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

@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.

Active loudspeakers have widespread use in pro audio. If they didn't sound good I doubt they would be used as much if at all.

Active loudspeakers have widespread use in pro audio. If they didn't sound good I doubt they would be used as much if at all.

 

@bottomzone  Absolutely true.  Active crossovers offer significant benefits in power efficiency that is much more important for megawatt installations than modest home speakers though, so pros are much more heavily invested in active configurations.  In the home we can afford to waste some watts for level matching, etc.

@phusis - my experiments have been very simple. No special filtering or DSP. Mainly with desktop or small monitors. I just unplug the speaker without the amp from the speaker with the amp. This is a speaker-level connection. Then I plug the speaker without amp to my main amp. Often, it sounds better. I make no claim that this happens with more costly speakers. But it makes me think that ’affordable’ active speakers will often sound better with a better amp. The amp really matters. Of course this is the case with passive speakers too. And I think that the quality of the amp is more important than if it is placed in a speaker cabinet or outside it.

My experiments can be ’shot down’ since in a sense they are grossly unfair. The amps I’ve used for comparing are much more costly than the speakers. You cant get the sound from the Atma-sphere MA-1 or the Krell FPB600 from inside a compact active speaker. Not that I know of. So my only point, in describing the experiments, is to draw attention to the quality of the amp in the active speakers - I think this is often overlooked.

An argument for active speakers is that the amp and speakers can be more closely matched and tuned to each other. Yet I have not been gripped by this, with the low cost active speakers I have tried. Instead, the big amps just made the speaker sound better. Interestingly, this main effect was the same even with two quite different amps (tube, solid state). My guess is that ’matching’ in affordable active speakers is only approximate, "good enough", so and so many watts drive them to required volume. The amp and the matching are hopefully much better with mid to top level active speakers - I have not tried.

Whatever the technical advantages in active designs,

I’ve yet to hear a paradigm changing moment, listening to an active design.

To me, they just sound like “yet another speaker” - They sound very good but not wow this is something new.

 

I auditioned the Kii Audi 3 Active speakers a number of times.

One time I was able to directly compare them with a whole bunch of my test tracks

Versus a spendor classic  1/2  Passive stand mount.

I end up preferring the Spendor.