Do DSP-free, passive monitors hold any advantage over active monitors?

[Diplo]

Companies like Amphion promote this type of electronic purity, but is there any validity to it?

 

[Doodski]

Passive have the advantage of being able to swap out the amplifier(s) if there is ever a issue or one just wants a new amp etc.

 

[Diplo]

Passive have the advantage of being able to swap out the amplifier(s) if there is ever a issue or one just wants a new amp etc.

Ah cool

Apart from practicality, is there any sonic advantage?

 

[abdo123]

No sonic advantages (rather disadvantages), reliability and repairability are potentially a concern.

 

[Doodski]

Ah cool

Apart from practicality, is there any sonic advantage?

It's half a dozen and 6 of the other situation. It depends on the implementation. If the DSP with speaker is done properly then that would be very good and vice versa. It really depends on each specific model.

 

[Zaireeka]

Price?

 

[aarons915]

If you have CTA-2034 measurements and the ability to apply DSP yourself there are huge reliability advantages, in 5-10 years most active monitors are going to be paper weights it seems when they fail and you can't get them fixed any longer. Passive speakers usually last much longer but will never match the response of an active monitor if they are properly designed with DSP. To me the best of both worlds is to do the DSP on your end and use passive monitors for the reliability.

 

[b7676]

It is the crossover networks which sink passives.
And these are more often than not the questionable part of the signal path.

Hi/lo passing at the dsp before amplifying anything is game changing; then with bi/tri amping benefits are too virtuous to ignore.

 

[dfuller]

Actives are in my opinion the superior solution. Passive crossovers don't stay the same as temperature of the voice coil increases. Actives do. Plus, relying on inductors is kind of a fool's errand as they can start doing weird things when they saturate.

Don't need to do DSP, analog op-amp filter circuits work just fine for this.

 

[Ra1zel]

If you DIY your own active monitors you have best of both worlds

 

[Diplo]

If you DIY your own active monitors you have best of both worlds

I’m actually considering making my own speakers as a DIY project.
I’m not super clued up on speaker acoustics; do you know of any good resources?

 

[jonfitch]

Lower idle noise floor generally. Passive crossover networks soak up alot of the noise floor. The passive hiss coming out of a $200 pair of speakers with some cheap AV receiver is going to be lower for nearfield use than even $100,000 active speakers because with high end actives the amps are run at 100% gain at all times and volume control is done digitally, which means the noise floor is always the max noise floor. (This may be an advantage that flips at higher volume levels though, since the amp will start imparting more and more noise as you add gain to passive speakers).

 

[Chromatischism]

FYI, there are already some large threads for this.

 

[Tangband]

Active speakers are often better sounding IF the loudspeaker are contructed like they where passives regarding cabinet volume .

You often se active loudspeakers with way to small boxes using eq to make the response flat .

A very good beginning in DIY is buying a secondhand good sounding 2 way passive loudspeaker and making it active with a dsp like minidsp and two amplifiers.

Technically there are huge advantages in the bass area with the active approach .
Thypical two less good amplifiers gonna sound better in an active setup than one better amplifier in a passive loudspeaker.

 

[TurtlePaul]

One area where passives can be better than DSP speakers is in regards to delay. Every DSP speaker adds delay to do various things: analog-to-digital conversion, digital signal processing, digital-to-analog conversion, implementation of FIR filters and time alignment at the crossover frequencies. This is very important for monitoring live music where DSP speakers are not generally used. It can also be useful for video games where minimizing delay is important. Most A/V systems have some level of video delay or allow for delay calibration which makes the 5 ms - 20 ms of delay not a big deal. Dumb amps and passive speakers don't have this problem because they are strictly minimum phase.

 

[NiagaraPete]

If you have CTA-2034 measurements and the ability to apply DSP yourself there are huge reliability advantages, in 5-10 years most active monitors are going to be paper weights it seems when they fail and you can't get them fixed any longer. Passive speakers usually last much longer but will never match the response of an active monitor if they are properly designed with DSP. To me the best of both worlds is to do the DSP on your end and use passive monitors for the reliability.

I would disagree that a pair of Genelec's would be paper weights in that time frame.

 

[Diplo]

One area where passives can be better than DSP speakers is in regards to delay. Every DSP speaker adds delay to do various things: analog-to-digital conversion, digital signal processing, digital-to-analog conversion, implementation of FIR filters and time alignment at the crossover frequencies. This is very important for monitoring live music where DSP speakers are not generally used. It can also be useful for video games where minimizing delay is important. Most A/V systems have some level of video delay or allow for delay calibration which makes the 5 ms - 20 ms of delay not a big deal. Dumb amps and passive speakers don't have this problem because they are strictly minimum phase.

Do you have any advice or resources on tweeter to woofer distance, and finding the ideal crossover frequency?

 

[changster]

Passive have the advantage of being able to swap out the amplifier(s) if there is ever a issue or one just wants a new amp etc.

You assume the amp is inside the speaker, which is absolutely (to me) not the ideal way to do it.

A great fully active system means you have an external DSP which feeds external amps (say, 8 channels for a 4 way), which then feeds the speakers individually.

 

[changster]

Active is far superior. Anyone who has ever been able to make a car sound great will IMMEDIATELY understand this. Most home Hifi people are stuck in the past.

Here are two bullet points from Siegfried Linkwitz himself.

• In an active loudspeaker system each driver has its own power amplifier. This gives maximum control over the mechanical motion of each driver and most efficient use of amplifier power. Drivers of different sensitivities (SPL/W/m) are easily combined, while with passive crossovers the driver of lowest sensitivity determines the loudspeaker's overall sensitivity. Amplifier power has to be wasted in the process.
  
  
• The power amplifiers of an active loudspeaker system see a benign load (resistive, slightly inductive) over their assigned frequency range, unless it includes the mechanical resonance of the driver (highly capacitive and inductive). The single and much larger power amplifier that is required for a passive crossover loudspeaker has to drive a complex load, which places more stringent requirements on its dynamic stability and overall performance. Different amplifiers may sound different.

 

[Doodski]

You assume the amp is inside the speaker, which is absolutely (to me) not the ideal way to do it.

A great fully active system means you have an external DSP which feeds external amps (say, 8 channels for a 4 way), which then feeds the speakers individually.

Ahh grasshopper. You are mistaken. lol. I meant a bi or tri amp'd or more system with external amps.