Why do passive speakers still exist?

[MakeMineVinyl]

No doubt that active speakers have the potential (and it is the reality) to perform better than similar passive speakers because of the precision of DSP to tailor the frequency response, phase response and levels. The internal amplifiers can be matched to the requirements of the drivers. They are much more of a plug 'n play solution and they make absolute sense if somebody wants a clean, no hassle system.

Does an active system with external amplifiers, external DSP and external active crossovers have the potential to be better? I would say no generally on a basic performance level. However this route has a lot more of an advantage in terms of flexibility, i.e. the ability to swap out various components, go with vacuum tube amplification, change individual speaker drivers and such. An external active system is a tweaker's delight, although it can be messy as hell to a significant other who doesn't also happen to be a tweaker.

In my opinion, passive crossover speakers seem to be doing it the hard, ineffecient way and don't have nearly the flexibility in comparison to a DSP solution. They sit in a somewhat middle ground between the plug 'n play active speaker and the external active route. Amplifiers can still be changed out to taste, mindlessly expensive cables can be used, and don't forget cable risers.

Myself, I have an external active system but don't use DSP. What filtering is necessary to tailor response of the speakers to the room is done with passive R-L-C filters. The only digital stuff in my chain is a DAC, a Focusrite recording interface, and an older ProTools system.

 

[EJ3]

However, my main thought is that once someone is going down the active path anyway, there is no need for a large main speaker and instead it is positively advantageous to make use of one or more active subwoofers instead.

That is true ONLY if you do not 'NEED" the bottom octave in a medium or larger room. Passive or active you do "NEED' air volume movement to create bass. You can manipulate physics some & do psychoacoustical things but you can't develop low bass without large air movements. And if you already have good DSP and good amplification, you can make the passive speakers sound as good (or even better) than the same active speakers. I see it as being a larger part of the market BUT IT HAS A LONG, LONG way to go to meet all the criteria needed for volume (at least in my room which has a cathedral ceiling), bass extension, reliability, replacement parts (a dead amp making your speaker unusable [that I could just swap another on hand into to my system in under a 1/2 hour] but have never had to do since I bought my amps in 1984, {please see Amirm's review of one of my NAD 2200's}), and then repair or replace the broken one on my schedule.
One day it will get there when I can have the reliability and swap-ability that I have now. For me, it's cool, but it's not there yet.

 

[Mountain Goat]

You' might like the looks of the JBL Ranger-Paragon

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Wow. And I guess they were designed for the sunken living rooms of the time.

 

[DSJR]

I've just read through this whole thread as it was resurrected...



One company that sells several models in both active and passive versions in ATC. The model I've heard in both forms is their current generation SCM40 floorstanding model, which for context look like this:

I heard them at a hifi show so I can't comment on any blind comparison but in the morning I visited the room when the passive version was being run and they didn't stand out in performance terms to me at all. When I went back later in the day they were running the active variant and I was seriously impressed. On other forums I also know many others who have similar views of the active versions being a notable step-up in performance terms.

ATC are big advocates of active speakers, and summarise their reasons here:

http://atcloudspeakers.co.uk/active-amplification/#:~:text=The performance of active ATC,of the low frequency tuning.

At the same show I also heard some much cheaper active floorstanding speakers from Canton that impressed me and the combined effect of hearing these and the ATCs was to make me start to take active speakers seriously as a domestic audio option, after ballpark 25 years as an 'old school' audiophile. Very recently I've pickup up a second hand pair of Edifier S3000Pro active speakers to experiment with, in combination with my active subwoofer. Time will tell but I suspect my long term audio future is likely to be active.

I appreciate time doesn't stand still, but thirty year old and absolutely untouched ATC 100A's were still going strong last year when their owner passed away and they were sold.

The current young design chap explained apparently why they still sell their three way models in passive form. Commercial benefit aside, he feels some people prefer the slightly more diffuse (foggy in my language) sound from their passives and of course, to these people, a built in active amp pack designed specifically for the drivers cannot be as good and is boring compared to the all but infinite choice of separate amps (to show off in their audio shrine).


I know two higher end dealers still, one of them has absolutely no customer interest at all in active models and the other sells active as an expensive upgrade using mostly Naim amps as I once did when isobariks and SBL's were all the rage (these days it's with Kudos Titan speaker models).

To me, the high end is NOT about best sound quality at all, although some dealers and users would disagree. Eye-fi is where it's at and the kudos gained by owning very expensive and exclusive gear. I thought it might change as more budget conscious people would by less expensive active speaker options to save boxes and money, but many of these people don't seem interested in good quality domestic audio and most wouldn't have a pro-style ugly monitor in their living space anyway unless the fugly drivers could be covered over somehow.

 

[MakeMineVinyl]

Wow. And I guess they were designed for the sunken living rooms of the time.

View attachment 140301

These are the Sinatra photos I've seen with his sound system. The tape machine is a Presto 1/4" three track. On its surface it seems strange that somebody would use three of these huge speakers, which were intended for stereo reproduction but hooked up for mono for each channel. There are and were much more straightforward ways to do 3 channel. Perhaps the Wikipedia article is mistaken in that he may have had three Paragons, but these were in three separate systems in different houses. I guess we'll never know, but those Paragons to me are probably the prettiest speakers ever made, with the JBL Hartsfield in 2nd place.

 

[Wes]

how do you get active speakers to accept different inputs?

I looked at the 8c web site and couldn't figure out how you'd switch among different inputs.

 

[Blumlein 88]

These are the Sinatra photos I've seen with his sound system. The tape machine is a Presto 1/4" three track. On its surface it seems strange that somebody would use three of these huge speakers, which were intended for stereo reproduction but hooked up for mono for each channel. There are and were much more straightforward ways to do 3 channel. Perhaps the Wikipedia article is mistaken in that he may have had three Paragons, but these were in three separate systems in different houses. I guess we'll never know, but those Paragons to me are probably the prettiest speakers ever made, with the JBL Hartsfield in 2nd place.

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Looks like maybe a Fisher tuner, McIntosh preamp and can't make out what the three amps are.

 

[dfuller]

how do you get active speakers to accept different inputs?

I looked at the 8c web site and couldn't figure out how you'd switch among different inputs.

Do it upstream somewhere if it's analog inputs. A preamp or monitor controller, perhaps.

 

[MarkS]

Although the market doesn't want to go full active, lots and lots of people have mains and subwoofers. And yet: how many mains are designed for easiest integration with a subwoofer? Almost none. Pretty much every speaker is ported these days, which, sure, extends its bass response, but at the cost of making subwoofer integration far more difficult than it would be with a sealed-box design.

Other than Genelec (which is mostly a pro-audio company) are there any dedicated 2.1 or 2.2 systems out there for home use? Why doesn't Harman (for example) make such a thing?

 

[Wes]

Do it upstream somewhere if it's analog inputs. A preamp or monitor controller, perhaps.

but the analog would kill the idea of using the DAC in the speaker

I don't want any cord on the speaker except for an AC power cord.

 

[EJ3]

but the analog would kill the idea of using the DAC in the speaker

I don't want any cord on the speaker except for an AC power cord.

Then you simply must find a way to go with a full wireless implementation. That will be interesting.

 

[sigbergaudio]

Although the market doesn't want to go full active, lots and lots of people have mains and subwoofers. And yet: how many mains are designed for easiest integration with a subwoofer? Almost none. Pretty much every speaker is ported these days, which, sure, extends its bass response, but at the cost of making subwoofer integration far more difficult than it would be with a sealed-box design.

Other than Genelec (which is mostly a pro-audio company) are there any dedicated 2.1 or 2.2 systems out there for home use? Why doesn't Harman (for example) make such a thing?

We do.

 

[Ultrasonic]

I don't want any cord on the speaker except for an AC power cord.

Then for now your options are either sending signals via Bluetooth or the very limited number of speakers with built-in streamers that connect to WiFi.

Much as you may 'want' what you say you would be wildly limiting your options by being so restrictive.

 

[Ultrasonic]

how do you get active speakers to accept different inputs?

In the most basic sense, think of active speakers as conventional speakers with the power amps built in (this is all ATC actives are for example) and then the rest of the system is like any pre/power based system but just stopping at the pre-amp stage.

Just because a speaker might have a digital input doesn't mean that it has to be used but in my own case I would used the digital output from my miniDSP SHD streamer/DSP/Pre-amp to connect to such. As indeed I will with my Edifier S3000Pros when I've got things properly set up.

 

[Purité Audio]

how do you get active speakers to accept different inputs?

I looked at the 8c web site and couldn't figure out how you'd switch among different inputs.

The 8Cs only have one input which can be configured to be either digital or analogue, I use an RME ‘pro’ as a ‘preamp’ connecting all sources to that, there are plans for a break out box/attenuator such as the Kii’s ‘control’.
Keith

 

[Ultrasonic]

That is true ONLY if you do not 'NEED" the bottom octave in a medium or larger room. Passive or active you do "NEED' air volume movement to create bass. You can manipulate physics some & do psychoacoustical things but you can't develop low bass without large air movements. And if you already have good DSP and good amplification, you can make the passive speakers sound as good (or even better) than the same active speakers. I see it as being a larger part of the market BUT IT HAS A LONG, LONG way to go to meet all the criteria needed for volume (at least in my room which has a cathedral ceiling), bass extension, reliability, replacement parts (a dead amp making your speaker unusable [that I could just swap another on hand into to my system in under a 1/2 hour] but have never had to do since I bought my amps in 1984, {please see Amirm's review of one of my NAD 2200's}), and then repair or replace the broken one on my schedule.
One day it will get there when I can have the reliability and swap-ability that I have now. For me, it's cool, but it's not there yet.

The advantages of subwoofer use extends above the bottom octave but this is a somewhat off-topic to this thread. Note that the context of my post was to refute the suggestion that a lack of floor-standing active speakers was a key reason for their lack of adoption.

 

[Stu Pidasso]

Eventually the non-powered boxes are going to be only a curious item from the past.

"Yeah can you believe it, didn't even have TruFi or penta-lithium isotope p-cells in their sound repo boxes back in the day."
"My Grandad had a set of ...uh...Gentleyuk? Speakers that still had to be plugged into the wall AND you had to run a signal to them with a wire!"
"Well my Grampa has a pair of BM or BW speakers, can't remember exactly, but they have a passive crossover external to the speaker cabinet and you had to connect the wires from the crossover box to the speaker cabinet AND to an AMPLIFIER which also had to plug into the wall, and you STILL had to run a wire from a box which held your repo source to yet another box called a preamp which ALSO plugged into the wall and also had a wire for left and a wire for right channels to connect the preamp to the amp."
"You gotta be shittin me."
"No, man, totally serious - they used two discrete channels back then to simulate a 'stereo' image where two pickup microphonic transducers would be converted to two loudspeakers. Simulated what they thought it was to listen with two ears."
"Hm. Yeah, no cranial implants. Wow they had it so rough back then."
"I know right?"

 

[EJ3]

The advantages of subwoofer use extends above the bottom octave but this is a somewhat off-topic to this thread. Note that the context of my post was to refute the suggestion that a lack of floor-standing active speakers was a key reason for their lack of adoption.

In my use case each of the 2 Large "bookshelf" speakers (normally on stands but are actually on top of the downward firing subs with a wedge giving them a 3 degree upward tilt) have their own NAD 2200 running bridged mono into 4 ohms. The pair of subs (with dual 4 ohm voice coils) are crossed over at 80 Hz and and are running one NAD 2200 into 2 ohms in stereo mode. It is true that the benefit of the subs extends above the bottom octave BUT without a TRUE sub it is very unusual to get all of the bottom octave.

 

[Ultrasonic]

In my use case each of the 2 Large "bookshelf" speakers (normally on stands but are actually on top of the downward firing subs with a wedge giving them a 3 degree upward tilt) have their own NAD 2200 running bridged mono into 4 ohms. The pair of subs (with dual 4 ohm voice coils) are crossed over at 80 Hz and and are running one NAD 2200 into 2 ohms in stereo mode. It is true that the benefit of the subs extends above the bottom octave BUT without a TRUE sub it is very unusual to get all of the bottom octave.

I'm struggling to understand quite the point you've been trying to make from your last two posts now?

If anyone wants specifically to generate sound in the 20-40 Hz region then there are loads of subwoofer options that do so and they are fairly universally also going to be cheaper than full-size speakers that try to do the same, and don't have the positioning compromises of full-range speakers.

To get back to the active/passive question I'd suggest that active is overwhelmingly the dominant approach to subwoofer design now (whether with amp in the sub or external).

 

[Blaspheme]

I'm struggling to understand quite the point you've been trying to make from your last two posts now?

If anyone wants specifically to generate sound in the 20-40 Hz region then there are loads of subwoofer options that do so and they are fairly universally also going to be cheaper than full-size speakers that try to do the same, and don't have the positioning compromises of full-range speakers.

To get back to the active/passive question I'd suggest that active is overwhelmingly the dominant approach to subwoofer design now (whether with amp in the sub or external).

Variations on sub+sat are certainly cost-effective from the low end (price-wise) up. To an extent the will depend on musical taste. Some genres benefit from impact/slam best delivered by a substantial frontal area of transducer surface/s but barely require sub-bass. But if you are doing a/v sound as well then sub becomes desirable, or essential assuming rendering LFE is a priority. I think sub popularity is a convergence of sub+sat and home theatre trends.

Active speakers are partly a bottom-up market phenomena. Low-end wireless, smart speakers and sounders are active. The high end will likely remain a partial holdout. Higher-end active have been with us for some time via Meridian and and some cross-over studio products, for example. Kii and D&D are familiar newcomers, but others like ATC and Manger have been at it as well. Vertical integration of tech suggests integrated active, but modular (passive or active) has advantages that can be beneficial in less price-constrained implementations. For me, liking electronic genres with significant sub-bass, full-range plus sub is more likely than starting again from scratch (with active mains). Others will do the latter, naturally. As usual, specific implementations and topologies deliver results, not just in-principle or absolutist approaches.