Swan" how we should fix the problem which caused the collapse. Those who predicted the collapse were never asked how to fix the problem. It's just the typical echo chamber answer. Most folks seek the answer they want.

 

[Blizzard]

It's funny whenever this question about active vs passive is asked of speaker manufacturers who only know how to make passive speakers, the answer is always the same; it can't be done or it's too hard or it's too expensive. But ask a designer who knows how to build an active speaker. They don't say things like that. It's actually much faster to design and much less expensive in terms of parts to use digital crossovers.

It reminds me of those who called upon the economists who refer to the 2008 market collapse a "Black Swan" how we should fix the problem which caused the collapse. Those who predicted the collapse were never asked how to fix the problem. It's just the typical echo chamber answer. Most folks seek the answer they want.

It all depends on the level of parts quality you want to use. In a 4 way DSP active speaker, you need 8 channels of amplification, 8 channels of DAC, as well as a DSP engine. The cost of DAC and amplification alone is 4x a 2 channel passive system if you want to use the same quality of gear.

 

[esldude]

Passive -> easy

Active -> a lifetime of much work

I exchanged a few posts and mails with the creator/owner of a great active system - Paul Stubline of Paul Stubblebine Mastering, that owns a Magico active system using a Marchand modified crossover with many Bottlehead triode amplifiers. At that time it looked like to me as a dream system. Fortunately he was very frontal - forget about it, you do not have the expertise or time to built such system. He explained me how long it took to assemble his system, what type of modifications the Bottlehead team had to carry and how the system had to be tuned. I must thank him for his excellent advice. If I had entered that way I would have spent the next ten years without time to listen to music ...

An example of the wrong way to do active speakers. Certainly not that active is hard and passive easy.

 

[esldude]

It all depends on the level of parts quality you want to use. In a 4 way DSP active speaker, you need 8 channels of amplification, 8 channels of DAC, as well as a DSP engine. The cost of DAC and amplification alone is 4x a 2 channel passive system if you want to use the same quality of gear.

Maybe it is more about the quality of the results. What level of quality is needed in a passive crossover to give equivalently good crossovers compared to DSP? Is it even possible? Why is less expensive DSP with great results given less credence than fancy, overbuilt, expensive passive parts that still can't compete in providing as well controlled a crossover when all is said or done?

Of course some fear the mythical demonic digital process. So even stepping back to analog crossovers at line level and using multiple amps we still have a situation where speaker level passives are not able to give equivalently good results. So how do "quality of parts" that still don't provide a better result overcome this?

 

[Groucho]

To make a fair comparison, one would need an active and passive version of the same speaker, providing the amplifiers driving the passive version are capable, I wouldn't expect huge differences.
Keith.

I am not so sure there would be much point in the comparison. A DSP-based active speaker is more than just a different way of implementing the same crossovers. It frees the designer to do more, and to build a different speaker. An active designer can, for example, build a three or four way speaker as easily as a two way, with correspondingly better results. You need more components but the demands placed on all the components are reduced drastically. I would happily pit an active against a passive even if the active was being driven by low cost amps.