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Active is better sounding than passive

Active is better sounding than passive ?

  • 1. Yes

    Votes: 88 47.3%
  • 2. No

    Votes: 58 31.2%
  • 3. Passive sound better

    Votes: 3 1.6%
  • 4. I dont know

    Votes: 37 19.9%

  • Total voters
    186
The points you're missing are why should the customer have to bother with handcrafted solutions, and why didn't the manufacturer continue to support their product beyond 10 years with replacement parts/plate amps? There are a multitude of alternative ways to solve the broken obsolete plate amp issue, and IMO the absolute easiest solution is to NEVER buy an active loudspeaker again - because I don't like being left high and dry and having to come up solutions on my own, with zero customer support from the OEM. I also don't appreciate you belittling the situation with your after-the-fact second guessing solution that doesn't solve the original points. You should feel free to do what you think is most appropriate when your active loudspeaker plate amp craps out - as it will eventually. Just don't belittle or second guess my solution(s) with your too late second guesses, and not expect my wrath in return :).

BTW, one of the OEMs was a well known Harman company, and all three products were well up the product ladder for the OEMs.
Actives certainly have higher potential overall SQ but that doesn't always mean any particular design will take advantage of it. These paticular Kefs would seem to do that though.

There are also several downside to actives as well with the biggest (IMO) being tweeter hiss and reliability.

Hiss is usually nonexistent with any halfway decent equipment behind passives because the crossover will just eat low level noise. OTOH people lucky enough to have quiet rooms can hear hiss from even expensive active monitors.

The second is reliability. Most speaker manufacturers aren't also electronics manufacturers or software developers (Something a "lifestyle" speaker like the LS50W needs a lot of.) and it shows in their reliability and usability. Passives slowly age, but unless you over drive them, they are usually immune to sudden failure. The AIO nature of most actives also makes them a single point of failure while with passives you can have old or inexpensive backup electronics to swap in in case of failure.

Everybody will have their own personal opinions and risk tolerance but personally I wouldn't spend more than a few hundred dollars per unit on an AIO active speaker that isn't made by a company without a reputation for bulletproof reliability like Genelec or ATC. If it has external electronics I'd be more likely to take a chance on a startup or other newer entrant into the active market since a box of electronics is easier to repair or send back than a medium or large speaker.

FWIW I own both active and passive speakers - JBL 305MKII, Genelec 8010A, and Kef R3.
You both got a point with the longtherm reability , that can be an issue in ten years . With everything inbuilt in an active speaker, including streaming options, who knows If it will work after 10 years? That issue is also true for separate digital streamers that might be obsolete in 5 years.

In passive loudspeakers the drivers can also break If there is a amplifier failure, it depends.
Anyway - having everything built inside the speakers such as Kef ls50 W is a very neat solution , and If it works as it should, a very userfriendly option to.
 
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I have the LS50 wireless II, but not the passive, so I cannot do a side by side comparison. If the active is more capable, that is fue to Kef doing a good implementation, but that is not a guaranteed.

Still, adding room correction to a passive seems more straightforward than an active (except Genelec and now Newman), so in the case of Kef, that is an aspect where the Wireless could improve quite a lot.
Some days ago I was able to listen to the active LS50 Wireless II, and I thought the sound from those where really, really good.
I though that the clarity of the sound was about as good as my Genelec 8340, maybe even some pluspoints in the treble and with some drawbacks in bass performance.

I personal think good installing of the speakers in the room are even more important than roomcorrection ability , but sometimes you must put the speakers on a suboptimal spot in the room and in such cases the roomcorrection is a real improvement.
 
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Some days ago I was able to listen to the LS50 W II, and I thought the sound from those where really, really good.
I though that the clarity of the sound was about as good as my Genelec 8340, maybe even some pluspoints in the treble and some drawbacks in bass performance.

I think good installing of the speakers in the room are even more important than roomcorrection ability , but sometimes you must put the speakers on a suboptimal spot in the room and in such cases the roomcorrection is a real improvement.
The factory configuration for the KC62 is 45hz low pass and 70hz high pass. Looking at the LS50 meta spinoramas, they do not reach those lows with the same authority as their active counterpart.

In the boots of the Kef designers, I'd think about a way to build a full multichannel system combining the 60/50/LSX sets. If they added Dirac and a way to decode Atmos/DTS X, they could esentially replace an AVP just as the standard set replaces an integrated amp.

I think some users like Sal who, like me, enjoy multichannel, would like a system like that.
 
A well positioned passive speaker will always out performed a badly positioned active design, in a larger scheme of things, great sounding music can be had with both design. So no, active is not a solution, just a valid alternative. As for the review, please, the only thing missing in it is the “lifting the veil” comment.
You are right that correct installation of the two stereo speakers in the room is everything, much more important than most other things, including different crossover techniques like passive or active.
 
You are right that correct installation of the two stereo speakers in the room is everything, more important than most other things, including different crossover techniques like passive or active.
The concentric design of both Genelec and Kef allows a quite forgiving positioning. However, reflections and room modes are a different monster, and that's where room correction software can help a lot.
 
You both got a point with the longtherm reability , that can be an issue in ten years . With everything inbuilt in an active speaker, including streaming options, who knows If it will work after 10 years? That issue is also true for separate digital streamers that might be obsolete in 5 years.

In passive loudspeakers the drivers can also break If there is a amplifier failure, it depends.
I once accidentally cooked a voice coil on a passive loudspeaker I was testing, and that time was purely my mistake during late night bench testing. I was able to source a replacement voice coil and replace it even though it was a vintage loudspeaker, and the manufacturer was long gone several decades before. Nevertheless, I was able to remove the old voice coil, carefully determine all of its measurements and its winding format, and then carefully source an exact replacement voice coil - and then install it correctly. The proof was when I tested both speakers in mono, one at a time while recording test track measurements on an audio spectrum analyzer, and when I compared the measurements they were both identical :). They also sounded the same after the repair as before the repair. I have also replaced many passive loudspeaker foam surrounds over the years, as they were a superb invention back in the 70s, very lightweight and highly flexible, until years later it was learned that they would potentially stiffen and rot out in the "wrong" temperature/humidity environs. Drivers are simple mechanical motors, and can be repaired by those qualified to do so. Active loudspeakers have drivers too, with surrounds and voice coils.

When active loudspeaker plate amps fail they sometimes destroy a driver as well. That happened with one of the three aforementioned plate amp failures I experienced, though I was able replace that whole driver as it was a very common driver.
 
Well these that Erin is testing, (which also needs an amp) vs a pair of active speakers in the same price range. Game over for Jamo C 93 II. It's fascinating how surprised Erin is at how bad the Jamo's he's testing are. You immediately understand a second into the video what kind of rating, review, it will end up with. It starts with a resigned sigh from Erin. So it depends on what you are comparing.:)

 
Well these that Erin is testing, (which also needs an amp) vs a pair of active speakers in the same price range. Game over for Jamo C 93 II. It's fascinating how surprised Erin is at how bad the Jamo's he's testing are. You immediately understand a second into the video what kind of rating, review, it will end up with. It starts with a resigned sigh from Erin. So it depends on what you are comparing.:)

Conversly, you could compare actives with a beast like the Kef Blade or the Revel Salon, and well... :p
 
The Jamos measure bad, and will sound bad. Passives can be designed better, even by amateurs like me.

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BTW, one of the OEMs was a well known Harman company, and all three products were well up the product ladder for the OEMs.
Is there any reason you aren’t naming the actual product models that you feel failed prematurely? I’d be interested to know. I currently have Genelec monitors that were manufactured in 2007 and still working fine.
 
What evidence do you have for your statement ? . Just saying that the SQ is the same with passive and active loudspeakers is not good enough .

One interesting counterpoint is JBL’s advice regarding the 7-series install line. They can be used with one amp channel and passive crossover (assisted with active equalization) or two amp channels with active crossover. Several people have asked JBL if they should use two 300W channels or 1 600W channel. The answer has generally been single amp, because there isn’t much advantage to going active with them.
 
If I may restate/reframe the thread's question....

To : For any given speaker design that has multiple passbands, does active or passive have the greater potential to make the speaker sound its best?

My answer: I think for anything other than a simple conventional two-way, with relatively low SPL & bass extension, active has the greater potential hands down.

And even for the simple speaker just described, the burden of proof to stay competitive falls on passive.
I honestly think, even as no more than a DIY speaker building enthusiast, that I can improve any passive speaker by replacing its crossover(s) with an active multi-amp setup.
 
I wonder, is a DSP cheaper or more expensive than a good traditional crossover? Because manufacturing and assembly price is indeed a crucial aspect of what will be in the market.
 
What if you have your own DSP tho. Which you should since at this price point you should be DSP-ing your room first.

Actives usually HPF their bass so they cannot be bass-boosted beyond 40~50Hz
 
As said from others such black and white views while attractive to some as they give the illusion of making their decisions easier are not really helpful and expedient. For example a good passive implementation can have less audible problems than an active one with poor hissing electronics. The only really significant difference is just that if both are implemented on a high level an active crossover can allow more options which are hard or even impossible to implement in a passive one.
 
If I may restate/reframe the thread's question....

To : For any given speaker design that has multiple passbands, does active or passive have the greater potential to make the speaker sound its best?

My answer: I think for anything other than a simple conventional two-way, with relatively low SPL & bass extension, active has the greater potential hands down.

And even for the simple speaker just described, the burden of proof to stay competitive falls on passive.
I honestly think, even as no more than a DIY speaker building enthusiast, that I can improve any passive speaker by replacing its crossover(s) with an active multi-amp setup.
Yes, This is true, and maybe the easiest route to go for a DIY.er.
 
I wonder, is a DSP cheaper or more expensive than a good traditional crossover? Because manufacturing and assembly price is indeed a crucial aspect of what will be in the market.
I think its already cheaper in many cases with inbuilt dsp crossover compared to a good component passive crossover . But it takes know-how to use it.
 
As said from others such black and white views while attractive to some as they give the illusion of making their decisions easier are not really helpful and expedient. For example a good passive implementation can have less audible problems than an active one with poor hissing electronics. The only really significant difference is just that if both are implemented on a high level an active crossover can allow more options which are hard or even impossible to implement in a passive one.
Very true . One such thing is applying a shelving filter in the low bass to gain some lower bass, or the ability to use steep crossovers ( 36 dB/oct or more ) If one uses less good behaving metal drivers with big breakup modes. One can also delay the tweeter so its exactly in phase with the woofer in a two way.

Many of those things can also be fixed in a passive speaker with a good cabinet not fooling physics, and good behaving drivers ( as you know ).

The review between ls50 and ls50 W is interesting because its two loudspeakers without much compromises , one with a passive crossover and one dsp active . Its the same driveunit. A Kef ls50 with a good external amplifier and streamer is in some cases more expensive than an active ls50 Wireless.

There are dirt cheap active monitors like jbl 305 where the electronics have some noise , giving some people the wrong conclusion about active loudspeakers, that they are noisy. This is not true in the SAM monitors 83xx from Genelec.

It would be interesting to know If there are any annoying noise from Kef ls50 W . When I listened to them 3 meters away, I couldnt hear any noise at all.
 
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