When an active speaker has a 10 year warranty on every component part of the speaker assembly I'll start giving them some consideration.
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Why do passive speakers still exist?
- Thread starter Pearljam5000
- Start date
Any passive loudspeakers that offer a ten year warranty?
Keith
Keith
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- Jan 15, 2020
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In Germany you get 10 years for B&W loudspeakers if you register them. Also Teufel gives 12 years for few of their loudspeakers.
Lucky you, U.K. B&W five years for passives two for powered!
KEF 2
Benchmark ( international ) 2
Keith
KEF 2
Benchmark ( international ) 2
Keith
Notice that I said that I will START giving them SOME consideration. That means that I MAY consider buying some in certain applications. And MAY not actually buy one. For one thing, I have no use case for any. And I like that I can put my speakers anywhere I can run a speaker cable to (out to the yard [75 ft, about 30 ft from the dock & 40 ft from the built in brick cooking area, water & sink for cleaning the fish we catch]), the high humidity of where I live (if the salty air has less than 98% humidity something is wrong with the weather because I live on a sat water creek by the harbor where that Ashly River and Cooper River converge to form the harbor (and the Atlantic Ocean). If that's not where I am, then I am likely on an island in the Western Pacific, with the same salty air (that kills active speakers). It's easy for me to clean the inside of my amps, preamps, passive speakers, etc on a regular basis. Not an easy task on active speakers. Salt air corrosion is a thing. Active speakers tend to die. They are part of the "throw away consumer mentality" when it comes to my use case.
Passive speakers are easy to clean the insides, easy to replace the caps, easy to build whole new XOvers for. Passives, in ten years, most amps for them that fit in the original space cannot be found. It's not comparing Apples to Apples. It's more like trying to compare an Apple to an Eggplant.
Do you have to run back inside to change the record or do you bring the turntable out too?
Keith
Keith
Benefits of passives
When paired with decent amplifier, usually lower noise than all but the best actives
Lower power consumption at idle
No problems coming in and out of sleep mode (not insigificant problem for many models), no lag/wait time from switching in/out.
If the drivers/crossovers work as they should, then so does the speaker. Active speakers amps can fail and few manufacturers provide lifetime replacement services.
When paired with decent amplifier, usually lower noise than all but the best actives
Lower power consumption at idle
No problems coming in and out of sleep mode (not insigificant problem for many models), no lag/wait time from switching in/out.
If the drivers/crossovers work as they should, then so does the speaker. Active speakers amps can fail and few manufacturers provide lifetime replacement services.
I think that the long term reliability and possible electronics failure problems are much overstated. If the amplifier part in the speaker fails, it is not the end of the world, and it does not automatically mean that the whole speaker needs to be sent to the manufacturer.
How easy, or difficult, the problem fixing is varies depending on the speaker in question. For example with System Audio active speakers the amplification/dsp part is a separate module, that You can purchase separately as an upgrade.
How easy, or difficult, the problem fixing is varies depending on the speaker in question. For example with System Audio active speakers the amplification/dsp part is a separate module, that You can purchase separately as an upgrade.
Don't be facetious. The system remains in the house, I have specific speakers that I have built for outdoor use & naturally there are other sets of speakers inside (there are 5 NAD 2200's in the system and PA amps for the outside runs).
But I only use Reel to Reel when I am doing outside use!
(about that, I am being facetious, as that is only one of the things I can use [cassette, FM, CD's {homemade & otherwise}, digital downloads from my computer and yes LP's from one or another of my turntables).
I can also broadcast what I play on low powered FM to an outside receiver, should I want to do so.
Is what I set up for outside SOTA? Hell no! But it is FUN!
Why would I waste SOTA on a day of cleaning & grilling the fish, shrimp & crabs we catch, partying & generally having a good time outdoors at the made of brick, wood & charcoal burning grill that we built with a chimney and specific sink with running water for cleaning your catch (or the critters that you have hunted on the property)?
It beats where I started out, living in an above the garage apartment (But that was on deep water, too) and my wife, myself & our friends will enjoy it. (In spite of it not being SOTA!)
Ultrasonic
Addicted to Fun and Learning
Do you have some comparisons in mind? I'm wondering why this should be the case?
Ultrasonic
Addicted to Fun and Learning
What exact model are those speakers you had in mind? And do you know of any others or is this possibly it? I'm asking as I really think decent floorstanding speakers at the price are pretty rare these days. I don't recall ever hearing any revel speakers for what it's worth. They're not very common in the UK.
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Here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/revel-f35-speaker-review.12053/
F36 is the version with larger drives, costs slightly more.
You can check all preference scores here: https://www.spinorama.org/scores.html?sort=score&reverse=false&shape=floorstanders&quality=high
Ever thought that some people live on islands 1200 miles from anywhere with a population of 975 people and want it that way? Or is it all about how you want to live?
I agree completely with you. If we want to have inherent unreliability of active speakers to be important consideration we would need some facts to back that up.
At idle, as in powered on and capable of providing a signal, a lot of active speaker will use about 10-25w each. A passive speaker at idle uses nothing. the amp powering it does, but if you have an efficient class D, this might be pretty low (say 7-10w).
Obviously, active speakers can go into standby and then power consumption is minimal, like 0.5w, but it takes time to come out of this sleep state. Some loudspeakers have very poor implementations of this too (will sleep when you don't want and not wake up).
slightly off-topic.
+1
Hi
For many enthusiasts, electrical power consumption of audio gears was not a concern, even during the 80's when the Class A space heater monsters became the (almost) norm, What with the Krell, Threshold and others who would routinely trip a breaker at power up, to the glee of their owner and/or their audiophile visitors ... I believe the Krell KSA-250 consumed at idle 700 watts... Some Class A tube amplifers did worse...
My case is a bit exceptional: I am off-grid, not by choice; with less than 2 hours of grid electricity per day... at most, solar panels + Batteries, are how we run things here
... Actually seems to me it is the better way to do things almost.. anywhere.. Serious, a matter for another discussion...Back to the topic.
Power consumption of active speakers is a real issue. Many Class AB-based active speakers consume 20 to 40 watts at idle, as an example, I'll take the Neumann KH 310, it consumes at idle 60 watts as per the specs... If you have 3 in a LCR system, you are consuming 180 watts, doing nothing, plus the subs and the other speakers plus the AVR or processor .. Not playing music, you may find yourself consuming 400 watts... That is no joke. Unless you find ways to turn off your entire system. Not trivial as it would seem, unless you do not mind some popping sound and the manual labor involved, you will be wasting a few cents or dollars... per hour... People in wealthy countries did not care until recently but these watts add up.. fast... and electrical bills become less and less palatable.
One more thing to tack on this reply , is that many active speaker have a poor-piss standby and wake-up protocols implementation. These seem to be an afterthought, if present at all. At first not an issue , until you find your system on for hours while you were out, and the now worthy-of-attention electric bill.
There is the issue of "repair-ability" too, not inconsequential as many, myself included would think. Passive speaker fault determination is relatively straightforward. Not so with an active speaker. In case of issue, one may have to send an entire speaker back for repair, or if lucky, and technically proficient, perform some surgery to extract the responsible faulty component. This , again depends of the degree of modularity and/or integration, IOW, it could be very difficult. I am not sure for example that one can easily remove an amplifier from a Genelec "The One" speaker. It is definitely doable but...
My knee-jerk reaction was for a long time: Active speakers or bust. No longer... I am finding out that... it depends. My next move would likely be toward passive speakers, and Class D amplifiers to drive these. Of course Subwoofers shall be active and Class D.
Peace.
There is nothing active speaker specific in amplifiers they use. They are technically similar to Your separate power amplifiers. There is also nothing in the active speaker concept that forces them to wake up slower than a stand alone amp. Also, A/B-class amps consume more power than D-class amps regardless of the box where they reside. Yes - there are poorly implemented active speakers just like there are poorly implemented stand alone amps, but we should not label active speakers generally bad because of them.slightly off-topic.
+1
Hi
For many enthusiasts, electrical power consumption of audio gears was not a concern, even during the 80's when the Class A space heater monsters became the (almost) norm, What with the Krell, Threshold and others who would routinely trip a breaker at power up, to the glee of their owner and/or their audiophile visitors ... I believe the Krell KSA-250 consumed at idle 700 watts... Some Class A tube amplifers did worse...
My case is a bit exceptional: I am off-grid, not by choice; with less than 2 hours of grid electricity per day... at most, solar panels + Batteries, are how we run things here
Back to the topic.
Power consumption of active speakers is a real issue. Many Class AB-based active speakers consume 20 to 40 watts at idle, as an example, I'll take the Neumann KH 310, it consumes at idle 60 watts as per the specs... If you have 3 in a LCR system, you are consuming 180 watts, doing nothing, plus the subs and the other speakers plus the AVR or processor .. Not playing music, you may find yourself consuming 400 watts... That is no joke. Unless you find ways to turn off your entire system. Not trivial as it would seem, unless you do not mind some popping sound and the manual labor involved, you will be wasting a few cents or dollars... per hour... People in wealthy countries did not care until recently but these watts add up.. fast... and electrical bills become less and less palatable.
One more thing to tack on this reply , is that many active speaker have a poor-piss standby and wake-up protocols implementation. These seem to be an afterthought, if present at all. At first not an issue , until you find your system on for hours while you were out, and the now worthy-of-attention electric bill.
There is the issue of "repair-ability" too, not inconsequential as many, myself included would think. Passive speaker fault determination is relatively straightforward. Not so with an active speaker. In case of issue, one may have to send an entire speaker back for repair, or if lucky, and technically proficient, perform some surgery to extract the responsible faulty component. This , again depends of the degree of modularity and/or integration, IOW, it could be very difficult. I am not sure for example that one can easily remove an amplifier from a Genelec "The One" speaker. It is definitely doable but...
My knee-jerk reaction was for a long time: Active speakers or bust. No longer... I am finding out that... it depends. My next move would likely be toward passive speakers, and Class D amplifiers to drive these. Of course Subwoofers shall be active and Class D.
Peace.
If having an amp installed inside the speaker box is an anathema, there are already active speakers like Genelec S360 and Gradient R5a that offer the opportunity to have their amps&active crossovers in physically separate boxes.
If active speakers really were such troublesome PIAs, would it not be strange that the vast majority of professional studios prefer them over passive speakers.
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Except, with most manufacturers, you're not going to be able to replace a dead amp 10+ years in the future. If the amp isn't reparable, this means a wholly useless speaker.
Many (most?) are not well implemented. Only more expensive brands seem to do it universally well. The expensive brands probably make up around 2-5% of all active speakers sold.
A cheap active speaker is unnecessary e-waste waiting to happen.
All relatively expensive and low numbers sold.
They prefer the expensive brands with long histories/warranties. An active speaker is fewer problems for them and offers more consistency. It is obvious why studios would prefer active, but this doesn't translate to the typical home user in the same way.
You've made good points, but you've not addressed what FrantzM said. Active speakers are not 'in and of themselves' better than passive. Most active speakers are destined to become e-waste when the amplifier snuffs it, even though the drivers and cabinet will be perfectly fine.
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