Active is better sounding than passive

[krabapple]

Ugh, what's with these threads based on badly-posed questions?

 

[voodooless]

Ugh, what's with these threads based on badly-posed questions?

Why don’t you start a poll about it?

 

[Matthias McCready]

Ugh, what's with these threads based on badly-posed questions?

Agreed!

It feels like when a manufacturer advertises that "they handmake their drivers out of Kevlar."

I always think, "ok that is interesting, but that tells me ZERO about the performance of your product, or how it sounds."

---

The technology or material used does not equate the quality of the end-product; there is a pesky thing called design and implementation.

 

[gnarly]

As I mentioned, a proper blind test is needed to solve the question of active vs. passive. I you look at the Meta +/- active, it is easy to adjust the response with EQ to be equal on and off-axis.

proper blind tests are always the best, but they are in no-way necessary to make valid audible comparisons.
Personally, I rely equally on extensive measurements, and extensive listening over several days.
My feeling is, if it's down to needing blind testing to know if there is a difference...........well, pragmatically that means there is NO difference




I didn't know what the Meta was until i just now googled it...and now see why it and the wireless version have been mentioned in this thread.
Yikes...not into store bought speakers much anymore.... Lol

Meta is an example of a simple two-way like i mentioned in my first post,...... about the one type speaker where sound quality potential, active vs passive, can be very close.
Even better, it's coaxial point source design, which gives it a better shot yet..

That said, i see KEF itself goes on to make a strong case for active's higher SQ potential in its white paper comparing the two Meta models.
file:///C:/Users/captg/Downloads/20-KEF-LS50-Collection-WhitePapers.pdf


When comparing the exact same speaker, it really is black and white as far as potential sound quality, imo...........active plain wins.

Folks just don't want the potential sound quality to be black and white, because while almost everyone wants the best sound they can get, that particular goal conflicts with other goals such as low cost, low complexity, higher reliability, less equipment, etc.
So we do what people do, .......rationalize away the importance of known facts about a particular goal, to make way for other conflicting goals.

 

[Sal1950]

There's nothing a active can do that can't be done with a passive speaker and outboard digital crossovers, DRC etc.
Personally I prefer to do things outboard so that if a DAC fails or whatever I can have the system back running in a flash.
Also upgrades are much easier, cheaper.

 

[voodooless]

There's nothing a active can do that can't be done with a passive speaker and outboard digital crossovers, DRC etc.

That makes it active, doesn’t it

 

[Matthias McCready]

Granted I abide more in the commercial world (PA and Studio Monitors).

Most of the top manufacturers produce either active boxes OR they lock in you into specific amplifiers and processing; and rightfully so, as a lot of the engineering going on is fantastically good. Even someone who is highly skilled with DSP, is not going to simply recreate the "magic sauce" processing that is going on in these products.

Technically some of these designs are passive or powered or active, however in a locked eco-system it may be a distinction without a difference.

 

[Thomas_A]

proper blind tests are always the best, but they are in no-way necessary to make valid audible comparisons.
Personally, I rely equally on extensive measurements, and extensive listening over several days.
My feeling is, if it's down to needing blind testing to know if there is a difference...........well, pragmatically that means there is NO difference




I didn't know what the Meta was until i just now googled it...and now see why it and the wireless version have been mentioned in this thread.
Yikes...not into store bought speakers much anymore.... Lol

Meta is an example of a simple two-way like i mentioned in my first post,...... about the one type speaker where sound quality potential, active vs passive, can be very close.
Even better, it's coaxial point source design, which gives it a better shot yet..

That said, i see KEF itself goes on to make a strong case for active's higher SQ potential in its white paper comparing the two Meta models.
file:///C:/Users/captg/Downloads/20-KEF-LS50-Collection-WhitePapers.pdf


When comparing the exact same speaker, it really is black and white as far as potential sound quality, imo...........active plain wins.

Folks just don't want the potential sound quality to be black and white, because while almost everyone wants the best sound they can get, that particular goal conflicts with other goals such as low cost, low complexity, higher reliability, less equipment, etc.
So we do what people do, .......rationalize away the importance of known facts about a particular goal, to make way for other conflicting goals.

Again,

I am not disputing that you in a speaker with active crossover AND a DSP-based EQ can tailor the final response in a very flexible way. Still a good passive x-over and external DSP-based EQ can in principle do the same, but then there is not a single speaker as such. (I can buy that.) The research by Toole et al. have clearly shown preference for speakers that have a linear on-axis response and a smooth dispersion. If you take two speakers, like the passive and active LS50 they differ somewhat in the bass and treble region, otherwise they are quite similar, distortion included. If you EQ one of them to be identical to the other, I doubt you will distinguish them in a blind test.

Now, talking about active servo or feedback systems, where the difference from the actual driver response and output can be fed back to the amplifier to correct for driver non-linearities (e.g. ACE-BASS or accelerometer-based), that is taking active speakers to the next level. Where are those speakers?

 

[Tangband]

When comparing the exact same speaker, it really is black and white as far as potential sound quality, imo...........active plain wins.

Folks just don't want the potential sound quality to be black and white, because while almost everyone wants the best sound they can get, that particular goal conflicts with other goals such as low cost, low complexity, higher reliability, less equipment, etc.
So we do what people do, .......rationalize away the importance of known facts about a particular goal, to make way for other conflicting goals.

Very true !

 

[fpitas]

That makes it active, doesn’t it

That's how mine are. They certainly aren't passive. Tough for a company to sell a rack of equipment to run their speaker, though. Very niche.

 

[Matthias McCready]

That's how mine are. They certainly aren't passive. Tough for a company to sell a rack of equipment to run their speaker, though. Very niche.

Not on the commercial side it isn't.

You cannot purchase said speaker without the rack of equipment.

 

[NiagaraPete]

Still a good passive x-over and external DSP-based EQ can in principle do the same,

No it can't. You need to bypass the passive crossover.

 

[Thomas_A]

No it can't. You need to bypass the passive crossover.

To do what? If I have a perfect linear fr response and a perfect dispersion after EQ?

 

[gnarly]

There's nothing a active can do that can't be done with a passive speaker and outboard digital crossovers, DRC etc.

I've found that not to be true.
The reason was mentioned in my post #70.
When an outboard digital xover/processor is used to correct a passive speaker (i call this 'global' correction),
it does not give the same results as when first actively correcting drivers individually, and then adding xovers.

If drivers are first fully corrected individually both in-band and out-of-band, further corrections are not needed after adding xovers.

If drivers are not fully corrected both in-band and out, (which is a near impossibility with passive), then their xover summation regions will most likely need further correction.
'Global' correction with outboard gear then spans/corrects those xover regions.
However, those xover regions are not really suitable frequency ranges for correction.
REW's help file on Minimum Phase describes this, and it is briefly touched on in the KEF whitepaper for the Meta wireless.

 

[fpitas]

Not on the commercial side it isn't.

You cannot purchase said speaker without the rack of equipment.

Not sure how brisk the sales would be. Maybe there's a market? Dunno.

 

[gnarly]

Granted I abide more in the commercial world (PA and Studio Monitors).

Most of the top manufacturers produce either active boxes OR they lock in you into specific amplifiers and processing; and rightfully so, as a lot of the engineering going on is fantastically good. Even someone who is highly skilled with DSP, is not going to simply recreate the "magic sauce" processing that is going on in these products.

Technically some of these designs are passive or powered or active, however in a locked eco-system it may be a distinction without a difference.

Yes for sure.... either internal processing and amps (self-powered), or external rack(s) of processing and amps..sold as a complete package ....... are the norm now in the live, install, and studio world.

I think there are more DIY folks capable of making the 'magic sauce' than might be guessed. There's some smart & experienced filter folks on the DIY audio forums.
I'm not one of the smart ones, but i do have a lot of experience, especially with FIR based processing for multi-ways.
For instance, given i have the luxury of latency, I'm sure I can improve my UPA-1p's response with an active FIR setup (which I'll do if they ever fail).

 

[NiagaraPete]

To do what? If I have a perfect linear fr response and a perfect dispersion after EQ?

Awesome you're sending perfect linear signal to an imperfect passive crossover. The whole principal of active is to bypass the crossover.

 

[Thomas_A]

Awesome you're sending perfect linear signal to an imperfect passive crossover. The whole principal of active is to bypass the crossover.

Sure I know that an active must be used instead of the passive. But now you have a competent passive x-over, and will compare that to an active. As e.g. the LS50 passive vs. active crossover that was exemplified in the first post. There is virtually no difference in the crossover region output between them, and any small fractions of dBs can be EQued. Most difference is in the bass and highest treble which is not the crossover, and can also be EQued.

So the measured output of the passive speaker can be EQued to be virtually identical to the active one.

 

[DanielT]

But wait Tangband. If we are to see if it is possible to generalize (which I find hard to believe) , active -passive. You say active speakers, but there are lots of them. But active STUDIO monitors, that's really what you mean, right? Professionally designed, for professional use that is also great for home HiFi? Then I think it will be a different game.

 

[NiagaraPete]

Sure I know that an active must be used instead of the passive. But now you have a competent passive x-over, and will compare that to an active. As e.g. the LS50 passive vs. active crossover that was exemplified in the first post. There is virtually no difference in the crossover region output between them, and any small fractions of dBs can be EQued. Most difference is in the bass and highest treble which is not the crossover, and can also be EQued.

So the measured output of the passive speaker can be EQued to be virtually identical to the active one.

Sorry I completely don't get the point. You've accomplished nothing but adding another device in the signal path. Nothing is going to fix that mess of an analog crossover.

Active is source > DSP > amp1 > tweeter, amp2 > woofer, mic > EQ (other goodies)