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Active Speakers Don't Sound Better

I just wanted to settle a debate that has often raged in A’gon about active vs. passive speakers with my own first hand experience. I’ve recently had the chance to complete a 3-way active center channel to match my 2-way passive speakers.

I can absolutely say that the active nature of the speaker did not make it sound better. Or worse. It has merged perfectly with my side speakers.

What I can say is that it was much easier to achieve all of the technical design parameters I had in mind and that the speakers have better off-axis dispersion as a result, so it is measurably slightly better than if I had done this as a passive center. Can I hear it? I don’t think so. I think it sounds the same.

From an absolute point of view, I could have probably achieved similar results with a passive speaker, but at the cost of many more crossover stages and components.  It was super easy to implement LR4 filters with the appropriate time delays, while if I had done this passively it would require not just the extra filter parts but all pass filters as well.  A major growth in part counts and crossover complexity I would never have attempted.  So it's not like the active crossover did any single thing I couldn't do passively, but putting it all together was so much easier using DSP that it made it worthwhile.

I can also state that as a builder it was such a positive experience that I may very well be done with making passive speakers from now on.

 

All the best,

 

Erik

erik_squires
erik_squires OP
16,121 posts
 

I hear a lot of comments about vibration, and while I have had equipment that was subject to microphonics, that was in the late 1980s and probably because of the use of very cheap ceramic capacitors. I think that overall, outside of tubes and turntables, the subjects is a bogey man without a shred of evidence. It’s a real shame because honestly it’s super easy to test for. I mean, super easy. And I’ve yet to see anyone produce a credible study that vibrations or isolation of solid state gear matters.

Please put me down as a complete skeptic until someone has any sort of study showing any piece of solid state gear has microphonics.  I'm definitely not going to worry about a separate enclosure housing  an amp.

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donavabdear's avatar
donavabdear
504 posts
 

I started a post about this subject and there were over 69k comments people know active and powered speakers are better in so many ways.

powered speakers have amps in them 

active speakers can be connected to external crossovers and amps

passive speakers have built in speaker level crossovers.

These speakers show the ridiculous cult of the audiophile, I’ve listened to many systems in which the most expensive component was the speaker cables, so why not get rid of the cables altogether? Doing crossover electronics designed for one driver and its amplifier at line level is obviously better than designing a speaker level crossover for some amp that you don’t know essential aspects of the amp and its specs. And in the professional world of recording studios powered speakers are practically the only choice. Also all the audiophiles who spend 25k on their vibration isolating equipment racks imagine the hostile environment of 120db inside a speaker to an amp, they sound fine. I think all the ultra high end new speakers in the last year from Magico, SonusFaber and the like are all using external crossovers. The only equipment manufacture that designs every aspect of their systems in this way is Steinway. I spoke to the head Bryson engineer and he said of course powered speakers are better but people are still reluctant to embrace them. Sad 

yoyoyaya's avatar
yoyoyaya
761 posts
 

The only way to properly evaluate this on a like for like basis is to amplify the passive speaker with the same amplification as the active speaker. That's somewhere between difficult and impossible to do.

Absent that, what's being compared is amplifier/crossover combinations and not speakers.

donquichotte
132 posts
 

@riie

Thanks.I can see you didn’t cheap out on those electronics. Perhaps this is one reason why your passives sound better than the actives? I don’t think the plate amps in the actives can be compared with the much more expensive Mcintosh powered amps. Just saying...

I was very interested in the ATC 40 actives for a while, but upon listening they were kinda boring, with a discolored and over-controlled sound, maybe it was the cabling used (some Nodost I think). Some passive 19's in a different system were pretty good, though, precise, detailed, competent.

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